so many glorious markes of the true Christian Church to reiect the definition of Generall Councels without any necessary and inforing reasons without any sure ground or euident certainty that they be errours No doubt such an one the more ignorant that he is the more damnable wretch he is and by so much is his pride more detestable Wherfore Protestants if in their vndertaking and venturing to reiect the definition of Councels and the receaued Traditions of so many former Christian ages they chance to erre though but out of simplicity and ignorance this simplicity and ignorance will not excuse and mitigate but rather accuse and aggrauate the crime of their erring presumption and pride 7. This truth that Protestants cannot be saued by ignorance as Roman Catholiques may you seeme to acknowledge pag. 285. lin 7. We assure our selues if our liues be answerable we shall be saued by our knowledge And we hope and I tell you agayne spes est rei incertae nomen that some of you may possibly be saued by occasion of their vnaffected ignorance Behold the way of saluation by Ignorance you leaue vnto vs and in your great excesse of charity hope that some of vs may possibly be saued throgh ignorance But you Protestants are sure to be saued by your knowledge by your euident certainty that the truth standes on your side against the definition of former Christian worlds Now if this be the case of Protestants that they must be saued by their owne knowledge by being sure they haue such euident certainty of truth as may counter poyse the authority of so many Christian ages and Councels how pittifull and lamentable is their case They cannot be saued except they be furnisht with knowledge and euident certainty that they haue truth on their side For if they want this knowledge they cannot prudently nor without execrable Pride oppose Generall Councels which stand for the Roman Doctrines But Protestants at least millions of them are as sure and certayne as they liue that they haue no such knowledge no such euident demonstration or certainty that the Roman Church and Councels erre Therefore they cannot except they be stupide and senselesse but be sure they are in a damnable state and shall certainly be damned except they change their course 8. The second part of this Section that Protestants if they erre cannot be saued from their sinfull damnable errours by general repentance is proued Because Generall Repentance doth extend only to those things wherein the Penitent may lawfully and with a safe conscience apprehend and feare there may be sinne For as you say pag. 20. lin 45. Generall repentance is vniuersall sorow for all their sinnes both which they know they haue committed or which they feare they may haue But Protestants belieue their Religiō against the Church of Rome to be the Gospell to be the word of God to be most infallible Christian truth and so do not feare any fault or sinne in their beliefe yea they cannot with a safe conscience so much as apprehend that their beliefe may be sinfull false or vncertayne For as you say cap. 5. n. 107. this were to doubt of the certainty of the Gospell Ergo the Generall repentance of Protestants neyther doth nor can extend it selfe to recall virtually and implicitely the Doctrine they hold against the Roman Church no more then they repent of the Doctrine they hold against Iewes and Turkes For they hold both these Doctrines as much the one as the other to be the word of God and therefore not to be doubted of much lesse repented as though it might be sinfull errour Moreouer it is not possible that a man should at the same time repent himselfe of a thing and together detest from his heart all repenting thereof But Protestants abhorre detest as impious all doubting and much more all repenting of their Religion as it is opposed against the pretended Superstitions Impieties Idolatries of the Church of Rome for they thinke it holy Scripture Diuine Reuelation as certayne as the Gospell Wherfore it is impossible that Protestants should repent of their opposing the Church of Rome so long as they be Protestants and belieue the doctrine of Protestancy to be the Gospell and the Roman Religion to be full of Impiety and Idolatry There is no hope such Protestants can be saued except God send into their heart the light of his Spirit and make them see their Religion so farre as it is opposite to the Roman to be but a masse of old damned Heresies and moue them to repent and to recall and detest them in particular Your impudent slandering of Charity Maintayned that he granteth Saluation vnto any Protestant that is ignorant or repentant §. 4. 9. YOu are much vexed that the Roman Religion is proclaimed safe euen by her Aduersaries and that yours is wholly destitute of such comfortable testimonies Wherfore the warrant you cannot obtayne by truth and fayre dealing you seeke to get by falshood fraud and forgery euen of our Maintayner to whome you speake in this manner pag. 31. lin 12. That which you do say doth plainely inough affoard vs these Corollaries 1. That whatsoeuer Protestant wanteth capacity or hauing it wanteth sufficient meanes of instruction to conuince his conscience of the falshood of his owne the truth of the Roman Religion by the confession of his most rigide Aduersaries may be saued notwithstanding any errour in his Religion 2. That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may dye with Contrition for all his sinnes 3. That if he dye with Contrition he may and shall be saued All these acknowledgements we haue from you whiles you are as you say stating but as I conceaue granting the very point in question which was as I haue already proued out of C. M. whether without vncharitablenesse you may pronounce that Protestants dying in their Religion and without particular repentance and dereliction of it cannot possibly be saued 16. Thus without shame you falsify the Tenet of your Aduersary the doctrine of our Church Where doth our Maintayner say that whatsoeuer Protestant notwithstanding any errour Socinians be Protestants in your account because they hold the Bible the Bible and only the Bible who maintayne Christ Iesus not to be the eternall Sonne of God incarnated Where doth our Maintayner affirme that these Protestants may be saued in this so vild errour vpon any condition yea where doth he say of any Protestant that he may be saued in any errour which the maintaynes knowingly against the Roman Religion if he want sufficient meanes of instruction to conuince his conscience of the falshood of his owne and truth of the Roman He hath no such wordes and his wordes from which you pretend to draw this wine of Comfort for Protestants haue not any the least relish of that sense These they are when any man esteemed Protestant leaueth to liue in this world we do not instantly with precipitation
auouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not alwayes acquainted with what sufficiency of meanes he was furnished for instruction we do not penetrate his capacity to vnderstand his Catechist we haue no reuelation what light might haue cleered his errours or Contrition retracted his sinnes in the last moment before death Here our Maintayner requires sufficient meanes of instruction that a man be bound to belieue but he sayth not as you make him say that this instruction must conuince his conscience that his owne Religion is false and the Roman true If a Protestant be thus farre instructed as to perceaue that the Roman Religion is by the full consent of former Christian ages and by the definition of Generall Councels deliuered as the doctrine of Christ Iesus and his Apostles if I say any Protestant be thus farre instructed he is so sufficiently instructed that if he refuse to belieue he is certainly damned Do not you professe that to forsake any Church without necessary causes is as much as a mans saluation is worth Doth not D. Potter auouch that it is not lawfull to goe against the definition of Generall Councels without euident reasons Wherefore Protestants that haue abandoned the Roman Church are by your principles conuinced to be in a damnable state if they know the Roman Religion to be the Christian tradition of their Ancestours the definition of Catholique Councels Nor is it necessary that they be conuinced in conscience that the Roman Religion is true it sufficeth they haue no conuictiue demonstrations against it Wherefore it is extreme want of conscience in you to say that our Maintayner and the most rigide Aduersaries of Protestancy affirme that no Protestant shall be damned for any errour whatsoeuer he holdes against the Roman Church except he be conuicted in conscience that his owne Religion is false and the Roman true 11. And yet not content to haue brought this falshood as a Corollary from his wordes you make it his formal saying and set it downe in a distinct Character as his verball and formall assertion Pag. 31. n. 4. lin 6. Charity mistaken affirmed vniuersally and without any limitation that Protestants that dye in the beliefe of their Religion without particular repentance cannot be saued But this presumption of his you qualify by SAYING that this sentence cannot be pronounced truly and therefore not charitably neyther of those Protestants that want meanes sufficient to conuince them of the truth of your Religion and falshood of their owne nor of those who though they haue neglected the meanes they might haue had dyed with Contrition that is with a sorrow for all their sinnes proceeding from the loue of God Thus you shewing the Adamantinall hardnes of your Socinian for head and Samosatenian conscience For this long sentence which you set downe charactered as the saying of Charity Maintayned with a direct affirmation that it is his saying is forged and feigned by your selfe from the first to the last syllable thereof not only against his meaning in that place but also the whole drift of his Treatise For what is the drift thereof but only to shew that the Roman is the true Church and that her proposing of a doctrine to be belieued is sufficient to bind men to belieue it without any other Conuiction besides the authority of her infallible word 12. Also the second assertion you impute to him That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may dye with contrition for all his sinnes is an impudent vntruth no such acknowledgment in all his book You seeke to gather it from these wordes We haue no reuelation what light may haue cleered his errours or Contrition haue retracted his sinnes This reason say you or contrition haue retracted his sinnes being distinct from the former and deuided from it by the disiunctiue particle or insinuates that though no light did cleere the errours of a dying Protestant yet Contrition might for ought you know retract his sinnes This is a fond voluntary inference for the clause or contrition retracted his sinnes was not added to signify that a Protestant may haue contrition of all his sinnes though his vnderstanding be not cleered from his errours but to declare that though his vnderstanding be cleered from errours yet this will not suffice that he be saued except after the abiuration of his errours he do further conceaue hearty sorow Contrition for the deadly and damnable sinnes of affection and action he may haue committed 13. For that a Protestant cannot be truly penitēt of all his sinnes vntill his vnderstanding be cleered or at least his zeale allayed that he become remisse in his Religion and doubtfull this reason doth inuincibly conclude It is impossible that a man should repent of a thinge at that time when he is in actual or habitual heat of affection vnto it But Protestants so long as they are Protestants and their Vnderstandings not cleered from their errours or their zeale allayed with cold doubtfulnes are alwayes either actually or habitually in the heat of condemning the Roman Church for Impieties and Idolatries in the heat of presumptuous Pride whereby they preferre their seely conceits about the sense of Scripture before the iudgement of the Church and her Generall Councels Ergo it is impossible that a Protestant persisting stiffely in his Religion should be penitent of all his sinnes knowne and vnknowne The third Conuiction IN this Conuiction I am to proue three things first that Roman Catholiques hold all fundamētall truth and so are secure from damnation Secondly that it is madnesse to persuade any man to leaue the Roman Church Thirdly that it is impossible that Protestants should be sure they belieue all Fundamentall truths That Roman Catholiques are free from all Fundamentall Errours and your Contradictions herein §. 1. 1. HE that belieues all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any errour in fayth though he belieue more or lesse to be Fundamentall then is so This is your formall assertion in so many wordes pag. 207. n. 34. which supposed I assume But Roman Catholiques belieue all Fundamentals that is all necessary truth Ergo they cannot be damned for any errour in fayth The assumption of this argument might be proued by many testimonies from your Booke I will insist vpon two the one in this Section the other in the next Pag. 16. lin 8. We grant the Roman Church was a part of the whole Church And if she were a true part of the Church she retayned those truths which were simply necessary to saluation For this is precisely necessary to constitute any man or Church a member of the Church Catholique In our sense therefore of the word Fundamentall we hope she erred not fundamentally Thus you who pag. 280. n. 95. say the playne contrary that our errours are fundamentall And pag. 289. nu 86. that our Church not onely might but also did fall into substantiall errours 2. I know that to salue
consequently of the Doctrines contained therein only as an opinion very probable as is hereafter shewed Ergo you question the holy Scripture the Religion and Gospell of Christ you make an if of the truth and certainty thereof You examine it doubtingly with liberty of iudgment prepared in mind to leaue it if perchance you find the grounds thereof apparently false What is this but to be a Nullifidian a man setled in no Religion but doubtfull of all Such an one as they were whome the Apostle checketh terming them men still learning but neuer attayning to the assured knowledge of any thinge Againe Pag. 307. n. 107. you write thus speaking vnto our Maintayner Your eleauenth falshood is that our first reformers ought to haue doubted whether their opinions were certaine which is to say they ought to haue doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formall and expresse termes contaynes many of these opinions From this testimony I conclude that you doubt of the cetainty of the Scripture You professe to examine and question all your Protestant opinions of Diuine matters to make a doubt of the certainty of them But you contend that some of your Protestant opinions of Diuine matters be such as to make a doubt or question of the certainty of them is to doubt of the certainty of formall and expresse Scripture Ergo your Way and practise of doubting of all your opinions about Diuine matters is doubting euen of the truth of the Christian Scripture and Ghospell of Christ A thinge most impious and execrable as you now suppose yet so fond and forgetfull you are as to say you should haue litle hope of Saluation did you not do it or endeauour to do it 6. In fine your safe Way is a Labyrinth of implicatory and inextricable errours Protestants that are concluded therein are lost in a maze of vncertainties and in an intricate mixture of contrary doctrines being sure to find nothing therein but damnation which way so euer they turne themselues Do they doubt of the truth of their Religion which they belieue to be the Ghospell They are both according to truth and in your doctrine damnable wretches as being formall Heretiques Be they so firme in their Religion as they ranke doubting thereof among deadly sinnes Then they are you say obstinately blind sure to fall into the pit of perdition as much as we are at the least you affoard them litle hope of obtayning Saluation The sixt Conuiction 1. THis Conuiction sheweth that only Roman Catholiques haue sauing fayth which is demonstrated by three Arguments The first Sauing fayth is that without which it is impossible to please God Now fayth which pleaseth Gods must be on the one side certaine and infallible otherwise it is not worthy of God to whose word we owe so firme beliefe that if an Angel from heauen should Euangelize against that we haue receaued as his word he were not to be heard but to be accursed On the other side it must be a free and voluntary assent not enforced by the euidence of the thinge For if the reason of belieuing be euident and such as doth necessitate the Vnderstanding to assent the assent is not pleasing to God because it is not voluntary obedience and submission to his word Roman Catholiques by belieuing the Church to be infallible in all her proposals obtaine a persuasion about Diuine mysteries firme and infallible and yet of voluntary obedience and submission But the Opposers of the Roman Church not only want certainty in truth but also know not which way to challenge infallible certainty without euidence 2. This may be proued by what you write Pag. 329. lin 31. The infallible certainty of a thing which though it be in it selfe yet is not made appeare to vs infallibly certaine to my vnderstanding is an impossibility What is this but to say that fayth of a thing cannot be infallibly certaine except the thinge belieued be made so cleere and apparent that the vnderstanding cannot choose but assent vnto it For what appeares to vs to be infallibly certaine is seen of vs to be infallibly certaine What we see to be infallible certaine we cannot choose but assent that it is so So that a firme grounded beliefe of the truth of thinges not appearing without which it is impossible to please God is by your doctrine to Protestants impossible 3. Moreouer that Protestants cannot haue fayth pleasing to God that is fayth infallibly certayne not grounded on euidence I demonstrate in this sort No man can be assured infallibly of the truth of things not seene nor to him euidently certaine but by the word of an Authour infallibly veracious in all his words deliuered vnto him by a witnesse of infallible truth For if the witnesse or messenger of the word be fallible let the Authour of the word be neuer so infallible our assent to the truth of the thing proposed cannot be infallible Now Protestants haue not the word of God by meanes of a witnesse and messinger infallible For the witnesse proposer and messenger of the word of God is the visible Catholique Church which Protestants hold to be fallible full of false Traditions not free so you say from errour in it selfe damnable and in this sense Fundamentall Wherfore it is demonstratiuely certaine that onely Roman Catholiques who belieue the Church to be infallible can haue Fayth worthy of God Fayth of voluntary submission to Gods word that is fayth of things to them not euidently yet infallibly certayne and consequently they only please God by their belieuing and are saued 4. The second Argument You say pag. 148. lin 16. There is no other reason to belieue the Scripture to be true but onely because it is Gods word so that you cannot belieue the doctrines and myestries reuealed in Scripture to be true more firmely and infallibly then you belieue the Scripture to be Gods word for we must be surer of the proofe then of the thing proued thereby otherwise it is no proofe as you say pag. 37â— n. 59. But your assurance that the Scripture is the word of God is onely human probable and so absolutely fallible For you belieue the bookes which were neuer doubted of in the Church to be Gods word and a perfect rule of fayth onely by the tradition or testimonies of the ancient Churches pag. 63. lin 35. But the ioynt tradition of all the Apostolicall Churches with one mouth and one voyce teaching the same doctrine is onely a very probable argument as you affirme pag. 361. n. 40. Ergo your fayth that Scripture is Gods word consequently of all the mysteries therin reuealed is but human and probable and therefore vnworthy of God being not firmer then the credit we yield to euery morall honest man For to vs his word is probable and credible and to you the word of God is no more 5. Protestants commonely pretend that their fayth
that these Bookes be the word of God resteth finally not vpō the credit of human Tradition but vpon the Scripture onely which shewes it selfe with euident certitude to be diuine and supernaturall truth and so reuealed of God Euen as light is seene by its owne brightnesse and hony is proued to be sweet by the very tast thereof But this point of Protestancy you reiect as fond vaine ridiculous pag. 371. n. 51. and proue it to be such Because if the Bookes of Scripture were euidently certayne if they did with euident certitude demonstrate themselues to be Diuine truth then all men that haue vnderstanding and capacity to apprehend the right sense and sentence of Scripture would belieue them to be true which experience sheweth be otherwise If Protestants answere that such as haue their tast distempered to them hony is bitter so Infidels through preiudice and distemper of passions do not perceaue and tast the Diuinity of the Doctrines of the Scripture Against this the reply is ready and conuincing For they who through distemper of their palate iudge hony to be bitter do not apprehend the true tast of hony but a tast contrary to the true tast thereof which being in their palate they conceaue it to be in the meate But Infidels by their vnderstanding do rightly apprehend and conceaue the true senses of Scripture and the mysteries of fayth deliuered therein more cleerely then many Christians of meane capacity do and yet they do not iudge them to be Diuine truth or truth at all Ergo the very true sense and sentence of Scripture doth not with euident certainty shew it selfe to be Supernaturall truth such as could not be reuealed but of God 6. Finally if the Protestants beliefe of Scripture be grounded vpon sight of the truth thereof this their beliefe is not sauing fayth for Fayth by which men are saued as hath beene sayd is that wherby they submit by voluntary obedience their vnderstanding to Gods word belieuing firmely and assuredly vpon the Authority thereof things in themselues incredible and aboue the reach of human reason But Protestants do not belieue the doctrine of Scripture because it is the word of God but because as they say they see it to be Diuine truth and consequētly the word of God Ergo they haue not the fayth of humble submission to Gods word which is the onely fayth that pleaseth God and by which men are saued 7. The third Argument Protestants haue not fayth of infallible adherence that is fayth worthy of God about the sense and interpretation of Scripture For holding the Churches interpretation to be fallible they pretend to be sure by this rule that what they belieue to them seemes plainely cleerely euidently reuealed and proposed in the Scripture But this rule of assurance is not infallible but very fallible and deceytfull For euen Protestants thēselues contend that many texts and places of Scripture which seeme plaine and cleere are to be vnderstood figuratiuely against the plaine proper and literall sense For example the words of our Lord about the chiefe Sacrament mystery of fayth THIS is My Body This is My BLOVD in their plaine proper and literall sense deliuer and establish Transubstantiation as Protestants grant Hence Protestants that are resolued not to belieue a mystery so high aboue reason seemingly repugnant to sense will by no meanes allow these wordes to be true in their proper and literal sense they will not yield to the plain euidence of the Diuine text Whereupon it is euidently consequent that they cannot be sure about any mystery of fayth by vertue of the sole seeming euidence of the sacred Text. For instance take the most fundamental text of Scripture about the most fundamētal mystery of Christian Religion to wit the Incarnation of the Sonne of God The Word was made flesh How doth this text euidently conuince that the Eternal Word and Sonne of God was made Man truely substantially personally What Protestants say of the word of Christ This is my Body why may not Nestorians affirme about this text The Word was made ffesh that it is not true in a proper plaine and literal sense but metaphorically figuratiuely that God and Man were made one in Christ by affectual vnion as two great friendes are said to be one How can Protestants be themselues assured or how can they proue by the sole euidence of the text that this Nestorian interpretation is false And if their beliefe of the mystery of the Incarnation be not solide and firme grounded on a rule of interpretation infallibly certaine how can they be saued 8. Learned and iudicious Readers may find in your booke a world of laughter about your answering the arguments of Charity Maintayned you do it so vnscholler-like so okerly and vntowardly Let your answere to this argument serue for a patterne Our Maintayner vrgeth D. Potter that if the Church may erre in points of fayth not fundamentall you can neuer be sure of any such point For as you erre about some deceyued by the seeming euidence of the Scripture so you cannot be sure you do not erre about other You answere Pag. 117. n. 160. A pretty Sophisme depending vpon this principle that whosoeuer possibly may erre he can neuer be certaine that he doth not erre A Iudge may possibly erre in iudgment can he therefore neuer be sure he hath iudged aright A Traualler may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my chamber Or can our London-Carrier haue no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London And a litle after nu 161. whereas our Mayntainer argueth that you cannot be sure it is an errour to make the Church Iudge of Controuersies because you pretend to be sure by the seeming euidence of Scripture but this rule is not infallible so you cānot be sure by the warrant thereof The ground of this Sophisme say you is very like the former viz. that we can be certaine of the falshood of no proposition but those only that are damnable errours But I pray good Sir giue me your opinion of these The snow is balcke the fire is cold M. Knot is Arch-Bishop of Toledo the whole is not greater then a part of the whole that twise two make not foure in your opinion good Sir are these damnable heresies Or because they are not so haue we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir consider seriously with what strāge captions you haue gone about to delude your King and your Country if you be conuinced they are so giue glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which standes vpon such deceytfull foundations This you write which you could neuer haue written had you been with your London Carrier sober and in your wits You haue proued Gusman de
Alfarache his saying that the Fooles Hospital is of large extent to be most true He can range and reuell within the compasse thereof in a world of sottish extrauagances from hoat to cold from snow to fire from Oxford to London from London to Toledo from Toledo backe againe to King and Country and then fetch a new carriere ouer the whole Vniuerse and euery part thereof to be sure that no part is greater then the whole What is impertinentcy what is deserting the matter and argument in hand if this be not Good Syr be pleased to vnderstand that the Controuersy betwixt D. Potter and our Maintayner is not about all Kind of propositions nor whether snow be blacke or fire cold nor about your not being Arch-Bishop of Canterbury nor about the way from your Hall to your Chamber but about propositions pertayning to Christian faith not euident to sense but only to be knowne by reuelation from heauen Our Maintayner auoucheth that these Diuine truths cannot be knowne assuredly but by the teaching of Gods Church infallible in all her proposals This he proueth not as you feigne by this principle He that may possibly erre can neuer be sure he doth not erre but by this He that may erre and hath some times erred by following some certaine Rule can neuer be sure he doth not erre by following the same rule If a Iudge condemne a man to death wrongfully vpon euidence giuen against him by two witnesses how can he be sure that he doth not condemne another man vniustly if he haue no greater assurance then the deposition of two witnesses not knowne to be of better credit conscience A traueller hath been misguided out of his way by inquiring of the first man he met trusting his direction how can he be sure he is not out of his way by crediting the word of another directour equally vnknowne vnto him This then is the Argument of Charity Maintayned which you durst not encounter but ran about the world in the wild-goose chase to auoyd the force thereof No man can be sure he doth not erre by following a rule which is fallible and deceitfull But to iudge of the sense of the Scripture by the sole seeming euidence of the text is a rule fallible which often fayleth and deceaueth them who rely thereon because many places are not taken in their plain proper literall sense and many texts considered by themselues seeme cleere and plaine which conferred with other texts that seeme to say the contrary become darke and obscure Therefore to discerne the true sense and meaning of Scripture by the sole seeming euidence of some text thereof is a rule fallible Protestāts by the sole direction therof can neuer be sure or infallibly certain about any mystery of faith 10. And I pray you good Sir leaue your wild vagaries come home to the litle closet of your wits hold them close to the matter and then tell vs A Protestant who denyes the wordes of Christ This is my Body to be true in their plain proper and literall sense how can he be sure himselfe or how can he assure others that this text The word was made flesh is to be taken and true in the plain proper and literal sense Do not tell vs that you know the way from your Hall to your chamber that snow is white fyre hoat M. Knot is not Arch-Bishop of Toledo but giue vs an assured rule whereby to know that this text The word was made flesh is literally to be vnderstood in the plain substantial sense the text This is my body ought to be figuratiuely interpreted so that the Body of Christ be taken for but a peece of Bread The meane while I conclude that Protestants seing they haue not any infallible rule to assure them of the sense of Scripture cannot firmely belieue the Mysteries reuealed therein and so they haue not such a persuasion of the truth of Gods word as is worthy of God and pleasing to him nor will they euer obtayne sauing fayth till they ioyne with Roman Catholiques to acknowledge the infallible authority of the visible Catholike Church The seauenth Conuiction BEcause you cannot damne Roman Catholiques for any want of necessary and fundamentall truth you endeauour to procure their damnation and plead earnestly for it in regard they do not endeauour to know all profitable truth In which discourse you prodigiously contradict other assertions of your Booke By the discouery of which damnation will be seene to fall a way from vs vpon your owne head togeather with the cause meritorious thereof the not caring to auoyd vnfundamentall heresies 1. First you contradict your selfe in the same sentence wherby you make your Way plaine and yet impossible to be gone Pag. 221 lin 19. This is a way so plaine as fooles cannot except they will erre from it Because not knowing absolutely all truth nay not all profitable truth not being free from errour but endeuoring to know the truth and obey it and to be free from errour is by this Way made the onely condition of Saluation It is strange you should say that fooles cannot erre from your Way vnlesse they will whereas your selfe being so wise a man haue erred so mightily from your Way no doubt against your will as you are gone a contrary way In the first part of your saying you pronounce your Way to be so plaine as fooles except they will cannot misse of being saued therein but in the second you require so much and so hard conditions of Saluation as you make the same wholy impossible for fooles and ignorant persons and morally impossible euen to the learned'st leaders of your flocke For you require to Saluation that men know not onely all necessary truth but also that they endeauour to know all profitable truth yea absolutely all truth For by vertue of your speach they are bound to endeauour for the knowledge of that truth which in this sentence you say they are not bound to know But the truth you say in this sentence they are not bound to know is not all necessary truth but all profitable truth yea absolutely all truth Ergo your followers are bound as they will be saued though not to know yet to labour endeauour study to know all profitable truth yea absolutely all truth about Diuine matters Which is as much as to say that none can be saued in your way but such as haue studied Diuinity and haue not omitted so much as one question thereof not only about profitable points of that Science but also about vnnecessary and vnprofitable quirks absolutely all What can be imagined more vaine fond and absurd then to bind all men as they will be saued to study and endeauour for the knowledg of all Diuinity and Diuine truth And yet such is your desire to damne vs as you will do it vpon any condition though your selfe and all other Protetestants be damned in our company 2. Secondly you grossely
to perferme it yea you say the Church is not only able to performe the office of guide but also that alwayes in fact she doth exercise the same in teaching all necessary truth But you say pag. 163. lin 9. A Church of one denomination distinguished from all others by adhering to such a Bishop such a determinate Church alone can performe the office of Guide and Directour And Pag. 105. n. 239. lin 30. No Church can possibly be fit to be a guide but only a Church of some certaine denomination as the Greeke the Roman the Ahissine Wherefore the Visible Catholique Church being fit and able to performe the office of Guide and Directour as you grant she is and that it is essentially necessary that she be so she is and of necessity must be a Church of one denomination subiect to one certaine supreme Guide and Bishop 4. From these most certaine truthes by you granted approued and proued it is necessarily and euidently consequent that the Roman Church is the Visible Catholique Church of God an infallible Teacher of all fundamentall and necessary truth yea infallible in all thinges she proposes as matter of fayth This I say is cleerely consequent of the former grants For the visible Church being the Guide Teacher and Directour of men is on the one side a Church of one denomination else she could not performe that office of guide which she doth as you confesse alwayes actually performe On the other side being the Catholique that is the Vniuersall Church she must be spread ouer the face of the earth as the Roman is in Europe Africa Asia America and in many of the particular Kingdomes and Prouinces of these foure quarters of the world So that the wordes of S. Paul to the Romans come to be verified no lesse now then at that time your fayth is renowned and published in the whole world Which vniuersality or vniuersal Vnity agrees to no other Church of one denomination as is manifest Wherefore the Roman Church is the Holy Catholique Church the infallible guide of men in the way of Saluation 5. Hence is concluded the security of Roman Catholiques that they cannot possibly erre about matters of fayth so long as they follow the dogmatical directions and definitions of the Roman Church Contrariwise they who oppose what they know to be proposed by her as matter of fayth erre Heretically damnably and cannot possibly be saued without expresse repentance of their errours The Conclusion 6. THis argument of the assured Saluation of Roman Catholiques and of the assured damnation of all the knowing opposers of their Religion and Church being thus euidently demonstrated for Conclusion I could wish an Ocean of teares of bloud endued with the quality of mollifying hearts as hard as the Adamant for so I might condignely and fruitefully deplore the pittifull state the commiserable condition the vnfortunate thraldome in Errour of many millions in our deare Country caused by mortall auersion from the true Catholique Church which is instilled into their mindes by Heretical education 7. They grant conuicted by the euidence of Gods word that the Catholique Church is the ground and rocke of Truth wheron men may securely rest and rely an infallible Guide and teacher of all Fundamentals consequently of all euen profitable truth about Diuine matters They further acknowledge conuicted by experience and reason that the Church cannot be fit orable to performe the office of guide Directour except it be of one denomination of one obedience subiect to one determinate Bishop as her supreme Pastour and Gouernour They cannot but see with their eyes there is no Church Catholique or vniuersally diffused of one Fayth of one Obedience of one Denomination subiect to one Pastour acknowledged of all of that Religion but the Roman Consequently that there is no Church besides the Roman fit or able to performe the office of Guide and Directour to men that are saued as the true Catholique Church is bound to do and alwayes actually doth These thinges they confesse or see and yet so inflexible is the obstinacy the passion pride against the Roman Church wherwith Education like Medusa's head hath dulled stupifyed and instoned their soules as they contemne her Direction forsakes her Communion hate her Authority scorne her Motherly care of their Saluation running to perdition in the way of their owne fallible and palpably false conceytes fancied to be Scripture 8. Why did our Sauiour make his Church the pillar and ground of truth that is an infallible Teacher of the doctrine of Saluation but that he would haue men to make vse of her teaching As knowing that through a world of errours which carry with them a faire shew of truth they could not attayne to eternal Happinesse without a Visible infallible Guide No doubt when he gaue her the office of Mother he bound vs as we would be his Children and Heyres to loue honour and reuerence Her and to liue alwayes in the lap of her Communion When he gaue her the office of Guide he bound vs to follow her directions as we desire to speed in our iourney to him and to come to see for euer his Blessed face When he gaue her the office of Rocke he obliged vs to build our fayth and hope of Saluation on her Teaching assuring vs that no sublimity of wit vnderstanding no height of perfection be it in our conceite neuer so eleuate can reach to Heauen which is not grounded on the neuer-fayling fortitude of this Rocke 9. They then that haue disioyned themselues from the wombe and lap of this Mother can neuer be so in Gods fauour as to be his Children the Heyres of his glory the fellow heyres with Christ They that follow not the Directions of this euer vn-erring Guide be not in the way towardes him that is Truth and Life but wander in a wildernesse of Errour the issue wherof is eternall Death· They that haue not setled the feete of their Fayth and Affection on this Rocke the sole Rocke of safety in this vast Ocean of dangers what are they but wauing and wauering Babes floating in a sea of vncertainties tossed this way and that way with euery gust of erroneous doctrine 10. For a man not to belieue that our Sauiour did institute his Church to continue for euer the Teacher of all sauing truth the Rocke of Saluation against which the gates of Hell shall neuer preuayle what is this but to stop his eares against the cleer and plaine voyce of his word For a man to say that he gaue the office of Guide to a confused multitude and Chaos of different Religions and Obediences and not to a Church of one denomination which alone is able to performe that office what is it but to open his mouth into blasphemies against his Diuine Wisedome For a man not to see that there is no vniuersally diffused Church in the world of one fayth and obedience all the Professours thereof adhering
this Contradiction and to put the terme of fundamentall Errours vpon our Church you haue coyned a distinction of two kinds of fundamentall errours Pag. 290. n. 88. Fundamentall Errours say you may signifie eyther such as are repugnant to Gods command and so in their owne nature damnable though to those that out of ignorance inuincible practise them not vnpardonable and such as are not onely meritoriously but remedilessely pernicious and destructiue of Saluation According to this distinction you grant that the Roman Religion hath fundamentall errours of the first kind though as you hope none of the second But this distinction to omit that you ouerthrow the same in both the members thereof as will afterward appeare will not serue your turne nor reconcile your contradiction For when you say we belieue all Fundamentals you professe to take the word in your owne sense But in your sense the word Fundamentall signifies all kind of necessary truth for so you warne vs pag. 220. lin 5. May it please you to take notice now at last that by fundamentall we meane All and onely that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Saluation in a Church which hath all things fundamentall to Saluation Thus you which is as much as if you had sayd that by Fundamentall you vnderstand not only the things which are remedilessely and indispensably necessary but also those that be necessary onely because commanded For how can men safely expect Saluation without those things which by the commandement of God are necessary to Saluation Though men with fundamentall errours of the first kind may in your doctrine possibly be saued yet you say their state is not safe but dangerous Now such as haue all truth Fundamentall to Saluation they not onely may possibly be saued but also safely expect Saluation as you contend Ergo when you say our Church retaynes all Fundamentals to Saluation and erres not Fundamentally you will haue vs take notice that you meane she is free not onely from such damnable errours as absolutely destroy but also from those which endanger Saluation Consequently when you say absolutely as euery where you do that our errours are Fundamentall or substantiall or damnable or dangerous you contradict your other assertion that we retayned all things simply necessary to saluation and erred not Fundamentally 3. Besides in the frontispice of your booke you haue printed this sentence of our late King Iames Things simply necessary to Saluation be those which eyther the Word of God doth expressely command to be belieued or done or those which the Ancient Church did by necessary consequēce draw out of the Word of God Now you grant in expresse termes that the Roman Church retayned all things simply necessary to Saluation Ergo you must grant that she retayned all those things which eyther the word of God doth expressely command to be belieued or done or which from the Word of God the Ancient Church deduced and so can want nothing necessary by Diuine command nor haue errours fundamentall so much as of the first kind 4. The reason you are about this point so various and continually contentious and fighting with your selfe is the inward combat of your vnruly passions On the one side you are incited with fury to damne vs and make our Religion damnable on the other vexed and galled that neither euidence of truth no nor D. Potter himselfe will giue you full freedome to do it Hence your waue and wander you say and vnsay you runne this way and that way vpon aduerse and contrary assertions so much as euen in the same short sentence you plainely contradict your selfe pag. 16. n. 21. lin 11. Though we say the errours of the Roman Church were not destructiue of Saluation but pardonable euen to them that dyed in them vpon a generall Repentance yet we deny not but in themselues they were damnable Do not you perceaue that this speach destroyeth it selfe that our errours are not destructiue of Saluation and yet are in themselues damnable what is destructiue of Saluation but that which of it selfe and in its nature is apt and sufficient to destroy Saluation and to bring damnation on men And is not damnable the very same How then can our errours be in themselues damnable and yet not destructiue of Saluation You say a poyson may be deadly in it selfe and yet not kill him who togeather with it takes an antidote Very true but can poyson be in it selfe deadly not in itselfe destructiue of life Can it be of it selfe apt to cause death not apt to destroy life How then are our errours not destructiue of Saluation and yet damnable and apt to bring damnation on vs 5. In like manner you professe very often that the Roman Church retayned the substance and essence of a Christian Church that you do not cut her off from the hope of Saluation And yet at other times being enraged with the title of Catholique giuen her by the consent of mankind you protest that she is Catholique to herselfe alone and Hereticall to all the rest of Christian Churches Which is as much as if you had said she wantes the very essence of a Christian Church For pag. 332. n. 11. you write It is not Heresy to oppose any truth propounded by the Church but only such a truth as is an essential part of the Ghospell of Christ. Wherefore the Roman Church if she be hereticall opposes some essentiall part of the Ghospell of Christ and consequently she wantes fayth of some essentiall part of the Ghospell What is consequent hereupon That the Roman Church not only is not an incorrupt Church but not a Christian Church so much as for substance and essence The Consequence is manifest For that cannot be a Christian Church for substance essence which doth not hold the Gospell of Christ the Christian Religion for substance and essence as the Roman Church doth not if she be Heretical as you say she is For as that cannot be a man which wantes an essential part of a man so that cannot be the Gospell of Christ nor the Christian Religion for essence which the Roman Church holdes if she want an essential part thereof as you say she doth Behold how furies of passion distract you into contrary parts Yea this which now you so peremptorily decree that heresy is not to oppose any truth but only an essential part of the Gospell you contradict an hundred times in your booke where you distinguish heresies fundamental against the Essentials of the Gospell and not fundamental against Truths of the Gospell profitable but not necessary How can this subsist if that only be Heresy which opposes the Essentials of the Gospell The security in the Roman Church is so great as it is Madnesse to leaue it §. 2. 6. THis I shall make good and euident by your owne most true vndeniable sayings Our Maintayner obiectes
contradict your selfe whiles your declame against our Religion as extreme dangerous because we do not you say care to auoyd errours not fundamentall which declamations are frequent in your booke particularly Pag. 277. n. 61. lin 29. Neither is there any reason why such a Church should please her selfe too much for retayning fundamentall truths whiles she remaynes so regardlesse of others For though the simple defect of some truths profitable onely and not simply necessary may consist with Saluation yet who is there that can giue her sufficient assurance that the neglect of such truths is not damnable Besides who is there that can put her in sufficient caution that these errours about profitable matters may not according to the vsuall fecundity of errour bring forth others of a higher quality such as are pestilent and pernicious c. Lastly who can say that she hath sufficiently dicharged her duty to God and man by auoyding onely fundamentall Heresies if in the meane tyme she be negligent of others which though they do not destroy Saluation yet obscure and hinder onely not blocke vp the way to it Thus you who seeme as forgetfull of your selfe as he was who is sayd to haue had so little wit as he could not remember his owne name For had you remembred your name to the questions Who can giue such a Church sufficiēt assurance who can put her in sufficient caution Who can say she hath done her duty sufficiently You would haue readily answered I William Chillingworth for you often vndertake for a Church that retaynes all Fundamentall truths to be her surety and giue her assurance of Saluation agaynst all these pretended dangers You say they who belieue all fundamentals belieue all necessaries and so wee must confesse that they may safely expect Saluation except we will say that more is necessary then that which is necessary You say poynts circumstantiall that is not fundamentall be those of which we may be securely ignorant such as euen the Pastours themselues are not bound to know or belieue or not disbelieue them absolutely and alwayes but then only when they do see know them to be deliuered in Scripture as Diuine Reuelations I say when they do so and know and not onely when they may c. Otherwise it should be a damnable sinne in any learned man actually to disbelieue any one particular Historicall verity contayned in Scripture for though he did not know it to be reuealed yet he might haue knowne it had he with diligence perused Scripture You say he that belieues all fundamentals cannot be damned for any errour of fayth You earnestly demand He that belieues all necessary truth how can he possibly fayle of Saluation if his life be answerable to his fayth 3. By these sayings do not you giue men that retayne all fundamentals good cause of too much that is of excessiue pleasure and content by telling them they cannot possibly be damned for any errour in fayth Do not you affoard abundant assurance that neglect to know truths not fundamentall is not damnable there being no obligation to know them or to vse diligence to find them The people and euen the Pastours may securely be ignorant of them yea actually disbelieue them Do not you put such a Church in sufficient caution that errours not Fundamentall cannot bring forth errours pestilent and pernicious that she hath performed her duety to God and man sufficiently vnto Saluation by auoyding Fundamentall Heresies Except you will say more is necessary then that which is necessary that can be which cannot be that is possible which is altogether impossible men are bound to know that which they are not bound to know men are damned for not caring to know that whereof they might be securely ignorant Into this maze of contradictions you are brought by your will to damne vs which is much stronger then your wit 4. Your third Deuise to damne vs it yet more full of strange forgetfulnesse and contradiction of your selfe You suppose that we distinguish Heresies into two kinds some fundamentall some not fundamentall that we hold the first damnable and vtterly destructiue of Saluation and so to be carefully auoyded but that men may be saued in their heresies of the second kind Hence you say we regard not Heresies vnfundamentall we are carelesse and negligent to auoyd them being persuaded that if we hold all fundamentall truth we cannot be damned for any errour or heresy against fayth In regard of this loose doctrine and our negligence consequent thereupon you say we are in great danger of damnation This is your Plea against our Saluation so dull and so voyd of memory as you may seeme to haue forgotten euen the argument of the whole booke of Charity manitayned and of your owne For this distinction of Heresies into two sortes some Fundamentall some not Fundamental is taught by Protestants who by the largenesse laxitie of this doctrine would draw some kind of Heretiques to wit Heretiques not fundamentall within the compasse of the fold of Christ and the number of them that be saued This is the substance of D. Potters whole treatise which our maintayner impugneth Is it not thē prodigious want of memory to charge the Roman Church with this Doctrine and to seeke her damnation because forsooth she doth not care to auoyd Heresies not Fundamentall For our Roman Theology doth not allow the distinction of errours or heresies agaynst fayth into Fundamentall and not Fundamentall in your sense for we hold Heresies damnable and equally damnable as much those that are against Truths profitable only as those that destroy truths simply necessary Hence in the Way of the Roman Church he that knowing Transubstantiation to be proposed as matter of fayth by the definition of the Church shall presume to gaine say it is as full formall and very an Heretique as he who denyes the personall vnion of two Natures Diuine and Human in Christ For the greatnes of the malice of Heresy is not measured by the greatnesse of the matter denyed but by the greatnes of the pride wherby an Heretique preferres his fancies of Scripture before the definition of the Church by the greatnes of that impiety wherby he presumes to reiect that doctrine which he hath so many stronge reasons to belieue to be reuealed of God 5. If you say that Charity maintayned doth suppose that the Roman Church hath some corruptions and errours in fayth not Fundamentall I answere it is impudently in you so to affirme and great vanity to gather your affirmation from these his wordes As for our Churchs corruptions in doctrine I speake vpon the vntrue supposition of our Aduersaries you vpon no better warrant then this say to our Maintayner pag. 274. n. 58. You are so courteous as to suppose corruptions in your doctrine And a little after pag. 275. n. 59. I thanke you for your courteous supposall that your Church may erre And pag. 276. lin 2. You suppose your
Church in errour yet excommunicate those that belieue your owne supposition What found vanity is this To say Our Aduersaries do vntruly suppose there be corruptions in our Church is this a courteous supposall and not rather a constant deniall that she doth erre and a charge of falshood vpon them that so suppose Is the vntrue supposition of our Aduersaries our owne supposition I was euen amazed at your inconsideration when I read these words in your Booke pag. 280. n. 95. lin 8. Why I pray may not a man of iudgement continue in the communion of a Church confessedly corrupted aswell as in a Church supposed to be corrupted A strange assertion A man may aswell imbrace the cōmunion of a Church corrupted confessedly by the concession of her friends as of a Church vntruly supposed by her Aduersaries to be corrupt So that with you for a Christian to say S. Ioseph was the Father of Christ and the Blessed Virgin corrupt according to the vntrue supposition of the Iewes is all one as to say S. Ioseph was the Father of Christ and the Blessed Virgin corrupt confessedly euen by the concession of Christians Wherfore if it be damnable to neglect Heresies not Fundamentall as without question it is this proueth Protestants damnable who thinke it not against Saluation to hold errours in fayth and heresies against the definition of the whole Church if such heresies be about matters profitable onely and not simply necessary The eight Conuiction 1. YOu inscribe the pages of your last Chapter with this title The Religion of Protestants a safer Way to Saluation then the Religion of Papists For which assertion besides bare and bold affirmations earnest verball expressions manifest tokens as you say of a weake cause you haue one Argument which is this pag. 393. n. 9. If the safer way for auoyding sinne be also the safer way for auoyding damnation then certainly the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous Take into your consideration these ensuing controuersies Whether it be lawfull to worship Pictures To picture the Trinity To inuocate Saints and Angels To deny laymen the Cup in the Sacrament To prohibite certayne Orders of men and women to mary To celebrate the publique seruice of God in a language the assistants generally vnderstand not and you will not choose but confesse that in all these you are on the more dangerous side for the committing of sinne and we on that which is more secure For in all these things if we say true you do that which is impious On the other side if you were in the right yet we might be secure inough for we should onely not do something which you confesse not necessary to be done We pretend and are ready to iustify out of Principles agreed vpon betweene vs that in all these things you violate the manifest Commandements of God and alleage such texts of Scripture against you as if you would weigh them with any indifferēcy would put the matter out of question but certainely you cannot with any modesty deny but that at least they make it questionable This argument I haue set downe at large because it is the best in your booke and yet vaine and weake as I now demonstrate The ground of your Safety onely false suppositions and foolish braggs §. 1. 2. FIrst it is false that if Protestants say true we do that which is impious For Protestants against Zelots maintayne that our practises though erroneous in their iudgement yet are not impious and in themselues damnable and that they who in sincerity of heart professe them shall this notwithstanding without doubt be saued 3. Secondly it is false that if we be in the right yet you may be secure inough in your refusing to vse these our practises because they be not necessary For though it be no sinne of it selfe purely to omit pious practises and profitable deuotions yet to omit them out of proud cōtempt and much more out of an Hereticall persuasion that they be impious is vndoubtedly an heynous and damnable crime It is not necessary that you marry a wife you may be saued if you lead a chast single life but if you omit mariage out of an opinion that it is a thing impure or out of contempt of that doctrine that Mariage is a great Sacrament in Christ and his Church you will except you repent certainly be damned In like manner if we be in the right and that these be pious Christian practises of voluntary deuotion you who relinquish them out of contempt and Hereticall persuasion that they are impious cannot escape damnation without a dereliction of your errour 4. Thirdly it is false that if we be in the right yet you only do not something which we confesse not necessary to be done For we do not say of all these practises that they be not necessary to be done yea we say it is necessary to Saluation to receaue the B. Sacrament and in receauing to adore it Besides we say that you not only omit to do what is not necessary to be done but also condemne the vniuersall practises of Gods Church and definitions of her Generall Councells which is not only not necessary to be done but also execrable impious hereticall to be done 5. Fourthly it is a foolish bragge that you can alleadge such cleere texts of Scripture against these our practises For if you can alleade them why do you conceale them Why are you ashamed to bring them to light Why haue you not stored your booke with such allegations as are able to put the matter out of question Some very few you haue produced and those which you tearme the playnest that possibly may be I haue shewed to be darke obscure yea by you falsifyed in the text 6. Fiftly it is also a foolish bragge that your texts of Scripture be certainly such as make the matter questionable which you proue very grauely because we cannot with any modesty deny it Verily had you any modesty or shame you would blush to dispute so poorely miserably seelily in a Controuersy of such moment which concernes the eternal damnation of your Country I adde though it were true as it is most false that your texts make the matter questionable yet your abandoning the Roman Church is damnable For Arguments which make the matter questionable be not necessary nor euident But it is damnable to forsake the Church of Rome and the definition of General Councels without reasons necessary and euident as both you and D. Potter affirme as hath beene often noted These doctrines and practises are proued by manifest and plaine Scripture §. 2. ON the other side Roman Catholiques do not boast ridiculously as you do of their texts of Scripture but by manifest euiction shew euen these of the impiety of which you seeme most cōfident to be Christian and pious and consequently that your damning of them is damnable and impious 7. For
maintaine that the Religion of Protestants is a safe way to saluation yea you grant the same not to be free from errours damnable of themselues The Argument propounded §. 1. 2. THe Argument I set downe in this manner No man shal be or can be damned eternally for errours which be not damnable of themselues This is cleere Because God being iust who renders to euery one according to their deserts cannot punish men more then their offences do of themselues deserue but rather somewhat vnder their merit But the errours pretended to be found in the Roman Church cannot of thēselues deserue eternall damnation being but veniall but little ones not damnable of themselues as Protestants grant This Assumption needs no proofe being notorious ouer all England For what more dayly and vsuall what more frequent and familiar then for Protestants to reproach vs with want of Charity because we will not yield their errours not to be damnable nor destructiue of saluation as they grant ours to be This is cōfirmed by the often reiterated confession of D. Potter specially pa. 77. where he hath these words To forsake the errours of the Roman Church and not to ioyne with her in those practises we account erroneous we are forced of necessity For though in themselues they be not damnanable to them which belieue as they professe yet for vs to profese what we belieue not were without question damnable And they with their errours by the grace of God might go to Heauen when we for our hypocrisy and dissimulation without repentance should certainly be condemned to Hell And agayne To him who in simplicity of heart belieues and professeth them withall feareth God and worketh righteousnesse to him they shall proue veniall such a one shall by the mercy of God be deliuered from them or be saued with them But he that against Fayth and Conscience shall go along with the streame to professe practise them because they are but little-ones his Case is dangerous and without repentance desperate And againe pag. 19. We belieue the Roman Religion safe that is not damnable to some such as belieue what they professe but we belieue it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as professe it when they belieue the contrary Your impudent deniall of the text §. 2. 3. YOu acknowledge that Charity maintayned vrgeth this testimony of D. Potter builds his discourse theron often which you say he doth fraudulētly as an egregious Sophister impudently without conscience or modesty outfacing the truth For Protestants you say neither do or euer did acknowledge that our errours are not damnable and that you for your part though you were on the rack should not confesse it As for D. Potter you deny that he sayd of the errours he imputeth to the Roman Church though in themselues they be not damnable yea you contest that his words are though in themselues they be damnable Pag. 275. lin 4. D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your errours though in themselues sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damne all that held them such he meanes and sayes as were excusably ignorant of the truth And pag. 263. n. 26. Where doth D. Potter say any such thing as you pretend c. He sayth indeed that though your errours were in themselues damnable and full of great impiety yet he hopes those amongst you who were inuincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy haue their errours pardoned Thus you And you repeate it almost in the same wordes in an hundred passages of your Booke still noting these wordes though in themselues damnable in a distinct character as D. Potters formall text which yet is no where found in any part of his Treatise 4. And in this denial of the text in this contestation that D. Potter said of our Errours though in themselues they be damnable you with great shew of confidēce persist till almost the very finishing of your Booke Then being but three leaues from the end as Theeues when they are ready to be cast of the ladder make true confessions strucken with remorse of conscience you vtter this deposition against your selfe Cap. 7. n. 29. Indeed D. Potter sayes of your errours though in themselues they be not damnable to them which belieue as they professe yet for vs to professe what we belieue not were without question damnable Is this true Doth D. Potter say of our errous though in themselues they be not damnable Hath he these very words indeed See thē whether the reproach which you cast vnworthily on Charity maintayned the reproach of outfacing the truth without conscience or modestie do not fall heauily on your owne head For now vpon the ending of your Booke you confesse that D. Potter indeed sayes of our Errours though in themselues they be not damnable whereas before you said and repeated it againe and againe with deepe protestation and insolent insultation against your Aduersary that D. Potter said no such thinge yea that his wordes were the plaine contradiction to wit though in themselues they be damnable and full of great impiety How this can be excused from the crime of forgery I do not see 5. More cunningly in shew not so enormously but indeed no lesse fraudulently maliciously do you change the pointing of D. Potters text and so turne his assertion into the plaine contrary He pag. 79. in the name of English Protestants sayth of the Roman Religion We belieue it safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as belieue what they professe Thus he and he maketh a Comma between some and such to deuide them and to shew that such is vsed not to limit the some that are not damned but to declare who they be to wit all such as cordially belieue our Roman Religion and professe it You reciting his words leaue out the Comma and ioyne some and such togeather making the Doctour say We belieue her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as belieue as they professe As who should say D. Potter grants our Religion safe and not damnable to some who in simplicity of heart belieue and professe it not to all such but some such only Against his expresse Tenet and text yea further you vrge this text corrupted by your dispunction thereof as an Argument that D. Potter holdes our errours damnable in themselues Pag. 306. lin 1. It is remarkable that he confesses your errours to some men not damnable which cleerely importes that according to his iudgment they were damnable of themselues though by accident to them who liued and dyed in inuincible ignorance they might proue not damnable Thus you argue vpon your owne corruption of D. Potters text For in truth he confesses the errours imputed vnto vs not to be damnable and our Religion to be safe not to some such only but to all
such as belieue as they professe to all such as be not hypocriticall Professours but professe it in simplicity of heart belieuing it to be true Nor doth he say that vnto such Roman belieuers our errours are not damnable by accident as you feigne but the expresse contrary that euen in themselues they be not damnable to them Behold how opposite is D Potters true sentence to that you haue forged for him You make him say Our errours are euen in themselues damnable and only by accident pardonable whereas he sayth the contrary they are in themselues but littleons but venial and consequently if any sincere Roman Catholiques be damned this is by accident by reason of some extrinsecal damnable circumstance not by the intrinsecal malignity of their errours not by the force such errours haue in themselues and in their owne nature to merit damnation 6. But some may obiect that D. Potter doth not say absolutely Our errours be not in themselues damnable but only not in themselues damnable to them that belieue as they professe which is a different thinge I answer this is a subtilty which findeth a difference where there is no diuersity As to say of a potion that it is not of it selfe deadly to such as drinke it take it into their bowells and heart is all one as to say it is deadly to none but harmelesse and innoxious in it selfe so to say our errours are not in themselues damnable to such as heartily belieue and professe them is as much as to say they are of themselues damnable vnto none but absolutely veniall of their owne nature not destructiue of Saluation For to whome may they be in themselues damnable if they be not so to them that take them into their heart by sincere and cordiall beliefe As none can be damned for sinne but such as commit sinne so none can be damned for erring but such as erre and are guilty of erring Now those that in their heart belieue not errours do not erre nor are guilty of erring wherefore such neither are nor can be damned for erring or holding of errours For if they hypocritically professe Errours which they do not belieue they be damnable indeed but not for erring but for their hypocrisy and dissimulation as D. Potter truly sayth Your ignorant exposition of D. Potter §. 3. 7. HAuing at last acknowledged D. Potters text that he said of our errours though in themselues they be not damnable you tell vs that we mistake his meaning by taking a supposition of a confession for a confession a Rhetoricall concession of the Doctours for a positiue assertion For to say though your Errours be not damnable we may not professe them is not to say Your errours are not damnable but only through they be not As if you should say Though the Church erre in points not fundamental yet you may not separate from it or Though we do erre in belieuing Christ really present yet our errour frees vs from Idolatry I presume you would not thinke it fayrely done if any man should interprete these your speaches as confessions that you do erre in points not fundamentall that you erre in belieuing the Real Presence And therefore you ought not to haue mistaken D Potters wordes as if he confessed the Errours of your Church not damnable when he sayes no more then this though they be not damnable or suppose or put case they be not damnable Thus you Wherein your falshood is notable and your ignorance admirable First it is false that D. Potter sayes no more but this though they be not damnable For besides this he sayth that Protestants who belieue them to be errours must not presume to professe them because they are but littleons He saith in the name of all Protestants We belieue the Roman Religion to be safe that is not damnable to such as belieue as they professe We hope and thinke very well of all those holy and deuout soules which informer ages liued and died in the Church of Rome c. We doubt not but they obtayned pardon of all their ignorances Nay our Charity reaches further to All those at this day who in simplicity of heart belieue the Roman Religion and professe it Be these Rhetoricall Concessions not Positiue Assertions that the errours which Protestants impute to the Roman Church are not damnable of thēselues but onely by accident when they are hypocritically against conscience professed 8. Secondly I am amazed that you a Maister of Arts of Oxford of so long standing are ignorant of the difference in speach betwixt the Present Tense and the Preter imperfect which euery man and woman by common sense doth feele and perceaue For the particle though ioyned with a verbe of the Present Tense doth suppose a thing present and existing in reality truth so that if you will suppose the existence of a thing by imagination or in conceyt onely you must vse the Preter imperfect Wherfore neyther the Author of Charity maintayned nor any Catholique that is intelligent will say to you in the Present Tense as you make him Though the Church do erre in points not fundamentall yet you must not separate from it but in the Preter imperfect Though the Church did erre in points fundamentall yet you were not to separate from her Nor will he or any Catholique that is wise vse that eyther sottish or impious speach you haue penned for him Though we erre in belieuing Christ really present yet our errour frees vs from Idolatry God forbid This were not a Rhetoricall Concession but a Diabolical Profession that our beliefe of the Reall presence is an errour A true Catholique that can vtter his mind in good English will say Though we did erre in belieuing the Reall Presence of our Lords Body in the Eucharist yet this errour would free vs from Idolatry Thus the examples you bring of Rhetoricall Concessions make against you being in deed positiue Assertions and shew your discourse to be neyther good Logick nor Rhetoricke nor Grammer 9. And I pray you the Proposition you haue forged for D. Potter though the errours of the Roman Church be in themselues damnable and full of great impiety yet by accident they do not damne all that hold them is it not a Positiue Assertion that our doctrines are damnable and full of great impiety in D. Potters opinion Wherfore this proposition which is truly D. Potters though the errours of the Roman Church be not in themselues damnable yet Protestants who know them to be Errours may not professe them is a positiue Assertion that our supposed errours be not damnable in his iudgement Should one say to you though in your iudgement you belieue Christ our Sauiour not to be true God yet you dare not professe it outwardly for feare of the fagot would you take this as a Rhetoricall supposition not as a Reall accusation that you are an Infidell in your heart Is it possible you should be guilty
Saluation is worth to looke most carefully that the cause of his separation be iust and necessary And pag. 200. lin 25. I willingly confesse the iudgment of a Councell though not infallible yet is so far directiue and obliging that without apparent reason of the contrary it may be sinne to reiect it at least not to afford it an outward submission But D. Potter more cleerly and fully affirmeth That Generall Councels are the highest Tribunals which the Church hath vpon earth that their authority is immediatly deriued delegated from Christ that no Christian is exempted from their censures and iurisdiction that their decrees bind all persons to externall obedience and may not be questioned but vpon euident reasons That the belieuers of the Roman Church cannot erre but through Ignorance inuincible §. 2. 3. FOr the title of this Section I argue thus Those errours are vnauoydable and inuincible which cannot be auoyded without damnable sinne But Roman Catholiques cannot auoyd the errous of the Roman Church if she haue any without damnable sinne Therfore their errours if they do erre must of necessity be ignorances inuincible and vnauoydable such as they cannot shake of without damning themselues The Minor or assumption of this argument I proue because Roman Catholiques that be sincere and cordiall belieuers of the doctrine of the Roman Church cannot haue necessary forcing reasons nor euident demonstrations that the Roman Church is in errour This is cleere For if they haue necessary and inforcing reasons and euident demonstrations whereby they are conuicted in conscience that the Roman Church erreth they be now no more Roman Catholiques nor belieuers of the Roman Church but Protestants and her Aduersaries in their iudgment It is therefore impossible that Roman Catholiques so longe as they be sincere and Cordiall belieuers of the Roman Doctrine should haue euident demonstrations that the Roman Church erreth And if the◠haue not euident demonstrations it were damnable for them to forsake her doctrines which Protestants account erroneous nor can they do it without damning their soules Who then doth not see that their erring if they erre is enforced vn auoydable proceeding from ignorance inuincible for which sort of ignorance it is impossible they should be damned 4. You to auoyde the force of this Argument contend that though your reasons are necessary enforcing as cleere as the light at noone yet we are not conuicted by them in conscience not that they want euidence but that we are obstinately peruerse This your shift cauill is easily shewed to be friuolous and false Friuolous because you only say without any proofe that we are obstinately peruerse and if to say it without proofe be inough then the same answere will serue and doth de facto serue euery Heretique euery Sect-maister euery forger of new Monsters for when he findeth himselfe in straytes and not able to bring so much as a probable reason for his new deuised impieties he falleth presently to cry that his Texts of Scripture are as cleere as the sunne his Arguments euident demonstrations that the reason Catholiques neglect and reiect him is not want of euidence in his arguing but that we are wilfully blind obstinately peruerse men that haue eyes to see and will not see giuen ouer to stronge delusions and vnto a reprobate sense And what is this but to change schollership into scolding reasoning into rayling disputing into clamorous and contumelious wrangling wherin he getteth the victory who is the stoufest Stentor and can crye loudest against his Aduersaries You are willfully blind you are obstinately peruerse In which kind of arguing you are very eloquent according to the stile of heretiques quorum doctrina sayth S. Hierome non in sensu sed in multiloquio elamore consistit 5. Secondly it is false because necessary and enforcing reasons or euident demonstrations presented vnto the vnderstanding necessitate the said Vnderstanding and compell the Conscience to assent let the Will be neuer so peruerse The peruersity of Will may make a man deny with his mouth what in Conscience he knoweth to be true it may make him hate impugne knowne truth but it cannot possibly make him not see what by the light of euident demonstration is made cleere to his vnderstanding This I proue by your owne sayings as pag. 370. n. 50. Apparent arguments necessitate the vnderstanding to assent and Pag. 371. n. 81. You contend that Protestants hold not that it is euidently certaine that these bookes in particular are the word of God For say you they are not eyther so fond as to be ignorant nor so vaine as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if they were euidently certain or so ridiculous as to imagine that an Indian that had neuer heard of Christ or Christianity reading the Bible in his owne language would without miracle belieue it to be the word of God which yet he could NOT CHOOSE but do if it were euidently certaine Heere you affirme that all men in the world would belieue the Christian Bible to be the word of God yea they could not choose but assent vnto it as vnto Diuine truth if it did shew it selfe to be such with euident certainty And yet there be millions in the world that be obstinately peruerse against the Christian Bible Ergo demonstrations which shew a truth to the vnderstanding with euident certainty necessitate the Vnderstanding to assent though the Will be obstinately peruerse But Catholiques though they vnderstand ponder and consider your pretended euident demonstrations and texts of Scripture as cleere as the sunne can dissent from them rest persuaded in their conscience against your conclusions by pious constancy of fayth Wherefore your Arguments be not euident demonstrations and consequently no man can be moued with them to forsake the Roman Church and her Doctrine of Generall Councels without committing damnable sinne yea they are so farre from being irresistable as they are vaine weake contemptible euen those which you pretend to be so cleere as none can possibly be cleerer as I haue shewed in the former Treatise Cap. 6. Conuict 6. n. 29. That Protestants if they erre cannot be saued by ignorance or generall repentance §. 3. 6. THe first part of the Title that they cannot be saued by ignorance I proue thus Either Protestants haue demonstrations euident certainty that the Roman Church erreth that her definitions which they forsake and keep themselues in opposition against them be false and impious or they haue not If they haue they be not ignorant but full of cleere and manifest certainty about all those points wherein they forsake the Roman Church If they haue not they are indeed in ignorance but in such ignorance as will not saue them but rather make them more damnable to wit in the ignorance of Pride For is it not damnable and execrable Pride for a simple and ignorant man to abandon the Roman Church adorned with
and in particular which be the articles essentially necessary vnto Saluation and you in many places signify that they are innumerable 10. On the Forehead of your Booke you haue printed this sentence of King Iames The number of thinges absolutely necessary to Saluation is not great Wherefore the shortest and speediest way to conclude a general peace and concord in matters of Religion would be to seuer exactly thinges necessary from thinges not necessary and to vse all industry that in necessaries there may be agreement and in thinges not necessary place be left vnto Christian liberty In your Dedicatory you professe that your Booke in a manner is nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction vpon this Blessed Doctrine wherwith you adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice thereof This is the flattering of your forhead and your setting a fayre Hypocriticall face of Friendship on this sentence which you hate blaspheme in your heart and in the heart and bosome of your Booke For some few leaues from the beginning you fall to reiect pursue and persecute this your Blessed sentence and your superstruction theron is nothing else but a load of reproaches You say that to seuer exactly thinges necessary from thinges not necessary which that learned Prince esteemeth to be of great vse of great necessity and the shortest way to conclude the generall peace of Christendome about Religion a thinge not only factible but also which may easily speedily be done this I say which your Frontispicial sentence proclaymeth most vsefull and factible the inside of your Booke declareth to be a thing of extreme great difficulty and of extreme little necessity an intricate peece of businesse apparantly vnnecessary of no vse a vaine labour to no purpose Behold your wordes Pag. 23. lin 5. To seuer exactly and punctually these verities the one from the other c. is a businesse of extreme great difficulty and of extreme litle necessity He that shall goe about it shall find an intricate peece of businesse of it and almost impossible that he should be certaine he hath done it when he hath done it And then it is apparently vnnecessary to goe about it because he that belieues all certainly belieues all necessaries And againe ibid. lin 15. And when they had done it it had been to no purpose there being as matters now stand as great necessity of belieuing those truths of Scripture which are not fundamental as those that are These be your wordes by the force of which you knocke on the head the sentence of king Iames nayled on the forehead of your Booke and also giue a deadly stabbe on the heart of poore Protestants and driue out of it all hope of Saluation 11. For you neither do nor can tell them which points of fayth are Fundamentall and necessary to be knowne distinctly of all without the least of which you say it implies contradiction they should be saued How then shall they be sure they haue all Fundamental truth You say he that belieues all certainly belieues all that is necessary And pag. 225. lin 1. to a Protestant requesting of you to know which in particular be fundamental truths you answere It is a vaine question belieue all and you shall be sure to belieue all that is Fundamentall This rule of assurance you repeate almost in the same formal wordes I dare say a thousand times which is craftily couched in equiuocal and ambiguous termes and hath a double sense being in the one false and deceitfull in the other impossible to be kept If belieue all import no more then belieue in general and confusedly all contayned in the Holy Bible to be true your rule is false deceitfull damnable that men by belieuing all shall certainly belieue all necessaries as they ought vnto Saluation For you say Pag. 163. n. 3. Fundamental and essential points be such as are not only plainly reuealed of God and so certaine truths but also commanded to be preach't to all men and to be distinctly belieued of all and so necessary truths And Pag. 194. lin 16. you teach that to the constitution of Fundamental pointes is required that they be First actually reuealed of God Secondly commanded vnder paine of damnation to be particularly knowne I meane knowne to be Diuine reuelations and distinctly to be belieued Wherfore your rule Belieue all in generall and you shall be sure to belieue all Fundamentals sufficiently vnto saluation is by your owne definitions proued false and damnable But if your rule haue this sense Belieue all that is in the Bible explicitly distinctly in particular and then you shall be sure to belieue all necessaries if this I say be your meaning you lay on your Protestants a most heauy burthen a most vnsupportable load a most tyrannicall and impossible command For what you say that the burthen is light and that all Protestants comply with this your command pag. 129. n. 5. that all of them agree with explicite fayth in all those thinges which are plainly and vndoubtedly deliuered in Scripture that is in All that God hath plainly reuealed this I say is ridiculous there being millions of truths plainly vndoubtedly deliuered in Scripture which millions of Protestants neuer heard yea there be I dare say a thousand such truths which your selfe are ignorant off 12. In contradiction of this your inconsiderate assertion you grant pag. 137. lin 5. That there be many truths which in themselues are reuealed plainly inough which yet are not plainly reuealed vnto some Protestantes of excellent vnderstanding nor are belieued of them because they are prepossest with contrary opinions and with preiudices by the strange power of education instilled vnto their mindes How then is it true that Protestantes all of them agree with explicite fayth in all thinges which are plainly reuealed of God How can those Protestantes who disbelieue many truths reuealed in Scripture plainly inough be sure they belieue all fundamentall and necessary truth seing they obserue not your command Belieue all and you shal be sure to belieue all that is fundamentall Who doth or can assure them that among these many points of Fayth reuealed in Scripture plainly inough none be fundamental It is therfore manifest that Protestants except you giue them an exact Catalogue of all your fundamentals which they are bound vnder payne of uamnation distinctly and explicitly to belieue can neuer be sure they belieue all fundamentall truth And it is seely for you when Charity Maintayned vrgeth you for a Catalogue of your Fundamentals to thinke that you may stop his mouth with importuning him for a Catalogue of our Churches Proposals for we say of our Churches Proposals that it is sufficient to belieue them implicitly we do not say they must be belieued of all distinctly and in particular What need then is there of a Catalogue wherin such Proposals are set downe distinctly and in particular Now you affirme of your Fundamentals that
against persecuting cursing damning of such as will not subscribe vnto the words of men as the words of God No reader of vnderstanding in Ecclesiasticall affayres can doubt but you gird at the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 consubstantiall decreed by the first Councels of Nice to declare the substantiall Equality betwixt the three diuine Persons and at the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deipara Gods Mother commanded by the Councel of Ephesus to be giuen to the Blessed Virgin to signifie that she was mother to him that was personally not onely true man but also the eternall God These Canons of the first generall Councels these sacred formes of Ecclesiasticall speach you cannot indure because they thunder against Socinians they proclaime them to be Heretiques and strike their Impieties dead 5. Thirdly because you reprehend them who by firme resolution of their will vphold themselues in the beliefe of their Religion though their reason and vnderstanding fayle them Which is as much as if you had sayd We are not through pious affection and reuerence of Gods word to belieue things aboue the reach of reason things in the apprehension of which our naturall vnderstanding faileth as are the mysteries of the Trinity of the Eternall Generation of the Sonne of God 6. Fourthly because you say that they who captiuate their vnderstanding to the beleefe of those things which seeme irreconcileable contradictions may aswell belieue reall contradictions which no wiseman will do But he that belieues the mystery of the B. Trinity the Sonne of God his Eternall Generation must of necessity captiuate his vnderstanding to the beliefe of impossibilities implicancies contradictions seeming to be such in human reason as euery true Christian by experience findeth Therefore in your opinion no wise man doth or will belieue them 7. Fiftly because you ioyne with the auncient enemyes of Christ Iesus his God head to disparage the Gospell of S. Iohn wherein the eternall Generaation of the Word the onely begotten Sonne of God is most fully and plainely deliuered as also the indispensable necessity of belieuing the same Ioan. 3.8 He that belieueth in him is not damned he that belieueth not is already damned because he belieues not in the Name of the onely begotten Sonne of God For though you dare not say plainely that S. Iohns Ghospell is of no authority yet in effect you say as much contending that in his Ghospell nothing is contayned of necessary beliefe which is not cleerely plainely set downe in S. Lukes Gospell Wherfore because Christ Iesus his being the Eternall Word and sonne of God is no where set downe so cleerly in the Gospell of S. Luke you Socinians will not be bound to belieue it through our Lord himselfe in S. Iohns Gospell pronoūce that he who belieues it not is already damned that is as sure to be damned as if he were already in Hell Now what is this but in fauour of Sociniansme to giue the lye to S. Iohn yea to our Sauiour himselfe 8. Sixtly you are proued to be not onely a Socinian but also impiously obstinate in the defence of that Sect by your changing the sacred text of Gods word that they may not seeme therin accursed S. Iohn in his first Epistle Cap. 4. v. 2. giueth this signe to know the spirit of true Prophets and Preachers Euery spirit which confesseth Iesus Christ to be come in flesh is of God and euery Spirit which confesseth not Iesus Christ to be come in flesh is not of God but of Antichrist And Ep. 2. v. 7. Many Deceyuers are come out into the world who do not confesse Iesus Christ to be come in flesh this is a Deceyuer an Antichrist In which places it is manifest that S. Iohn speakes of false Christians namely the Ebionites who deny Christ Iesus to be a Person come from the bosome of God vested with humane flesh who deny him to be the Word made flesh the Sonne of God incarnate Which being your Socinian Beliefe that the same might not seeme damned as Antichristian you make bold with Gods word and thrust in your owne wordes in place therof Preface num 12. The rule S. Iohn giues to make this trial of Spirits by is to consider whether they confesse Iesus to be the Christ that is the guide of their fayth and Lord of their actions And pag. 339. lin 4. you say S. Iohn Ep. 2. v. 7. speabes not of Heretiques but of no Christians of Antichrists of such as denied Iesus to be the Christ Thus still as often as S. Iohn sayth such as deny Iesus Christ to be come in flesh be false Prophets deceyuers Antichrists you change the text into such as deny Iesus to be the Christ as though S. Iohn had spoken in this place against Iewes who deny Iesus to be the Christ or the promised Messias Whereby you not only chauge the text but also foyst in a falshood into Gods Word For it is false that whosoeuer confesseth Iesus to be the Christ is therby knowne to be of God and a true Christian seing Turkes confesse Iesus to be the Christ that is the Messias promised to the Iewes and yet are not Christians And that S. Iohn speaketh against Heretiques who vnder the name of Christians went about preaching that Iesus Christ is not the eternal sonne of God is cleere by the wordes which immediatly follow He that departeth and abideth not in the Doctrine of Christ hath not God He that abideth in his doctrine hath the Father and the Sonne If any come to you and bringe not this Doctrine receiue him not into your house bid him not God speed For he that sayth to him God speed is partaker of his malignant workes 9. What then may we thinke of those English Protestants and of their state and Saluation who haue made you the Patron of their Religion and Pastour of their soules can they be excused from being partakers with you in your malignant workes tending to the peruersion and damnation of many I confesse you haue rewarded them as they deserue For you giue them no better assurance or hope of Saluation then to Socinians who deny Christ Iesus to be the Eternal only begotten Sonne of God whose damnation goeth before them vnto iudgment Miserable they are who be so desperately bent against Charity maintayned by Catholiques as rather then yield to be saued in the Catholique Roman Church will be defended by such a Socinian Patron and in a Way which giueth them no hope of saluation but together with Heretikes who deny the Incarnation of the eternal Sonne of God who are branded in Scripture with the note of Deceyuers and Antichrists and by the mouth of our Lord himselfe men already damned That in your VVay Iewes and Turkes may be saued aswelll as Protestants §. 2. 10. PRotestants of your stampe who pretend to belieue the Bible and only the Bible being deuided into innumerable sects agreeing in
and Turkes may be saued in eyther of these wayes their errours according to your principles not being remedilessely damnable The fifth Conuiction THis Conuiction ouer throweth the chiefe cause for which you charge our Religion to be damnable sheweth first that the thing for which you would send vs to Hell is the necessary duty of a constant Christian Fayth Secondly that your contrary mutability and leuity is Apostaticall and impious You damne vs to Hell for being faythfull and constant Christians §. 1. 1. YOu often proclame vs to be men wilfully blind sure to fall into the ditch of damnatiō For this your censure of vs you giue this reason because we will not enter into any triall of our Religion with indifference with liberty of iudgement with are solution to doubt of it if vpon examination the grounds of it proue vncertaine or to leaue it if they proue apparantly false my owne experience assures me that herein I do you no wronge but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your doctrine among mortall sinnes Thus you And we willingly grant and openly professe that we hold it a mortall sinne to doubt deliberately of any poynt of our fayth But must we be damned in this respect O how doth malignancy against our saluation confound your memory and wit For against doubting in matters of Religion you write most earnestly pag. 195. n. 11. lin 20. which of vs euer taught it was not damnable to deny or doubt of the truth of any thing whereof we eyther know or belieue that God hath reuealed it Thus you Now if it be damnable to doubt of the truth of any thing we belieue to be reuealed of God what an obliuious Creature are you who will haue vs damned for not yielding to do that very thing which you proclame damnable to be done you will haue vs sent to Hell because we ranke doubting of any part of our fayth which we hold reuealed of God among deadly and damnable sinnes and yet your selfe ranke this doubting among deadly and damnable crimes with an earnest tacite detestation of the contrary Doctrine which of vs euer taught it is not damnable 2. Haue you so soone forgot your selfe Are your sayings no sooner out of your pen then out of your memory and head which of vs say you euer taught it is not damnable Euen your selfe good Sir you William Chilling worth teach it is not damnable yea you hold it damnable for any man to ranke doubting of the Religion which he holdes reuealed of God among mortall sinnes which you proue because seing euery man must resolue neuer to commit mortall sinne it followes that he must neuer examine the grounds of his Religion for feare of doubting or if he doe he must resolue that no motiues be they neuer so strong shall moue him to doubt This is your argument vpon which you conclude we are a company of blind inconsidering men louers of the darkenesse and not of light And yet your selfe are so blind so inconsidering and your wits are so dulled and darkened as you do not perceaue that this very argument proueth you all your Biblists to be in the same case we are to wit obstinately blind for you grant that all of you ranke doubting of your Religion among mortall sinnes that is you all teach that it is damnable to doubt of the truth of any thing you belieue to be reuealed of God Hence it followes that seing you must resolue neuer to commit damnable sinne that you must neuer examine the grounds of it at all for feare you should be moued to doubt or if you do you must resolue that no motiues be they neuer so strong shall moue you to doubt You see your argument agaynst vs turneth vpon your selues and proueth you are obstinate and blind and in danger of the Ditch as much as we are 3. And do not you further teach and contend that it is damnable for you to doubt of the Doctrine of Diuels if you belieue it to be Diuine Reuelation Pag. 99. n. 122. l. 22. If by the discourse of the Diuel I be I wil not say conuinced but persuaded though falsely that it is a Diuine Reuelation and shall deny to belieue it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretique For he that belieues any thinge to be a Diuine Reuelation and yet will not belieue it to be true must of necessity belieue that God is false which according to your doctrine is the Formality of an Heretique You who teach that he who will not belieue and he that will doubt will not belieue that thing to be truth which falsely by the persuasion of the Diuel he belieues to be Diuine Reuelation is a formal Heretique and a blasphemous wretch you I say that teach this who will not wonder how you could be so inconsiderate as to make vs damnable because we resolue not to doubt of that doctrine which by the Tradition of so many Christian Ages by our Pastours and Ancestours men renowned for Learning Sanctity Miracles for expelling of Diuels for conuerting of nations hath been deliuered persuaded vnto vs to be reuealed of God That your Protestant VVay to be firme to no Religiō but still in motion and change is damnable §. 2. 4. ABout your selfe and your being vngrounded and vnsetled in matters of Religion thus you write and sincerely professe pag. 278. lin 29. I truly for my part if I did not find in my selfe a loue and desire of all profitable truth if I did not put away idlenesse preiudice and worldly affections and so examine to the bottome all my opinions of Diuine matters being prepared in mind to follow God and God only which way so euer he shall lead me If I did not hope that I eyther do or endeauour to do these thinges certainly I should haue litle hope of obtayning Saluation Here you professe that neither Christian Religion nor any truth thereof hath been as yet firmely rooted or deepely by the fingar of God printed in your heart You declare your soule to be a Blanke noted with no Religion but prepared for any which to you shall seeme of God to wit you are ready to belieue not absolutly but as most probable for the present but resolued neuer to belieue God so firmely as to ranke doubting of what you haue receaued as his word among mortall sinnes 5. That this your practise implyeth doubting of all Christian Religion I proue because you professe to question and examine all your opinions of Diuine matters to make an if or a doubt of the certainty and truth of them all that is you examine them prepared in mind to leaue them all and euery one if vpon trial they seeme to you false But among your opinions of Diuine matters your persuasion that our Christian Scriptures and doctrines are Diuine oracles and Gods word is one for you hold the Diuinity of Scriptures