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B02310 An answer, to a little book call'd Protestancy to be embrac'd or, A new and infallible method to reduce Romanists from popery to Protestancy Con, Alexander. 1686 (1686) Wing C5682; ESTC R171481 80,364 170

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to find a Pastor for instruction or the receiving of a Sacrament in necessity And did not the chief Pastors expose themselves and so became Martyrs the first thirty three all one after another 2. If it be an Errable Church Visible or Invisible 't is as good as no Church to Christians for what I have said and shall say hereafter If a particular Church or Parish Pastor and People should be all the Week dispers'd here and there about their business would they be said to be an Invisible Church all the Week and onely Visible when they meet on Sunday Is it not enough that they can find one another on Week dayes in a necessity But truly 't is not enough to make a true Church Visible or Invisible if they have not among them true Doctrine as might full out in Protestants supposition of the Churches fallibility To show we can't prove the Infallibility of the Church from St. Pauls saying the Church is the Pilla rand Ground of Truth 1 Timot. 3. v. 15. He explains that passage thus The Church is the Pillar of Truth saies he because the providence of God will not permit all her Children to fall and Err but will always stirr up some to oppose Superstition Idolatry and Error Answer Either those who will always oppose Error and Superstition will be Members of the R. Church or not If they be Members of Her She will always oppose Error as when my Hand Writes I am said to Write and since we know our Saviour has foretold Iohn 14. v. 16. and c. 16. v. 13. That he will always direct Her by his Spirit of Truth 't will be impossible for Her by a consequential Impotency to Err. Likewise 't is impossible to compose a perpetual direction of the Spirit of God with Error If these Opposers of Error are a Church a part I ask whether that Church as distinct from the Roman be Fallible or Infallible If Infallible we have what we demand viz. That the teaching Church of God is Infallible If Fallible then the Church in as much as she opposes Herself to Error may Err which is absurd The Inference is proven thus In as much as she is distinct from the Roman Church she opposes Error and in as much as she is distinct from the Roman Church she is Fallible or may Err. Then in as much as she is distinct from the R. Church she opposing Error may Err. SECT IV 'T is not necessary the Infallibility of the Church be defin'd in a General Council yet it is in General Councils defin'd by a practical definition TO that he asks us in what General Council is defined the Infallibility of General Councils I Answer Asking him mutually first in what Parliament or Act of Parliament is it found declar'd that a Parliament hath a Power to make Acts oblidging the People If he thinks this Question Impertinent and that it would be Impertinent for a Parliament or an Assembly of Men if they were not otherways impowr'd to Assemble and make an Act by which they will have all to submit and acknowledge that they have a Power to oblige the People I desire him to Reason the same way of the Infallibity of a General Council and know that it has not ' its Infallibility from its saying we are Infallible but from God who has been pleas'd to declare it to us by Apostolical Tradition and in the Holy Scriptures also to those who read them with the Light which they have received from the Church of CHRIST As a Parliament then is fore-impowr'd to make Acts and acknowledg'd as such by the People afore they set themselves to make any so is the General Council acknowledged by all the Faithful to have a promise from God of not Erring in their Declaration of an Article of Faith afore they set themselves to declare it or by their Explication of a Truth to take away the Cloud that hindred us to see it I Ans Secondly that it is defin'd in all General approv'd Councils as much as it was necessary by a practical definition or their excercis'd power issu'd out by them in their oblidging Decrees always submissively receiv'd by the Faithful If you say some have refused to receive them my answer is they ceas'd from that time to be number'd among the Faithful Does not a King sufficiently declare himself to be King when he uses the Authority of a King in raising Armies and disbanding them calling a Parliament adjurning proroging or disolving it at his pleasure At last our Adversary brings a strong piece viz. that the General Councils are so farr from pretending to be Infallible Judges of controversial debates that in a set form of prayer appointed to be said atter every Council they pray that God would spare their Ignorance and pardon their Errors Ans I can't light upon this prayer Shall I come as good speed in seeking it as I did with Maximian the Arian Bishop He quots de ordin Cele Con. I desire him to write the Title of the Book at length or rather tell me at the end of what Council this prayer is found Since it is to be said after every Council would not the Council of Trent have it This Council which hath set down things so exactly would it have omitted this But now these Errors are either in matters given out to the People for Articles of Faith or not If not they make nothing against us If these Errors be in matters of Faith I ask are they invincible Errors or vincible if they are Invincible they are not Sinful and so need no pardon If they are vincible it is either by their diligence in using more means to discover the Truth or by an extraordinary assistance of God For this extraordinary assistance it is not in their power to have it and depends only of God For the other if they find themselves not to have us'd all necessary means let them use those they have omitted afore they publish their Decrees for what a simplicity and Impudence would it be to continue in the Error I can avoid and ask pardon for it and so having done what lay in them they will not stand guilty afore God nor in a need of pardon Rather say if some passage be found which may seem to have that sence that in the fore discussion of questions some fear themselves to have been too much wedded as is Natural to Man to their own Opinion these desire God to spare their Ignorance not having upheld their Opinion out of Malice and pardon their fault in this that they were not it may be so humble and deferent to others as they should have been If you say provincial Councils anatematize those who reject their decisions as well as General Councils and so no Argument can be taken from thence for the General Council's Infallibility I Answer Provincial Councils anathematize c. absolutly as the General Councils do I deny conditionally and with submission to