SalvatioÌ„ from the faith of the most ancient primitive Church Seeing your Formula fidei contrived by Pope Pius the fourth hath made all the canons of the councill of Trent necessarie which I am sure neither you nor any man shall be able to show to have been the faith of the most Ancient and primitive Church Though this hath been put to you once and againe yet have you not dared to touch upon this string Yea Fifthly from this your imposing new necessary articles of faith whereas Regula fidei as Tertullian well sayed Lib. de velandis Virgin Una omnino est immobilis irrefomabilis many of our Divines have demonstrated your Church to be the most Schismaticall society that bears the name of a Church under Heaven For by this you have cut your selves off both from the ancient Church and from the greatest part of Christendome at this day Among many others who have convicted you of this greivous crime you may try how you can expede your self from that which hath been said to this purpose by Decter Morton in his booke intituled The Grand Imposture of the Church of Rome cap. 15. by Stilling fleet in his Vindicatione of the Bishop of Canterbury part 2. cap. 2. And Voetius in his Desperata causa Papatus lib. 3. From this it were easy to demonstrat that notwithstanding your great pretences to Catholicisme we not ye are the true Catholiks For we acknowledge coÌ„munion with the whole Church both ancient modern which keep the essentials fundameÌ„tals of Christianity But your Chuch by imposing new necessary articles of faith which neither the ancient Church nor yet the greatest part of the present Church did ever acknowledge have cut your selves off from the body I shall close this Section with this Dilemma Either the Scriptures doe containe all that is necessarie to Salvation or not if they doe then you are a perverse wrangling sophister in cavilling against this truth If not then instance one necessary truth not contained in Scriptures And this should have been your worke if you would have done any thing to purpose against this precious truth of the Scriptures being a compleet Canon to have showed some Necessary article of faith not contained therein And if you set to this worke remember that according to your own principles you must prove it by some infallible authority which you will find as hard a worke as to roll Sysiphi Saxum In place of your third objection you enquire What are the means for interpreting Scripture what is the due use of these means Whether a false Religion may not use the meane And whether people without preaching can duely use the means of interpretation and come to the knowledge of all things necessary And from the use of meane of interpretation you would conclude the Scriptures not to be perspicuous Behold now of a disputant you are become a Querist You have need I confesse in your old dayes to turne a Catechumen and if you would become a docile Disciple you might receive convincing instructions and find that you had no just cause to have turned a Runnagade from the Religion of PROTESTANTS unto which you were baptized But so long as your Queries proceed from a cavilling humor you deserve no other answere then the retortion of some puzling Queries as our Lord Christ sometimes confuted the insidious interrogaturs of his adversaries A remarkeable instance whereof you may find Luke 20. from verse 2. to verse 8 And therefore to pull down these Spider webs in which you seeme not a little to confide know First that the use of means of interpretation doth nothing derogat from the asserted Perspicuity of the Scriptures especially seeing the principall means of interpretation are to be fetched from the Scripture it self Suppose a man be in a darke Roome with his eyes shut because he must first open both eyes and windowes before he can see the Sun will you therefore accuse the Sun of obscurity Is not the Perspicuity of Scriptures luculently attested Psal 119. vers 105.2 Pet. 1.19 2. Cor. 4.3.4 Rom. 10.7.8 c. If Scriptures be not perspicuous in things necessary it must be either because GOD would not speake clearlie in them or because he could not It were too hard blasphemie to say he could not Who made mans mouth Exod. 4.11 Hence Laâ—tantius lib. 6. Institut cap. 21. Num Deus linguae mentit artifex lâ—â—uinâ—n potest Nor can you say because he would not seeing this is the verie end of Scripture to reveal unto us the way of Salvation Iohn 20.31 Rom. 15.4.2 Tim. 3.15 Dare you say that our holy and gracious Lord did purposlle deliver the whole Scripture obscurely as Aristâ—tle did his Acromaticks and therefore said of them Edidi non edidi You might have learned a better lesson from Ierom on Psal 96. Where he makes this difference betwixt the writings of Plato and the Apostles Plato said he purposlie affected obscurity that few might understand but the Apostles wrote clearly that they might accommodat themselves to the capacities of all the people of GOD. But Secondly Are not you Romanists as much concerned as we in finding out the means for interpreting Scripture yea and besides to find out also means for interpreting the Decretalls Bulls and Breves of your Popes Are you not acquaint with the perplexed debates of your Authors and particularlie how Stapletons eleventh booke de Principiis fidei Doctrinalibus is wholly spent De mediis interpretandi Scripturam And when all is done you Jesuits can never think your Roman cause sufficiently secured except your Pope be made the onely Infallible Interpreter of Scriptures and therefore Gregorius de Valentia lib. 7. De analysi fidei cap. 1. Proposes this assertion as that which he would prove throughout the whole booke Pontifex ipse Romanus est in quo authoritas illa residet quae in Ecclesia extat ad judicandum de omnibus omnino fidei controversiis And though in his Lib. 8. he mentions diverse rules in determining controversies of faith yet at last he concludes in Cap. 10. That the Pope may use these according to his discretion and that he is not tyed to take advice of Cardinals or other Doctors but according to his pleasure and that he may desyne as Infallibly without them as with them So that till the Scripture have no libertie to speake any thing but what sense your Popes are pleased to put upon it you can never secure either your Pope or Papal Religion from Scriptural Anathema's Were it not easie for me here to give you and the World a Specimen of goodlie expositions of these your infallible interpreters I meane your Popes such as Syricius Innocent the third Boniface the eight c. They who can expound Statuimus by Abrogamus and Pasee â—ues meas of deposing and killing of Princes what Glosses can they not put on scriptures By this it may appeare that this your Querie like all
for that purpose Iansenius Gandavensis in Concord Evang. cap. 55 is of the same judgement as also Aegidius Coninck tom 2. de sacram disp 19. dub 1. num 3. so likewise Suarez Cornelius a Lapide Carleton c. As for the other place your great Cardinal Cajetan is as expresse in denying that any solid ground for your Sacrament of Extreme Vnction can be drawn from the words of the Apostle Iames. Hear himself on the chap. 5. of Iames Nec ex verbis sayeth he nec ex effectu verba hac loquuntur de Sacramentali Vnctione sed magis de Vnctione quam instituit Dominus in Evangelio à Discipulis exercendam in agros And thereafter the Cardinal brings diverse Arguments to prove this his Assertion If it be true as certaine it is which Bellarmine and many other Romish Doctors have affirmed that the Vnction spoken of by Marke is not a proper Sacrament then neither is the Vnction spoken of by Iames a proper Sacrament For both are one as not only our Divines have proven by comparing the places and answering the Arguments brought by Bellarmine to diversifie them but also the same is acknowledged both by Beda Theophylact O Ecumenius as testifyeth your Iesuit Becan part 4. theol scholast tract de sacram cap. 27. quast 1. num 2. likewise by many Romish Doctors cited by a Lapide CoÌ„menton Marke 6.13 I shall only mention your famous Iesuit Maldonat on that same place who falls very sharplie upon them who would understand them of different Vnctions I adde fifthly that learned PROTESTANTS have demonstrated that the Vnction spoken of by Marke and Iames were in order to a miraculous healing of diseased persons On this account learned Chamier lib. 4. de sacram cap. 18. § 8. spared not to call it miraculosum extraordinarium Sacramentum A kinde of miraculous and extraordinarie Sacrament And Calvine comment in Iacob cap. 5. calls it Symbolum temporable a temporarie Symbole which was made use of in the Primitive Church so long as these gifts of healing continued But these having long agoe ceased by the confession of all Recedente gratia recedit disciplina The grace departing there is no more use of the ceremony I know your Romanists have some cavills by which they labour at least to pervert that place of James in favour of your pretended Sacrament of Extreme Vnction Should I now insist in examining them this Paper would swell to a nimious bigness and I confesse it hath already grown beyond my expectation Let it therefore suffice to advertise you that all these your Cavills are abundantly confuted to my hand by Chamier lib. 4. de sacram N. T. capp 18.19 By Doctor Fulk in his confutation of the Rhemists notes on James 5.14 and by other PROTESTANT Authours So that if in your Reply you repeat to me these old cavils and doe not confute the answeres given to them by our Authors you will discover your self to be a superficiary Theologue and unable to dive to the bottome of the Controversy To summe up all therefore this your greasy Vnction as now it is gone about in your Church hath no Scriptural foundation but it seemes to have too great resemblance to the practise of the Heracleonita a kind of Hereticks sprung from the Valentinians of whome Austine writes in his Booke ad Quod vult Deum cap. 16. Something also not unlike to this Irenaus testifies concerning the Valentinians themselves lib. 1. con hares cap. 18. And so much of your Extreme Unction Now it remaines that I take some notice Lastly of your pretended Sacrament of Ordination Know therefore that we PROTESTANTS doe cordially acknowledge that Ordination ought to be observed in the Church Yea learned Calvin lib. 4. Instit cap. 14. § 20. admits that in a large sense it may be termed a Sacrament So likewise have other our Divines as did Austin of old lib. 2. contra Epist Parmeniani cap. 13. and other Ancients Yet Calvin in the place quoted justly denyes as doe other reformed Divines that it ought to be reckoned among ordinarie and properly so called Sacraments Inter ordinaria sacramenta sayeth Calvin nou numero I shall desire you but to take notice of the ensuing Considerations And First how piteously are your Authours broken among themselves concerning the matter or visible signe of this pretended Sacrament You may take an account of this from your Jesuit Becan part 4. the dischol tract de sacram cap. 26. quaest 4. Where first he brings in Dominicus à Soto and Valentia affirming that the porrection of the instruments as of a Plater with Bread and Cup with Wine in the ordination of a Presbyter to be the only essential matter of ordination Then Petrus à Soto Ledesma Bellarmine Henriquez asserting both the Porrection of instruments and also Imposition of hands to be the essential parts of ordination But lastly Becan himself affirmes only Imposition of hands to be the essential matter of this pretended Sacrament and that the Porrection of the instruments is accidental thereto This is another specimen of your Papal Unity Doe you not perceive this fatâ—lity attending you that where you divide from us there you also divide among your selves Secondly therefore I would ask what you really make the visible signe in this Sacrament Is it only the Porrection of the instruments of which alone your Pope Eugenius the fourth speakes in that pretended Decree of the Council of Florence Or is it only the Imposition of hands or both Not the first for there can be no evidence of a divine institution thereof nor doth Scripture make mention of any such Porrection of instruments as is well observed by your own Jesuit Becan Nor the second for Imposition of hands is a ritâ— and action of the ordainer but no substantiall Element such as is requisite to the nature of a Sacrament And besides according to your Authours it is commone to other Sacraments such as Corfirmation and Extreme Unction How then can it be the sole and peculiar signe in this Sacrament Neither the third for the arguments which prove that the matter of this pretended Sacrament can be neither of these separately prove also that it cannot consist in both conjunctly The porrection of the instruments cannot be the matter of this Sacrament either in part or whole as not being of a divine institution neither Imposition of hands as being no substantial Element Thirdly that which your Pope Eugenius the fourth gives out as the forme of this Sacrament or words to be pronounced were never of divine institution The words he speakes of at the ordaining of Presbyters are these Accipite potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesia pro Vivis Mortuis Where have you a divine institution for these words Nay they are manifestly repugnant to the Scriptures of GOD for they suppose Ministers to be Sacrificers of a proper propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of Living and Dead The absurdity whereof and repugnancy
be false and absurd And offered to doe the like concerning other controverted Scriptures such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matthew 16.18 Upon this Rocke I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of Truth c. This I did in the Answere to his seventh paper from page 126. to page 130. But all these he waves as tedious Digressions in his eight paper page 148. I resolved also to try his behaviour more particularly in reference to Antiquity and therefore in the Answere to the Iesuits eight paper from page 169. to page 173. I produced seven articles of the present Romish Religion which I briefly shew to be repugnant to the faith of the Ancient Romish Church viz. Their Adoration of Images Their Transubstantiation Their Communion under one kinde The Popes Supremacy Their mantaining the Apocryphal bookes to be Canonical Scriptures the Papes usurped Jurisdiction over Princes and their Indulgences for easing Soules under the paines of Purgatory But this is all the Answere which the tergiversing Jesuit makes to these particulars in his paper 9. page 176. What makes it to our purpose your digressions about Images about Transubstantiation about Communion under one kinde about the Popes supremacy about Apocryphal bookes about Indulgences Purgatory c. I gave likewise some account of their corrupting the Morals and Practicals of Christianity by their impious doctrine of Probables in the answere to his eight paper page 162. 163. c. But to this he answered Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem nothing at all The rest of his rergiversing Preteritions I must leave the Reader to collect by his own observation Did ever I pray an ill cause fall into the hands of a more unhappie Advocat Whether now my charge against the Iesuit as on that declynes to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity be just let him who who ponders these particulars and peruseth all the Papers judge Had I tergiversed as the Iesuit hath done had I been left at such disadvantages as he would they not have made the World ring with it What ever answere shall be returned to me Our Popish Apostats will be ready to entertain it with Plaudire's as if the field were wone But I hope they who are judicious will hereafter lesse regard their clamours having such experience of their triumphing when their Champion had behaved himself in such a piteous fashion Our Romanists are pleased to boast that how soon these papers come abroad they shall have an Answere tripping upon their heels Indeed I have eased them of much labour by publishing all these papers Have they not had a good opportunity these six or seven moneths wherein they knew thir papers were at the Presse to prepare supplies for Mr. Dempsters omissions Have they not many hands and heads to furnish them materials little worke to divert them from scribling Yet they would take heed lest through preposterous hâ—ste they fall into Mr. Dempsters errour to leave the chiefe of their worke behind them My designe ever was rather to contend with them in solidity of reason then in Celerity of dispatch Diu apparandumest bellum ut vincas celerius If Romanists be as speedy in their Reply as they talke will it not discover that they apprehend some danger to their ill Cause from these papers If their speed be not answerable to their boasting will it not be an evidence that they are large as good at boasting as at argueing All the courtesie I crave from the ingenuous Reader is to allow me an equal hearing with the Adversary So as when he is to passe judgement betwixt us he consider an equal number of his papers and mine Here there be ten of either side presented If now Sentence should be past neither of us could complaine that we had not ben heard But if Romanists adde their eleventh paper then ought not any further sentence be suspended untill my Reply be heard The Iesuit having the first word doth not the last de jure appertaine to me Yet if the eleventh paper run in the same trifling and tautologizing strain with the former I plead no Suspension My heart bleeds for our straying Apostats some falling to rank Popish Idolatrie others to the delusions of Quakerism which if learned and judicious persons be not mistaken is but Popery under a disguise However O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears to weep day and night over these deluded Soules under whatsoever Denomination they goe O that their eyes were opened to see the Sin the Scandal and Danger of their way It might be of some use to speak of the Causes of so great a Defection had not these Papers already swelled to such a bignes I shall therefore only transiently hint at a few And First There is alace an innate Principle of Levity and Instability in peoples hâ—arâ—s so that they are ready to be Tossed to and frolike Children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 If the heart be not established by grace The 〈◊〉 siâ—eration of this should humble all and make us jealous our own hearts and watch unto Prayer lest we fall into temptation Secondly Seducers have usually a wonderfull insinuating faculty Rom 16.18 By good words and faire speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple By smooth words accommodated to the complexion of these with whom they deal they steal away their hearts as is said of Absolon Yet they in a manner fascinat and bewiâ—ch them as is the Apostles expression Gal. 3.1 And now these decenfull workers as they are termed 2 Cor. 11.13 have taken an unusuall boldness upon them to intrude into all companies where they have any hope of prevailing These therfore who would eschew their Contagion would shun their fellowship as they would shun Persons smitten with the Plague for the Words of Seducers doe eat as a Gangren 2. Tim. 2.17 The Apostle Iohn would not breath in the same aire with the Heretick Cerinthus but sprang out of the Bath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayeth Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 25. How soon he perceived the Heretick to be there Thirdly As Hereticks are high and specious in their pretences so also bold and peremptory in their Asseverations The Romish Emissaries talk bigly of the Church as if none had an interest in the Catholick Church but these of their way The Quakers take us great a latitude to boast of the Light and Spirit God forbid that we should derogat from the necessity or efficacy of the Spirits working or from the due esteem to the Catholick Church nay I hope our hearers know we speak more to the just advantage of both then either Jesuit or Quaker But besides these vain and specious pretences these men are very confident in their Asseverations Though they cannot solidely prove any of their Erronious Positions yet they will affirme the truth of them boldly and be ready to Anathematize
conformitie to the will of GOD revealed in the Scriptures and this conformitie hath a sufficient intrinseck objective evidence in it self to any who have a well disposed understanding to collate and compare these two together to observe the exact correspondence betwixt the one and the other This likewise may be illustrated by your own example of Honestie and Knaverie An Honest-man being one whose actions are squared according to the Law what ever a Knave may pretend yet when both are compared to the Law the honest-Mans conversation is found to be that which the Law enjoineth not so the Knaves So that this honestie which is the conformitie of his actions to the Law hath an intrinseck objective evidence to demonstrat it self to any discerning Person who can compare the mans actions with the Law So it is in the present case Yet besides this intrinseck objective evidence which is in true Religion I doe not deny but there are many externall and accessorie Grounds which stronglie perswade its credibilitie Having thus paved my way I come to examine your Syllogisme which runes thus That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the PROTESTANT Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo it cannot be a true Religion Answere 1. I might here first friendly advise you to take better heed hereafter to the forme of your Syllogismes For both your Premisses are Negative and ye know the Logick rule sayeth ex ntraque premissa negativa nihil sequitur But I shall endeavour to help this by improving your medium in a better forme and I hope also to better purpose against your self and your Romanists thus The true Religion hath a peculiar ground and principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Popish religion hath no peculiar ground and principle to prove that it is a true religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Popish Religion is not the true Religion Hade ye intended to satisfie the conscience of any Persone you would have held forth these peculiar grounds and characters of a true Religion which is conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of God and ye would at least have endeavoured to demonstrate that thes did exactly quadrat with your Romish Religion and not at all with the Religion of PROTESTANTS But as to this there is nothing but deep silence in your paper Before you make good your retreat from this Argument as thus inverted against your self ye may perhaps find that ye are taken in the ginne which ye designed for others Ans 2 But Secondly I wold try you with another Retersion thus If the true Religion have grounds and principles to prove its conformitie to the true sense of the letter of the Word then no article of Faith and Religion can be founded upon an unwritten Tradition But the first is true Ergo c. The Minor is clear from the Major of your Syllogisme The consequence of my Major is no lesse clear For it is impossible that an article founded meerly upon an unwritten Tradition should prove its conformitie with the letter of the written word of God else it should be written and not written Nor can ye handsomely resile by saying you did thus only argue ad hominem against PROTESTANTS For this your Syllogisme you deduce from your foure premised propositions which ye suppose ought to be agreed to by all Parties Now what thankes you are to expect for this manner of arguing from your late Pamphleters who doe so highly magnifie your unwritten Traditions ye your self may judge Ans 3. But Thirdly leaving Retorsions I Answer directly denying the Assumption viz. that the PROTESTANT Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a true Religion and conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Nay surely it hath that intrinseck objective evidence in its conformitie with the Scripturs to demonstrate it to be the true Religion of which I was speaking a little before which neither Poperie nor any other false Religion either hath or can have But now it lyes on you as the Opponent to prove your Assumption It seemed strange to me that this Proposition whereon the whole stresse of the Controversie didly was so nakedlie proposed by you without any proofe Onely it would appear because it is a Negative you would lay over upon me to prove the contrarie Are ye so soon wearie of the Opponents office who were so eager to have it Find you the burthen of impugning the Religion of Protestants so heavie that so soone ye shrink under it Are there no Negative Propositions proved in the Schools Doth not Philosophie teach us more Moods and Formes of Negative Syllogismes then of affirmatives Shall there be no way to oppugne an affirmative position but by turning the Respondent to an Opponent Yea let me put you in minde that though your assumption and conclusion be expressed Negativly yet upon the matter we doe rather mantaine the Negative and you the affirmative Which I thus make out If any consider our Religion and yours it will be found that in most of our Positives ye and we are agreed As that there is a GOD three Persons that Christ is both GOD and man c. But the difference is mostly in our Negatives As for instance Ye affirme the necessitie of a visible infallible judge of controversies we deny Ye affirme the necessitie of subjection to the Pope of Rome as head of the catholick-Catholick-Church we deny Ye affirme that there is a propper propitiatory sacrifice in the Masse we deny Ye affirme that the Apocrypha books are Canonick Scriptures we deny Ye affirme that Saincts are to be invocated that Crosses Images and your Sacramentall Hosty are to be adored we deny Ye affirme a Purgatorie we deny c. In all these and such as these we mantaine the Negative and ye the Affirmative yea and these are your Superadditions unto Scripture truths And consequently when it is demanded whether that which we or ye mantaine in these particulars be agreeable to the sense of the Scriptures The meaning is whether doth the Scripture hold these things out or not Ye affirme and we deny Therefore according to the saying that Affirmanti incumbit probatio It lyes upon you to find out the exact measures of the true Religion and the peculiar Grounds which doe evidence its conformitie to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and also to demonstrate that these Grounds cannot agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS Bellarmin Gretser Valentia and others of
whol structure of your Syllogisme which is the marrow of al you have hitherto said You have bestowed many years if my information fail not in studying this your rare Syllogisme Could you not in all that space have put it In modo figura But it seemes you will take as many years to prove either the Major or the Minor thereof But so much hath been said to these things before that now I shall adde no more least I should seeme Cum Batto balbutire In my first three Papers I required you to prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme But this like a Thersites you still declined which I could not but looke upon as an evidence that you succumbed in your probation I did likewise appeal you to produce a ground of the true Christian Religion which doth not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But neither durst you adventure upon any Hereupon I might have turned my back upon you as a smattering fellow wholly incapable to mantaine a Theological debate But to render you the more inexcusable and to convince all to whose hands these Papers may come how desirous I was to have the truth examined I condescended Ex superabundanti though not tyed thereto by rules of disputing to produce in my fourth Paper Two irrefragable grounds by which the truth of Religion may be examined Viz The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation And Conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Christian Church Hereupon I have urged with all the earnestnesse I could in my Fourth fifth and sixth Papers that both your Religion and ours might be brought to these Tests and examined thereby namely both by Scripture and Antiquity But you like one who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self condemned knowing in your conscience that it is a wicked cause which you doe mantaine have still declined And the scop of this your seventh Paper is yet to decline the examination of Religion by either of these grounds But Veritas non quaerit angulos It is he who doth evill that hates the light Joh. 3.21 Yet have you the impudencie in this your Seventh Paper to say that after many toes and froes now I have produced two grounds as if either I had delivered some inconsistencies or had been driven to produce these grounds by force of your arguments or that now only in my last Paper these grounds had been first produced All which are manisest untruths Is this your gratitude to him who had so liberally gratified you with the production of these grounds When you were clearly at a Nonplus The two grounds which I produced I did prove in my Fourth Paper to be solid and sufficiently distinctive of the true Religion from a false and from them I did demonstrate the truth of our Religion and the falshood of yours for Rectum est sui obliqui Index but you have not once dared to examine these arguments While therefore you hold on in this your tergiversing way it might be enough for me to say to you with the Poet Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua Ought you not either to acquiesce to these Grounds produced by me or to produce others more solid especially you being the Opponent But yet once more I offer against you to disput the truth of our Religion both from Scripture and Antiquity and shall withall examine the scurvie pellucid and tergiversing evasions which you have made use of in this your seventh Paper You repeat here againe your three cavils against The Perspicuity of Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation or rather your three cowardly subterfuges to decline a Scriptural tryal but without any confirmation deserving a review I should the more patiently have borne with these taudologies had you been pleased for clearing the state of the controversie betwixt you and us to have delivered the judgement of your Romish Church concerning the Perspicuity of the Scripturs I told you the judgement of PROTESTANTS and shew you how they are injured by your writers I required you with the like plainness to set down the judgement of your Romish Church and the rather because your Authors are found to be inconsistent with one another in this matter And though I have looked upon your ablest Controversists namelie Bellarmin lib. 3. De verbo Dei cap. 1. Gretser In defensione capitis primi libri tertii Bellarmin De verbo Dei and Stapleton lib. 10. De principijs fidei cap. 3. Yet can I not find one Canon of a Council produced by any of them as to this particular Would they not have done it if they had any Doe you not manifest to the World you play the jugler when you dare not adventure to tell the judgement of the Romish Church even in that against which you doe so eagerly cavil You think you have disgraced all that I have writen by calling it A heap of digressions copied out of controversie bookes I find you indeed still better at calumniating then at arguing If my Paper did containe any impertinent Digressions why doe you not particularize them But I have already unfolded the Mysterie That which you cannot answere must be branded as a Digression to palliat your ignorance I acknowledge I have improven against you somewhat of the writings of Ancients of Schoolmen and of modern Coutroversists both of your side and of ours nor am I hereof ashamed This I hope is not the base Plagiarie trade which I leave to your Iesuits as being better acquainted with stealing other mens Papers Have you not heard how your famous Iesuis Antony Possevin did steal from Doctor Iames a learned PROTESTANT his Cyprianus redivivus and put it in his great Apparatus under his own name for which you may find how sharply he is chastised by Doctor Iames in his excellent treatise concerning The corruption of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Prelats Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome Part. 2. page 9.10 Goe trace backe all the Papers which I have sent to you and see if you can fix any such trespasse upon me As for you I confesse we have no cuase yet to accuse you of ripping up the bowels of many Authors All the Authority wherewith you have hitherto loaded us is Master Dempsters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You need not fear that any thing which as yet hath come frō you will be standered as Olens lucernam you onely ramble out any fleeing tergiversing Shifts that come first In buccam as a man who minded not to dive into the controversie However once yet as I have said I will trace your footsteps In your first Cavill you alleadge that The Perspicuity of the Scripturs cannot serve as a distinctive character of the Religion of PROTESTANTS from a false except I first prove that the PROTESTANTS have the true letter and translation and true sense of the letter To which you say I answered nothing but remitted you to our PROTESTANT Authors Here we
But all these My five answeres you passe so accurat an Antagonist are you except one branch of one reason in my Fourth Reply which also you misrepresent For you propose it as if I bad granted that a catalogue of necessarie truths could not be drawne up which you will not find in all my Paper That which I said was Cannot this general be proven that all things necessarie are contained in the Scripturs unlesse a precise catalogue of them be drawn And I brought sundrie instances to prove that an universal proposition might be proven without an induction and enumeration of al the particulars Yea your self here confesses That when an universal proposition is revealed or that revealed from whence it may be deduced then the universal proposition may be beleeved though the beleever cannot make an induction of particulars Whereupon I subsume But in Scripture that is revealed from which it may be concluded by firme consequence that all things necessarie to Salvation are contained in Scripture Ergo by your confession it must be granted that this universal proposition ought to be beleeved That all necessarie truths are contained in Scripture though a particular induction of these truths could not be made The Assumption is easily proven by all these Scripturs in which it is held forth that the Scripture is sufficient In suo genere as a rule to bring us to Salvation which you will find accumulated by our divines in the controversie De perfectione Scripturae And I instanced some of them in my last Paper purposlie to preoccupie this poor evasion of yours though you have not had the boldnesse to medle with them Hence Austin in Epist. 166. In Scripturis didicimus Christum in Scripturis didicimus Ecclesiam And Lib. De unitate Ecclesi cap. 3. Non audiamus haec dice haec dicis sed haec dicit Dominus Sunt certe libri dominici quorum authoritati utrique consentimus utrique credimus utrique servimus ibi quaeramus Ecclesiam ibi discutiaemus causam nostram And a little after Nolo humanis documentis sed divinis oraculis Sanctam Ecclesiam demonstrari And in cap 19. Vtrum ipsi Namely the Donatists Ecclesiam teneant non nisi de divinarum ScripturaruÌ„ libris canonicis ostendant The evidence of these testimonies made your own Stapleton In lib. 1 De principiis fidei cap. 24. To say Ecct apertissime dicit Augustinus in Scripturis quaerendam esse Ecclesiam ex ipsis Scripturis demonstrari Ecclesiam Hoc sane totum verissimum est So sayeth your Stapleton This truth is so clear that Theodoret was bold to say Dial. 1. Noli mihi humanis ratiocinationibus obstrepere ego enim in sola divina Scriptura acquiesco Dial. 3. Non adeo confidens sum ut ausim aliquid affirmare quod Scriptura silentio praeterit And Austin de bono Viduitatis cap. 1. Sancta Scriptura nostrae doctrinae regulam figit But perhaps now you think to betake your self to that subterfuge which you foist into the second edition of this Objection Giveing and not granting say you that all things necessarie to Salvation were clearly revealed in Scripture yet doth it not follow That all these things which the PROTESTANT Religion holds as necessary are clearly revealed therein But this poor evasion discovers grosse ignorance and inadverrence in you For if you had remarked what I have said in the explication of the termes in my First Paper you would have seen this preoccupied There I told you that by The Religion of PROTESTANTS we understand onely The True Christian Religion as revealed in the holy Scripturs And consequently where ever these things are revealed which are necessarie according to The True Christian Religion there also the necessarie points of Our Religion are revealed And to evidence that the Religion of PROTESTANTS and the True Christian Religion is the same produce if you can any one point which we hold as necessarie to Salvation which is not necessarie according to the True Christian Religion revealed in Scripture and I professe I will instantly disowne it and I know so will all ingenuous PROTESTANTS I Therefore warned you from the beginning when you undertooke to impugne our Religion that you undertooke the cause of an infidel namely to impugne the Christian Religion Hence some have well observed that they who would speake properly should not terme our Religion the PROTESTANT Religion but the Religion of PROTESTANTS It is not Religio PROTESTANS but Religio PROTESTANTIVM or the True Christian Religion professed by them who doe reject and protest against Popish errors and inventions Since therefore all the points that are necessarie to Salvation according to the True Christian Religion are revealed in Scripture as hath been confirmed by luculent testimonies both of Scripture and Antiquity for I will not be addebted to you for your Concessions then all the points which the Religion of PROTESTANTS holds necessary to Salvation are therein likewise revealed And consequently as you would beleeve all the pieces in a purse to be upright Gold if it were attested to you by a sufficient authority So you may beleeve all things necessarie to Salvation to be contained in Scripture this being attested by divine authoritie Or if you will not acquiesce to all this evidence of reason produce one article necessarie to Salvation or acknowledged by us to be such which is not contained in Scripture Let it be brought to the Touch-stone and examined But it seems ye Jesuits are more exact in trying your pieces of Gold then points of Religion For your pieces of gold must either have the Attestation of a sufficient authority or be brought to the Touchstone But you can take the points of your Religion Implicitly upon trust and your interest so bribes your judgement and affections that you will not come to the tryal by which the cheat may be discovered In your third Cavil you had propounded sundry idle Queries concerning the Means of interpretation of Scripture insinuaâ—ng That the use of these means is inconsistent with the Scripturs perspicuity In reply whereto I First not onely shew That the perspicuity of Scripturs was nothing impeached by the use of means of interpretation but also did prove both from Scripture and reason the Scripturs to be perspicuous Secondly I remembred you that your Romanists were as much concerned as we in resolving the questiones Concerning the means of interpretation of Scripture and besids that they were tyed to find out means for the sure interpretation of Canons of Councils Buls Breves Decretals of Popes many wherof ar purpostie contrived like Appollo's dubious Oracles to ludifie the Reader Thirdly I shew that PROTESTANTS devised no new Means of interpretation which were not still approven by the Christian Church and therefore to avoide prolixitie I remitted you to Augustin His foure books de Doctrina Christianâ— and withall to sundrie famous PROTESTANT Authors particularly to Chamier Whitaker Zanchre and Gerard to whome now I
with too too much successe I Know Master Cressy finding that this his assertion had given offence to sundrie Zelots of you Romish Church published afterwards an explicatioÌ„ of these words But what an unhandsome dis-ingenuous retreat he made is judiciously discovered by Master Tillotson In his booke Entituled The Rule of faith part 2. Sect. 4. Where also he showes that the same principle of infallibility hath been contradicted by Whyte Holden Rushworth the late pleaders for your Traditionarie way You may see more of the Contradictions of your Iesuit-Party who contend for the infallible assistance of your Propounders and the late Patrons of your Traditionarie way held forth by Master Stillingsleet in his Appendix to Tillotsons Rule of faith § 10. And you may try how you can reconcile these your intestine discords about the ground of your faith before you expect others to close with either of you But you not dareing to reply to any of these foure forementioned particulars studie onely though in vaine to extricat your self from Two contradictions wherein I left you enwrapped The First was this If all supernatural faith be founded on the previous assurance of the Propounders infallibility then the first assent to this infallibility most presuppose the previous assurance of this infallibility as being an act of faith and not presuppose it as being the first assent to this infallibility To this you answere not without your usual reproaches of ignorance as if forsooth you were an illuminat and profound Doctor you answere I say That the prerequired knowledge of the Propounders assistance you meane infallible Is not an act of faith but an evident assent founded on the motives of credibility But this miserable subterfuge affords you no help For First either you meane that all the assent which is given to the Infallibility of your Propounders is Evident founded upon the Motives of credibility or beside that pretended Evident assent you hold also that this Infallibility is beleeved by an Assent of divine faith If you meane that it is onely known by that pretended Evident Assent then the Infallibility of your Propounders should not at all be De fide or an article of faith Consequently it should be no Heresie to deny or impâ—gne the Infallibility of your Popes or Councils so the very foundatioÌ„ of your Romish faith should be overturned If therefore you say that beside this Evident assent the Infallibility of your Propounders is also beleeved by an assent of divine faith then either that Assent of faith is resolved into the previous pretended Evident assent or not If it be resolved into it then your Assent of faith should be Divine faith Ex hypothesi for such you suppose it to be and yet not Divine faith as being ultimatly resolved into that pretended Evident Assent and having for its Formal Object these Motives of Credibility which according to you are Evident and so not a proper Formal Object for an assent of Faith but in very deed as shill after appeare they are but fallacious grounds of this pretended Infallibility If therefore againe to evite this Contradiction you say that this assent of Divine faith is not resolved into that Previous evident assent then that previous Evident assent contributs nothing to cleare the maine difficulty wherewith I urged you which was to hold forth the Formal object which moves you to give the first Assent of divine Faith to the Infallibility of your Propounders which I call upon you to doe if you can But I beleeve you will find that no ground of such an Assent of divine faith can be assigned without contradicting either your self or Scripture or evident reasone Let but the Credentials of your Propounders be impartially examined and it will appeare that the Faith that you give to their infallibility deserves not the name of a prudential Humane faith let be of a Divine faith Any judicious man who is versed in your Controversie Writers may see all the starting holes to which you can rune But I wil wait til I see to which of them you doe betake your self lest you should say that I fight with an Adversarie of my own devising Now onely I shall desire you to consider this Demonstration à posteriori Your Propounders have certainly erred De facte and Dogmatically both in Cathedra Extre Cathedram as I shew in my Sixth Paper therefore it is impossible to assigne a solid ground why their Infallibility should be beleeved by a Divine faith unlesse your divine faith be of such a nature that by it you may assent unto falshoods But Secondly I adde this that the whole foundation of your subterfuge is a grosse falshood namely that there are Motives of credibility which doe evidently conclude the infallibility of your Propounders Produce if you can these Motives and frame your arguments from them and I undertake through the grace of GOD Sub periculo causae to discover the falshood and fallacie of them In the meane time lest you runne from the point let me remember you that the Question betwixt us is whether there be such Motives of credibility which doe Evidently prove your Propounders to be Infallible And therefore take heede you digresse not to speake of the Motives which perswade the Credibility of the Christian Religion For the Christian Religion may be Credible though we have no previous assurance that your Propounders are Infallible Could I find an evident demonstration of the Infallibility of any Propounder I should instantly captivat my understanding to such a Persone Demonstrat therefore from your Motives of credibility that your Propounders are Infallible and produce a solid Formal Object of the first Assent of faith thereto and I shall ingenuously acknowledge that you have made your escape from the Contradiction objected to you But if you doe not demonstrat their Infallibility as I am sure you cannot be you as ingenuous on the other hand to acknowledge that you are shut up in a Contradiction as in yron chaines and that thither you are led by the Principles of your Religion From these things the impertinency of your example taken from Attrition and Contrition may appeare First because it is clear from Scripture that Attrition doth usualy goe before Contrition But that an assurance of the Infallibility of your Propounders must goe before every act of Divine Faith can no way be proven either by Scripture Reasone or your Motives of credibility as shall be made evident Solutione argument or 〈◊〉 Next because Attrition and Contrition have distinct and assignable Formal objects as is both confessed by your self and might be luculently also cleared from Scripture But the Formal object of this first pretended Assent of divine faith to the Infallibility of your Propounders is not assignable as hath been shewed already It might here be a divertisement to the Reader to give an account of the Vertigo of your Authors concerning these Motives of credibility They who are curious may find a
did come to my hands the fourth of November and I doe not wonder of your long silence of near three moneths for it is patched up of so various and copious Digressions copied out as it seems of Controversie bookes that you will scarce find one of twenty that will take the paines to read only over And to make it grow you have adjoined a long and tedious discourse about Real presence which appearingly is the substance of all you taught your Scholars this last Year But all this your painful labour for so many moneths is lost since as alwayes I have protested to you that I take no notice of things out of the way Neither will begiune any other thing before we have fully ended the maine point This debate was occasioned of a continual Railing made by you in the Pulpit againes Catholick Religion but with such ingenuity out of that your Chaire of Verity that in place of Catholick Dogmes to be impugned you did often substitute and propone in a ridiculous manner to the people Problematick opinions holden by some Scholastickes and Casuists as manifestly appeared out of the conference we had by mouth Whether this did proceed out of gross Ignorance or Malice or out of both I remit to your self Seeing that you did show so great fervour in skaring your Auditors from Catholick Religion you were desired to confirme them in their own Religion by produceing some solid but special ground and principle whereby might be proven the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion And though in the beginning under the pretext that you had onely the Defenders part you stood stiffe not to be obliged to this Yet because you saw that it could not consist with the reputation of a man in your place to play altogether the Dumme in a matter of Religion of so great concernment as is the putting in question whether the PROTESTANT Religion be a True Religion or not lest this declineing should be imputed either to your ignorance or to the want of positive grounds after that with defuse digressions of all sorts you did runne your self as it were out of breath At long lang length you were forced to have your recouse to the Old jock trot that your PROTESTANT Authors teaches you to wit that your Religion is proven to be true by this Medium or principle because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture As containing perspicuously all things necessarie for mans Salvation This then being by your own confession the chief and most plausible ground for the truth of your Religion you are desired to lay asid all other things hold you at this precisly until you make it good and proportion at to confirme your own PROTESTANTS in their Religion You say â—â—en that your Religion is proven to be a True Religion because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture But it cannot be showen that it is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture excep first it be showen that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make this good you must first produce some special ground or principle whereby a judicious man may be reasonably induced to think that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture that is to say the sense intended by the holy Ghost For as it is impossible that a thing be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed that there be a true sense so it is impossible to show or prove a thing to be conforme to the true sense except it be first shown and proven that there is a true sense Al then that is required of you is that you produce some special ground or principle to make it appeare that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture since all the rest depends upon this onely one thing and that the ground which you produce to prove this be such as cannot equally serve to prove a false Religion acknowledged by your self for a false Religion to have the true sense of the letter of Scripture And this incumbes upon you if you will vindicat your Religion from this foul note that there can be shown no difference betwixt it and a false Religion And consequently that it is impossible that your Religion can be shown or proven to be a True Religion And it is expected that you will performe this with a clear Substantious Laconick and School-way laying altogether aside your diffuse reviling Pulpit way It is fatal to you to close your Paper with braging and praising your self and extolling your own answeres and withall to undervailne all that is brought against you but this as other things doe not reach to the maine point Mr. IOHN MENZIES Answere to the Iesuits eight Paper Some Animadversions upon Master Dempster alias Rind or Logan the Iesuit his eight Paper wherein he so shamlesly tergiverseth that he answeres not to one word of that which was replyed to him HOW now you Thersites Have you so shamlesly deserted the Scene Is your Syllogisme which Seven times you had repeated in Folio now relinquished without proving either Major Minor or justifying the Forme thereof Had you nothing at all to say for your Cavils about Acatalogue of necessaries the Rules of interpretation of Scripture the Infallibility of your Propounders or your Motives of credibility nor yet the ingenuity to acknowledge your self to be overcome by reason Are all your whisperings why the truth of Religion may not be examined By its conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Church silenced and yet dare you not comit your cause to the tryal Is it a sufficient confutation of what was replyed to you to say that the Prolixitie of the Reply would outwearie the patience of the Reader Would such a complement have been taken from Whitaker and Chamier as a sufficient confutation of Bellarmin's Vast volumes What a lazie Drone are you who could hardly digest the paines of reading two poor sheets of Paper Had I not so far condescended to your dulnes as to give you a confutation of all your Seven Papers in two words Could I be more Laconick Did I not put it in your option either to deale with the Large Paper or with these Two Words Could you neither read nor confute Two Words Are not you fitter to be a Neat-Herd then a Disputant Doe you not deserve that very character which Melâ—hior Canus puts upon the author of your Golden Legend Lib. 11. Loc. Com. cap. 6. Where he cals him Hominem ferrei eris plumbei cerdis a man of a brasen face and a leaden heart that is both shamless and witless Doe you not nobly act the part of a Champion for your Romish Cause who in stead of a consutation of a Polemick discourse stricking at the foundation of your Papal Superstition doe substitute a calumnious reflexion upon the first occasion of the debate Who
is now guiltie of the impertinent Digression you or I the Reader may judge All the colour you could put upon this shameless and cowardly tergiversing is That it seemes say you These large discourses of mine are copied out of controversie Writers But why would not you copie an Answere thereto out of your controversie Writers Why at least doe you not name The Authors with whom I had made so bold Especially I having in my last given a particular instance of the Plagiary trade of Jesuits and appealed you if you could to convict me of the like cryme If you put me to it I will rip up yet more of their sores of this nature Could the confutation of all your Papers in Two Words be copied from any Author But I had so brow-beaten this cavil before that like a self condemned Malefactor who to use Tertullians phrase is Acorde suo fugitivus you dare not now positively affirme it only say you It seems But I wil deale more squarely with you You not onely seeme but really are an effronted calumniator If you take ill with this freedome learne henceforth to affirme no more then you are able to prove Had it not been to cleare a little of the matter of Fact against these your lying representations of the first occasion of this debate I had not denzied a returne to this your impertinet Paper wherein you have not answered one word that was replyed to you But I am the rather moved to examine these your calumnies because it is long since I heard that Scurvie Lybels to this purpose were disseminated by persons of your professioÌ„ and now I find that by this your Paper you doe homologate the same reproaches Yet no to notice these diffamatorie Pasquils which no man durst owne I shall at the time only discover the falshood of some few of your allegeances in this your Eight Paper And First you say That this debate was occasioned by our continual railing against your pretended Catholick Religion As if it were our custome to charge your Religion falsly with these things which you doe not mantaine A great crime I acknowedge if it were a truth But why did you not for the satisfaction of the Reader and our conviction instance some of these falshoods Doe you not hereby manisest the calumniating genius by which you have been acted all along Know therefore that we PROTESTANTS hold it not lawful to lie for GOD. Job 13.7 The truth of GOD needs not mens lies to support it Did I see that the PROTESTANT cause could not be mantained without calumnies and falshoods I should instantly disowne it as not being of GOD. I reckone it my mercie that I have been helped in some measure to give a faithful testimony against the Abominations of Poperie and wil account it my duety so to doe while I live I have inded said it from Pulpit and I hope I have also made it good that your Romish Doctors have corrupted much both of the Dogmaticals and Practicals of Christianity And what I have said herein I shall be readie through the grace of GOD to mantaine not onely against such an Ignoramus as you but the whole unhallowed crew of Jesuits This hath been often charged upon you and demonstrated against you by our Divines But because I see you are not for large Volumes I shall remit you at present onely to a little but learned tractare to this purpose writen by Doctor Jeremy Taylor Entituled A Dissuasive from Poperie But what Doeth a Jesuit accuse us of Railing Doth not the World know that persidious lying and equivocation are the Piae fraudes the holy I should have said Hellish Chears whereby their cause is mantained Have they ever been able to wipe off those staines which Watson their own Romish secular Priest fixed upon their societie in so much that he is not afraid to say that Lucian Machiavel yea and Don Lucifer might goe to school and learne Satanical practises from your Jesuits And as for you is it not too too apparent by all these your Papers that you serve for nothing unlesse it be to rail and lie like a Shimet At arguing have you not proven according to the Proverb Quaesi asinus ad lyram Remember therefore that smart admonition Matth 7.5 Thou Hypocrite first cast the beame out of there own eye then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brothers eye You are pleased Secondly to say That in stead of impugning your Catholick dogmes as you terme them We propound to the people and that in a radiculous manner so gravely forsoth doe you occuse us Problematick points out of your Casuists and Schoolmen If you Iesuits were not Persons Effrontis imprâ—bitatis linguae effrauis habituated in confident asserting of lies would you not have examined the truth of this report before you had given it under your hand Whether we behave our selves ridiculously in Pulpit grave Auditors can witnesse Indeed if the Supremacie of your Pope and the infallibility of your Church if your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Masse it your Adoring of Images and invocating of Saincts and Angels if your Purgatorie and Praying for the Dead c. If these I say and such as these be the Problematick points you speake of Them I confesse we doe publickly propound and solidly confute If these be onely Problemes which a man may innoceÌ„tly affirme or deny why for opposing these doe you Romanists anathematize PROTESTANTS Why have you brunt so many of them alive and cruelly imbrewed your hands in the blood of so many thousands of them Sometimes I deny not occasions may occurre of speaking concerning the particular tenets of some of your Doctors But then judcious Hearers can beare us witnesse for we teach nothing in a corner that we no otherwayes represent these then as the judgement of such Doctors This appeared when I was confuting from Pulpit that impious tenet which I suppose is the Probleme you hint at of many of your Doctors That a sinner is not bound by the law of GOD immediatly after he hath sinued to repent For in Pulpit I did onely charge it upon many of your Doctors But though we be so ingenuous in representing the tenets of your Doctors I shall desire you to confider what a staine and reflexion these impious tenets of particular Doctors among you leave upon your Romish Church Are they not published with the approbation of your Authorised Licencers of books as containing nothing Contrary to the Catholick Faith Are either Authors or Licencers of the books censured by your Church Have not your Expurgatoris indices deleted much better stuffe in the writings boon of Ancient and Moderne Authors whereof you may find many examples in Doctor Iames his excellent booke of The corruption of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Prelats Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome part 4 But the impious tenets or your Casuists and Schoolmen stend uncensured with the
Verdict of Pope Gregorie the first concerning the deed of Serenus Bishop of Massils for breaking the Images which he saw abused to Idolatrie Lib. 9. epist 9. Et quideus quia eas adorari vetuisses emnino laudamus Hereupon your Cassander in Consult art 21. De picturis sayeth he Quae fuerit mens sententia Rom iuae Ecclesiae adbuc aetate Gregorii satis ex ejus scriptis manifest um est viz. Ideo hiberi picturas non quidem ut colantur adorentur sed ut imperiti picturis inspiciendis haud aliter as literis legendis rerum gestarum admonerentur Yea the Council of Eliberis câ—x 36. More ancient as is supposed then the Nicen expresly prohibited the drawing of pictures in Churches But to manifest how little regard you Romanists have to Antiquity when it playes not to your Tune your Melchior Canus lib. 5. loc Cont. cap. 4. Speaking of this Ancient Canon sayes Lex illa non imprudenter modo verum etiâ—â—â— impie a concilio Elibertino est lata de tollendis imaginibus Inst. 2. Your present Romish Church pantainet that prodigious and bloody tenet of Iransubstantiation in the Sacranent Not so the Ancient Romish Church As appearet by the withâ—g of Gelasius Bishop of Rome contra Nestor Et Eutych in tom 4. biblioth Patrum where expresly he sayes Non desinit substantia panis vini This testimony is so luculent that your Cardinals Bellarmine and Barronius would question whether that Tractat were writen by Gelasius Bishop of Rome although it passe under his name in Bibliotheca Patrum and would ascrive it to another Gelasius Cyzicenus or Caesariensis But you may see these allegeances learnedly consured by Doctor Iohn Forbes of Corse in his Iustruc historico theol lib. 11. cap. 16. And giving but not granting that there allegeances were true yet that Gelasius Cyzicenus as also Caesariensis are acknowledged to be Catholick authors and more ancient then Gelasins Bishop of Rome And the same which Gelasius asserts of the tem â—oiâ—g of the substance of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is affirmed by other ancient and Catholick Authors particularly by Tâ—endoret dialog 2. Hence your own Scotus if Bellarmine may be credited Lab. 3. ' De Euâ—har cap. 23. Acknowledged that Transubstantiation was no article of saith before the late Lateran Council under Innocent the thâ—d Anno. 1215. Inst 3. Your present Romish Church mantaines the publickâ—solemne and ordnarie celebration of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper under one kinde Not so the Ancient Romish Church As appeares by Pope Leo the first who in his Seâ—m 4. de quadragesim condemnes the partaking of the Bread wiâ—â— out die Cup as a Manichean abomination Hence your Cassanâ—er in consult art 21 De administratione sacro sancti sacraments Eucharistiassatis compertum est Vniversalem Christs Ecclesiam in hanc usque diem Occidentaelem vero seu Romanam mille ampiâ—nâ— Ã Christ annis in solcr ni praesertim ordinaria hujus Sacraments dess ensatione utrainque paris vins speciem omnibus Ecclesiae Christs merâ—br is exhâ—luâ—sse â—d quod ex â—â—umeris veterum Scriptorum tam Graecorum quam latinerum testimonâ—â— manisestum est Bus seeing I mentioned Pope Leo's sermons let â—â—â—â—member you that Ancient Bishops of Rome such as Lce and Gregorie c. were Preaching Bishops not so your Present Popes Yea your Bellarmin to apolog zâ— for these your Idol shepherds hath not spared to say Lib. 3. De Pont. Rom. cap 24. Non tenentur Pontifices per se concionars Satis est st curent per alios ista prastari If they Preach onely by Proxies take heed they goe not to Heaven onely by prexies also Have you not heard how your Espencaus and others of the more moderat sort among you have bitterly lamented this prophane and lazie desuetud of preaching in your Popes Inst 4. Your present Romish Church mantaines the Popes universal suprcamacie and his Title of universal Bishop Not so the Ancient Romish Church As appeares by Pope Gregorte the first his many invectives against that title as a title of Noveltie Error Impiery Blasphemie c. I give you but two testimonies from him I be one is In lib. 6. Aepist 30. Ego fidenter dico quisquis se universalem sacerdotem vocat vel vocari desiderat in elatione sua antichristum praecurrit quia superbiendo se caeteris praeponit The other is In lib. 4. Aepist 36. Nullus decessorum meorum hoc prophano vocabulo universalis Episcopi uti consensit Thus your verie Popedome it self whose vitals seeme to consist in this Vniversal supreamacie is condemned by the Ancient Church of Rome Hence Cyprian with eightie and seven Bishops in an African council sayeth Neque quisquam nostrum Episcopum se esse episcoporum constituit aut tyrannico terrore collegas suos ad obsequends necessitatem adigu Where he cals it a tyrannical terror for one Bishop to impose on others Inst 5. Your present Romish Church mantaines the Apocryphal bookes to be canonical and of equal authority with the undoubted Seriptures of GOD. Not so the Ancient Romish Church As any eares by lerome and Gregorie if your own Occam may be credited In Dialog part 3. lib. 3. can 16. Secundum Hieronymum sayeth he Et Gregorium liber ludith Tobiae Maccabiorum Ecclesiasticus liber sapientiae non sunt recipiendi ad confirmandum aliquid in fids This same you will find copiâ—â—sl deâ—â—onstrated by Doctor Cosin in his Scholastical historie of the canon of Scripture Inst 6. You Jesuits who are the prevalent faction at the present in your Romish Church and your Canonists mantaine the dominion and jurisdiction of your Pape over Princes So did not the Ancient Romish Church As appeares by Pope Gregorie the first who thus writer to the Emperour Maurice lib. 2. epist 61. Sacerdotes meos tuae manus commisi Utrobique ergo quae debui exsolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro DEO quod sensi minime tacui Know you not Bernards inference from the Apostles word Rom. 13.1 Let every Soul be subject to the higher Poriers writing to a great man of your Romish Church Siomnis anima tum vestra quis vos excipit ex universitate si quis tentat excipere tentat decipere And have you not heard of Chrysostoms enumeration long before him In epist. ad Rom. cap. 13. hom 23. Sive Apostolus sis sive Propheta sive Evangelista sive Sacerdos subditus sis Inst 7. Your present Romish Church mantaines Papal indulgences for easing soules under the paines of Purgatorie Not so the Ancient Romish Church For there is no mention of such indulgences in al Antiquity Nay so novel is that invention that they are not mentioned either by Gratian or Lombard who were so verie diligent in gathering up al your Romish chaffe and stuble Hence your Durand in 4. sent disp 20. quaest 3. § 4. Sayeth De indulgentiis pauca dici pissunt per
true Ergo c. The Sequel of the Major you dare not but admit unlesse you mine Insidell and deny that the true Christian Religion hath solid grounds to prove its conformity with the Scripture And for the probation of the Assumption you cannot but allow me that measure against you which you allow your self against me and therefore I appeale you to produce any solid ground which the True Christian Religion hath which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth Yea or any solid ground which you Râ—â—anists can pretend to for confirmation of your Religion which we want You have never adventured to name any but the pretended Infallibility of your Propounders But this we have so battered to you that now you have stolen fom it not daring to mention it againe in any of these your Two last Papers Nay Fourthly I must remember you of a Dilemma ad Hominem against you Romanists which you might have gathered from my last If we deviat from the sense of holy Scripture then it must be either in our Affirmatives or in our Negatives Not in our Affirmatives you and we agreeing in most of these Therefore either in these we have the true sense else you have it not Nor in our Negatives else your contradictorie Affirmatives should be true But I proved in my Last that in many of these you doe manifestly erre as contradicting the Ancient Romish Church particularly in your Adoration of Twages Transubstansiation Communion under one kind The Poper suprexmatie the Canonicall authority of Apocry ha bookes The jurisdiction of the Pope over secular Printes your papall Indulginces at extended to Purgarotse And I am readie to prove the falshood of the rest of your Super-induced articles when ever you have the confidence to come to a particular tryall But I am utterly discouraged from multiplying more instances against a tergiversing fellow who is neither moved by credit nor conscience to examine what is replyed to him Fifthly seeing you shun to tell a ground by which the truth of Religion is to be tryed lest the Balfardie of your Religion should be proven I will give you a solid ground from a person of great fame in your Romish Gourcâ—â— though a Grecian by extract This is Goorgius Scholarius who pleaded for the interest of the Latine Church in the matter of the ProcessioÌ„ of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Son at the Councell of Florence Now this Scholarius tom 4. Conciliorum in Orat. 3. ad Concil Florent proposes these rules for determining controversies in Religion Et primo quidem sayeth he non decet velle omnia disertis verbis è scriptura desumere cum multos haereticos scimus pratextu hoc usos Sed si quid verbis it a prolatis sit consequens adaeque erit honorandum similiter quod veris confessis fuerit repugnans contrarium nullo modo est admittendum deinde eorum quae obscurius dicta sunt sumendae sunt è scriptura ipsa veluti magistra explicationes per ea quae uspians clarius illa disserit Where this learned Author holds these foure choise Positions for discerning betwixt truth and error in Religion to all which we PROTESTANTS doe cordially agree The First is That all divine truth are not revealed in so many words in Scripture Secondly that some divine truths are plainly set downe Diserris verbis and what by firme consequence is deduced from these ought to be beleeved and received with the same respect as these which are delivered In terminis Thirdly whatsoever is repugnant to these truths which are plainly Diserris verbis set downe or confessed upon all hands ought to be rejected as erroneous Fourthly that these things which are more obscurely treated of in Scripture are to receive their explications from other cleare Scripture as the Mistres of our faith These grounds so laid downe he afterwards accon modaâ—s to his present Hypothesis for decyding the controversie betwixt the Latine and Greek Church concerning the procession of the holy Ghost and may by the same measure be applyed to the controversies betwixt us PROTESTANTS and You Romanists If therefore you will dire to adventure upon the tryal of particular controversies betwixt you and us according to this standard I trust you shall see if prejudice doe not blind you that all the points of the Religion of PROTESTANTS are either revealed in Scripture plainly and In terminis or the by solid consequence are deduceable from these which are revealed In terminis And on the contrary that your Supe irauce Romish article wherein we differ from you are neither In terminis in Scripture nor yet by solid consequence deduceable from these things which are clearly revealed in Scripture but on the contrarie are repugnant thereunto I hope therefore the intelligen Reader wil observe that if you descend not to a particular tryal it is not because a ground was not assigned to you from discerning truth in Religion from error but from diffidence of your desperat cause Onely that you doe not returne to your usual trifling Cavill that Hereticks and those of a false Religion may pretend the same grounds for justifying their Heresies let me tell you that Hereticks may indeed pretend a patrocinie from these grounds which upon examination will overturne their cause And therefore what I say to you I say the same of all other Hereticks Socinians Pelagians Nestorians Aâ—â—baptists Antinomians c. That if they will come to a particular discusse according to these premised rules what ever their pretences be it shall appeare that their Heresies are neither In terminis contained in Scripture nor yet are deduceable by solid reason from these things which are clearly revealed but are repugnant thereunto Sixthly I answere Directly to this your Cavill by this Distinction If you meane that PROTESTANTS or whatsoever society acclaiming the True Religion before they prove the truth of their Religion or the conformity thereof to the true sense of Scripture must first produce one ground proving all the senses which they give in Scripture In cumulo to be true without a particular examination of the several senses and points of Religion mantained by them that I say is a grosse falshood and mistake For a Society may professe the true Religion and mantaine all the essentialls the cof and yet as I told n my last have some errors mingled in with these 〈◊〉 as our Dâ—vines have demonstrated in the Question Nom Ecclesiâ— possit errare Therefore if this be your mâ—â—ning it concernes you to have proven it for I doe and in my Last I imply did deny it But if you onely meane that PROTESTANTS or others acclaiming the truth of Religion must either have the essentials and all truths in their Religion plainly and In terminis revealed in Scripture or else solidly deduceable upon a particular discusse from these things that are so plainly revealed I grant it freely that it ought and must be so And therefore it you will
to these ages as not to goe further After we have gotten the verdict of the First three Centuries I shall not then declyne to trace you successively through all succeeding ages to this day And I am confident upon a through discusse it will appeare that Your present Romish Faith as to all its Essentials was never the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age let be in All. And upon the conttarie neither you nor any of your Adherents shall be able to prove that our Religion differs in Its Essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age Now in such an enquiry can we fall upon a more convenient Method then to beginne at the fountain I meane at the most pure Ancient and according to Egesippus Elogie Virgin Church in the First three Centuries If our ReligioÌ„ be found conforme thereto in all Its Essentials as I am coÌ„fident it shall then sure it is conforme to the True Catholick Religion in all ages If yours be found dissonant thereto as I doubt not but it will then sure it is dissonant to the Christian Religion in all ages For there is but one faith Eph. 4.5 and one True Religion But Secondly you have the boldnesse to upbraid me with Two contradictions Only before I propose them I must minde you that neither of these pretended Contradictions are in my Ninth Paper to which you now answere So glad it seemes you have been of any thing to fill up the roome wherein you should have answered that Ninth Paper If my Former Papers were guilty of these ContrÌ„adictions were you not very obtuse who did not discover them more timely Yet let the unpartiall Reader judge of these Contradictions The first alledged contradiction is That upon the one hand I should have affirmed Religion to be a complex of many truths which are to be severally tryed as the severall pieces of gold in a purse and that I would descend to the severall particulars yea and that all points necessary to salvation were contained perspicuously in Scripture Yet when you called me to give a list of all these particular points then I disclaimed my former example of a purse and alledged that I was not obliged to descend to particulars I see now I was in no mistake when I said that you walked by that Machiavillian principle Calumniare audacter c. Resume all my Papers and see if ever I refused to descend to a tryall of any particular Controversie betwixt you and us Yea have I not all this time been pressing you to this and you dared not to peep out of your lurking holes Have I not passed through many of the Controversies in particular to which you have not adventured to make any Reply Produce the page or leafe in any of my Papers where ever I disclaimed that forementioned example Of trying the severall peices of gold by the touch stone yea or one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that once I gave you under my hand But I shall ingenuoussy tell the truth of that which you so deceitfully misrepresent and when I have done contradict me if you can I said indeed That Religion is a complen of many truths and to prove them all as matters are now stated bemint us and you Remanists were to write a body of controversies But yet that I should never decline to examine any of those with you And I have further said that all the necessarie points af Christian Religion were contained perspicuously in the Scriptures But when you in stead of comeing to a discusse of parâ—â—cular points only started that old threed bare Cavill Concerning a precise catalogue of necessarie points I shew That it was but a meer tergiversing shift in you and demonstrated by many reasons which you was never able to answere That there was no necessitie lying upon me in order to the decision of the maine controversie at present betwixt us to determine a precise Catalogue of necessarie truths You may call in for your assistance the rest of your Society and try if you can find a reall Contradiction in all this Indeed if I had promised to give you a Catalogue of points necessarie to Salvation and hereafter had refused to give it oâ— if since I declared a readiness to debate with you any point in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and the Church of Rome I had declined to performe my promise you might have accused me of Inconsistencie with my self Or if haveing â—ffiâ—med that all things necessarie to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture I had denyed any article of faith necessarie to Salvation to be contained clearly in Scripture you might have charged me with a Contradiction But you and your Associats may canvase what I have said againe and againe and try if you can find either a Contradiction or that I have declyned any thing that is necessarie for the decision of the present Controve sie Cannot all the points in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and Pomanists be particularly examined without Desyning a precise catalogue of truths simplie necessarie to Salvation Have I ever said that everie one of your Romish errors is Fundamentall Or that no points of truth are clearly revealed in Scripture but only Fundamentals or such the explicite belief whereof is absolutly necessarie to Salvation Nay I tell you that on maine reason why I did and doe forebear for the time to pitch upon such a Catalogue was because I stand now to justify the Religion of PROTESTANTS against your Cavills But the Reformed Churches in their Harmony of Confessions have not so farre as I have observed determined that Precise Catalogue of necessaries So that in pirching upon such a Catalogue at the time I should leave my worke to follow a tergiversing vagrant Yea some of our Divines particularly acuâ—e Chillingworth in his booke entituled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation part 1. cap 3 § 13. Affirmes that more may be necessarie to the Salration of some then of others And therefore to call for a precise catalogue of points necessarie to the Salvation of every one were as if one should call for a Dyall to serve all Meridians or for a coat to serve the Moon in all her Changes You may likewise remember that I shew in my Sixth and Seventh Papers that Romanists are no lesse concerned to give a Catalogue of necessaries nor exposed to fewer difficulties in doing it then we and that in this matter your Authors have been often Non-plussed by PROTESTANT Divines For you have made points Necessarie which the Ancient and Catholick Church never held as Necessarie And so have separated your selves from the Catholick Church of IESUS CHRIST But to let you see that I am still ready to performe what ever I undertooke pitch you upon any point controverted betwixt the Reformed churches and You whether belonging to the Essentials or Integrals of Religion that is whether simply necessarie to Salvation or not and you shall find that I
on him to none of which you have answered one word But though you snake away in the dâ—â—ke when you are Non-plussed and though your scutvie behaviour merit no Answere yet for the satisfaction of others into whose hands these Papers may fall I Answere there was a Church on Earth with which Luther had visible communion For clearing whereof By having visible communion I understand that there was a visible societie who did professe the same Religion which Luther did as to all the essentials thereof If you ask what that Church was I answere the Catholick visible Church And doe not wonder that I speak of a Catholick Church as distinct from your Roman There was a Catholick Church before there was a Church at Rome and the Church of Rome in her greatest integritie was but a part of the Catholick When therefore Luther departed from the present Apostatick Church of Rome because of her imperious usurpation upon the Catholick Church he retained Communion with the rest of the bodie who did never submit to her usurpations For when Luther did brake off from Rome there remained foure gaeat Christian Patriarchships disunited from Rome viz of Constantinople Antioch Alexandria and Ierusalem Whatsoever Christians therefore under any of these Patriarchships or in other remot Nations have not ruinated any Fundamental Article of the Christian Religion and are united to the True Catholck head of the Church the LORD IESUS CHRIST PROTESTANTS doe professe Communion with all these I doe not deny but there may be some differences betwixt us and other Churches as to some Integrals of Religion But diversitie of Integrals makes no different Religions so long as the Essentials remaine the same You may learne if you know not from Hoornbeck beside others in his Summa controversiarum lib. 11 de Graecis pag. 978. c. Edit 2. how Iosephus Patriarch of Constantinople sent Demetrius a Deacon of that Church to Wittemberg in the year 1559. to enquire into the state of the PROTESTANT Churches and how Demetrius after an half years abode at Wittemberg carried with him to the Patriarch a câ—piâ— of the Augustan Confession translated into Greek by Philip Melanchton under the name of Paulus Dâ—lscins You may also learne from the forecited Author how Hieremiaâ— another Patriarch who afterward sat in the same Chaire kept correspondence by letters with the PROTESTANT Divines at Tubing from the year 1574. for a long time thereafter And though they had there own debates about some particular points which your Stanislaus Socolovius labours invidiously to exaggerat ye both the Patriarch himself doth give GOD solemn thanks That the doctrine of the PROTESTANTS was in so many things consonant to the doctrine of the Greek Church And likewise Johannes Zygowalas a person of great account with the Patriarch in his letter which he wrote to Martine Cruzius in the year 1576. declares that it may be evident that the Greek Church and PROTESTANTS doe agree In continuis causam fides praecipue continentibus articulis or in the most important articles of the Christian faith and that in other things they may easily come to agreement and the rather as Stilling fleet in his Rational account of the PROTESTANT Religion part 2. cap. 8. § 15. relates out of the same letter from David Chytraeus de statu Eccles Orient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That is Since neither party doth agree with the Bishop of old Rome or with the church which joines with him but both doe oppose the evill customes brought in by him Have you not heard how Cyrill Patriarch of Alexandria wrote to George Abbat Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1616. and did commend to him a Student Metrophanes Chrysopulus to be bred in the Vniversities of England and to be farther instructed in our Religion And accordingly the said Metrophanes did avoid Romish Superstition and alwayes joine with the worship of the Church of England as is testified by Doctor Morton in his Grand imposture of the Church of Rome cap. 14. sect 3. The Letters exchanged betwixt the Patriarch and the Arch-Bishop you may find published in Ephraim Pagitts Christianography edit 3. part 3. You may read also in the forecited booke of Hoornbeck of the respect which Meletius Patriach of Contstantinople had for the PROTESTANT Churches and of his aversation of the Bishop of Rom's usurpation But above all memorable is the Confession of saith put forth by Cyrillus Lucaris Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 1631. in the name of the Greek Church exactly conforme to our Reformed Religion for which your bloody Jesuits did persecute that Holy Matyr to the death I know that this his Confession was afterward distallowed by Cyrill Berrhoeus and Parthenius two factious and bloody men who by ill means got into the same Chair whome Hoornbeck spares not to call Pseudo-Patriarchs But besides that they shortly suffered for their villanies being disgracefully as the same Author testifies ejected from their Patriarchships the Lord also stirred up another Parthenius in the same Chair to vindicat the fame and cause of Cyrillus Lucaris The aversation which the Greek Church have of you Romanists is sufficiently known to the World At the time that one Testimonie of your Prateolus in Elench haeres lib. 7. tit de Graecis pag. 202. might suffice Where he sayes of the Grecians Summum Pontificem Christi Vicarium omnesque Latinos pro excommunicatis habent that is They looke upon the Pope of Rome and all these of the Latine Church who adhere to him as persons excommunicated To wich you may joine that of Alphonsus à Castro lib. 6. de Haeres tit de Eucharistia haeres 2. Where he not only testifieth that the Greeks doe anathematize Latinos omnes all who are of your Latin Church but also that they Will not permit your Priests to consecrat on their Altars or if they doe it at any time with out their knowledge or coÌ„sent they wash their Altars before they coÌ„secrat on them as judging them polluted by your Priests Nay further Ephraim Pagit in his Christianography Part. 1. cap. 4. branches forth the agreement of the Greek Church and many other Oriental Churches with the PROTESTANT Churches in the chief heads wherein we differ from the Papists But because some Heresies destroying the Foundations of Christianity are objected to these Churches such as the Denyall of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Son to the Greek Church and Nestorianism to these under the Patriarch of Mosal and Eutychianism to many others I shall remit you to see what is particularly said for the vindication of the Greek Church by Doctor Field in his way to the Church Lib. 3. cap. 1. Where he undertakes to show both from Greek and Romish Doctors of great fame I hat the difference betwixt the Greek and Latine Church touching the procession of the holy Ghost is meerly verbal Yea and he endeavoures to clear many other Oriental and African Churches from Nestorianism
and Eutychianism The same also is confirmed by Ephraim Pagit in his Christianography part 1. cap. 10. where he likwise undertakes to prove that these Churches are not Heretical but Orthodox in the maine But concerning the vindication of the Greek Church in particular at least from a Fundamental error touching The procession of the holy Ghost I shall referre you to learned Stilling fleet in his Rational account of the PROTESTANT Religion part 1. cap. 1. I know your Cardinal Barronius in the end of the Sixth tom of his Annals labours to perswade the World that an Embassy was sent to Pope Clement the eight from Gabriel Patriarch of Alexandria submitting himself and all the Churches under his jurisdiction both in Egypt and Abassia to the Pope But as learned Breerwood observes in his Inquirie about the diversitie of Languages Religiones Cap. 22. this upon examination was found to be a meer Trick of imposture Yea this cheat is acknowledged not only by your Historian Thuan lib. 114. ad annum 1595. but also by Thomas a Jesu the Carmelit De conversione omnium gentium lib. 7. cap. 6. pag. 364. Have you no way to perswade the World of the Catholicisme of your Church but by such Impostures I might besides remember you of the Waldenses and Albigenses a people nearer hand who professed as to Substantials the same Religion with PROTESTANTS long before Luther Yet we never looked on them or Luther or Calvine as the Authors of our Religion as you doe rantingly talk For it derives its Original from Christ alone and his Apostles Prove it to be of meaner or latter extract and I will disowne it I know the Waldenses were loaded with grievous aspersions by the Zealots of the Romish faction as if they had been Arrians Manichees Necromancers and what not But they are abundantly vindicated from these Calamnies by learned Divines out of the writings of Authors who cannot be suspected to have been too favourable to them I shall only at the time remember you of that known testimonie of the Inquisitor Reyner concerning them Quod coram hominibus juste vivant bene omnia de Deo credant omnes articulos qui in symbolo continentur Solum Romanam Ecclesiam blasphemant oderunt That is They live justly before men they believe all things well concerning GOD and all the Articles of the Creed Onely they hate and blaspeme the Church of Rome You may judge of the rest of the Calumnies thrown upon thâ—m by these two chief ones whereof learned Prideaux lect 9. De visibilitate Ecclesiae § 11. gives this account They were sayeth he charged as mantaining with the Manichees Due Principia Two beginnings of things GOD and the Devil because forsooth they mantained that the Emperour was independent from the Pope They were likewise sayeth he charged with Arriantsme because they denyed Crustam in Christum esse transubstantiatam That a crust of bread was transubstantiated into Christ in the Sacrament You may see a large vindication of them in Vsser De successione Ecclesiarum in Occidente ab Apostolâ—rum temperibus ad nostram aetatem capp 6 8.10 Let it suffice at the time to remember you that he cites cap. 10. pag. 373. edit 2. luculent testimonies out of Paradius Annals of Burgundy and Girardus French Historie that because of their freedome in reproving the dissolute life and debauched manners of the Romish Clergie Plures nefariae eis assingebantur opiniones à quibus fuerunt omnino alâ—eni That is Many impious opinions were atributed to the Waldenses which they altogether abhorred I might also make mention of these in Bohem who were termed the Hussits to whome Hoornbeck in the forcited place testifies that the Church of CoÌ„stantinople wrot a letter in the year 1451. exhorting theÌ„ to CoÌ„munion with the Greek Church in oppositioÌ„ to the Bishop of Rome Yea your own Cochlaeus other Popish writers are quoted by Prideaux Lect. 9. § 11. acknowledging that the Lutherans derived their doctrine from the Hussits the Hussits from the Wicklevists the Wicklevists from the Waldenses When therfore ye are better instructed you will acknowledge that there Religion ours as to Substantials are the same But I may come yet nearer and tell you that Luther had Communion with many thousands who before his appearance were groaning under the corruptions of the Church of Rome and breathed after the shaking off the yoke of the Papal faction As beside others Doctor Field hath demonstrated in Lib. 3. of his way to the Church cap. 12. and more largely in his Appendix to that Third booke Thinke you the World to be strangers to the piteous complaints of Nicolaus Clemanges Alvarez Pelagius Theodoricus à Niem Gulielmus à Saucto Amore c. Concerning the Corruptions of the church of Rome Yea did not Pope Adrian the sixth acknowledge the necessitie of a reformation and that the World was hungrily expecting it I know your late Papal parasites would perswade us That it was only a reformation of manners and not of Doctrine which was groaned after in the church of Rome But the contrarie is luculently demonstrated by our Authors I shall at the time only remit you to Sir Humphry Lynd's defence of Via tuta against I. R. entiuled a case for the spectacles cap. 4. pag. 165. c. Where he bringes testimonies not onely from the Cardinal de Alâ—aco Gerson Grostead Occam and from the Council of Pisa but also from the Council of Trent it self to prove that before and about the first sitting down of that Council Romanists themselves were sensible that There was a necessity of reformation of doctrine as well as of manners Hence was it that so many thousands in most of the nations of Europe did joine with Luther at his appearance who did not only oppose The corrupt manners but also the Corrupt Doctrines of the Church of Rome Hence is that of your Alphonsus à Castro adversus haeres in Aepist nuneupat ad Pacâ—ec Cardinal Nec solus Lutherus hoc saculo prodâ—it sed multorum Hareticorum agmine ceu quodam satellitio stipatus processit qui illum tanquam ducem primo egredientem spectasse videntur Where he acknowledgeth that Luther came forth accompanied as with an Armâ—â— who but waited for his appearance as their Captaine and Leader But that I may shut up this Section had you considered how this Queriâ— is retorted by our Divines upon you I believe you would have spared it They ask where your Present Romish Religion as now it stands was before the council of Trent which was confirmed by Pope Pius the fourth Anno 1564. long after Luthers death Our Divines know that there were many corruptions in the Church of Rome before the Council of Trent against which the Waldenses the Wicklevists the Hussits Luther and others did witnes But the question now is Whether the then Church of Rome mantained all the points of Religion as necessary to Salvation which
your councill of Trent and your Pope Pius the fourth in his formula fidei have declared to be necessary to Salvation If she did then you may be pleased to produce evidences hereof wherein you may perhaps finde more difficulty then you are awarre of If she did not then is your present Romish Church a new upstart and Schismatical Church of a distinct faith from the Catholick Church in all ages You may notice how Doctor Field in the Appendix to his fifth booke part 2. cap. 2. goes about to prove that the Church of Rome is not now the same that it was before Luthers appearance Things being now defined as Articles of faith necessarie to Salvation which were not so before I sincerely professe the Noveltie of your Romish Faith and the Schismaticall constitution of your Church are not the least grounds of my disatisfaction with your Religion You may desire your Masters to calculate to you the Antiquity of the Romish Canons establshing the points following as Articles of faith viz First The equality of unwriten traditions with the holy scriptures of GOD. 2. That concupiscence in the regenerat is not properly sinne 3. The desinit number of seven properly so called Sacraments neither more nor fewer 4. The Popes supreamacie above general Councils 5. Your Indulgences and Purgatorie 6. The abstraction of the Cup from the people 7. Your Transubstantiation 8. The infallibility of the Church of Rome 9. The adoration of Images 10. The Popes jurisdiction over secular Princes Not to mention more at the time I believe you will find some of these latter then Luthers appearance Others but a little before and all of them not only short of Primitive and Aprstolick antiquity but notone of them within the Verge of the Three first Centuries You may if you will take a briefe hint of the novel dates of most of these Romish Canons from Drelincourt in his PROTESTANTS Triumph Discourse 2. from page 39. to page 52. As also of sundry of your ritualls such as the Procession of the Sacrament the feast of the Sacrament your Jubilees the Canonizing of Saints nay of your present Romish Missal and how lately it was received both in the Gallican and Spanish Churches c. Is it safe to venture the eternall Salvation of Soules upon a Religion so Novel both in its Articles of Faith and Rituals You have one Trifle more which I cannot let slip Because I have required you to prove the Assumptiō of that goodly Syllogism which ye proposed in your first Paper wherein you said That the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the sense of Scripture and to this day you have been able to bring nothing in Confirmation of it Now therefore when Arguments fail you you would try if you could bring your self off or creat Odium to your Adversary with a popular but reallie impertinent Example You say That I have behaved my self as if one should come as sent from the Council to require the Provest of Aberdene to apprehend a person suspect of Disloyaltie but when the Provest did demand his commission he should answere that he was not bound to show his Commission but his Commission was sufficiently proven by this that there could not be produced reasons to show that he had no Commission Is this the Scholastick method which you call for in stead of Arguments to substitute popular declamatorie Scenick examples which by a person of any Acuteness may be transformed into a thousand various shapes But seeing you will have the matter managed by Examples I must Examplisie time-about Suppose therefore First that a man were reallie Commissionated by the Secret Council to require the Magistrats of such a City to apprehend a disloyal person and for this effect did produce his Commission but the Magistrates did cavil at the sense of the Commission how luculent soever in it self alleaging that they could doe nothing upon that Commission untill the sense of it were cleared and that the sense of it could not be cleared without an infallible Expounder Would not the Secret Council have just cause to be moved with indignation against these Magistrates who had so ludified their Order And is not this the very case betwixt us and you Doe not PROTESTANTS still produce the Tables wherein the Ground of our Faith is contained Viz the Holy Scriptures Doe not we tell you if all our Religion be not found luculently there we shall disclaime it Is not this your verie Cavil that the Sense of Scripture is so obscure that without an Infallible Bropounder it cannot be understood Have you not cause then to feare the indignation of the Almighty who doe thus reproach the Scriptures of GOD and goe about to subvert the faith of his people suspending it till they get Propounders of whose Infallibility they must have an Antecedent and previous assurance whereas there are none such now on Earth The Fallibity of your Popes and Councils we did before demonstrat and you like a mute Advocat had not a word to mutter for them But Secondly in the case which you propose of a man pretending a Commission and having none and requiring the Magistrats to prove that he had none therefore the Rogue is justly blameable because he refuseth to prove the Affirmative which was incumbent to him and requires the Magistrats to prove the Negative But betwixt you and us the case is quite contrary For though you framed the Assumption of your first Syllogisme in Negative Termes yet upon the matter you refused to prove the Affirmative and required us to prove the Negative For what is it for us to prove the Truth of our Religion in points controverted betwixt you and us but to prove that there i◠no Purgatorie no Transubstantiation no Proper sacrifice in the Masse that your Pope hath no supreamacie over the Catholick Church that there Are not seven Sacraments that Saincts are not to be invocated nor Images adored c. All which are meet Negatives and so are the most of the points controverted betwixt us and you Now suppose that there were no Revelation from Heaven for Purgatorie Transubstantiation the Sacrifice of the Masse the Popes supreamacie c. Will not you confess in that Case that it were not duety to believe any of them and that then it were a sufficient Argument against them there is no Divine revelation produceable for these things therefore they are not to be believed and if any would obtrude the belief of them upon others that he were bound to produce a Divine revelation for them Now we PROTESTANTS mantaine De facto this to be the Case I would therefore demand of any rational man if there be a possibility to confute us but by produceing a Ground or Divine revelation for these things Are not you then guilty of the same Absurditie with the Knave in your own Example who refuse to prove the Affirmative and require us to prove the Negative But yet further