what is the notorious Tradition of all the Christian world I that search after it in all the books that I can get can scarce give a good account of the Tradition of much of the greater part of Christians Nay no Universal Tradition at all is notorious to most Christians much less to all the Heathens and Infidels on earth It is not notorious to most in England what is the Tradition of the Abassians Syrians Armenians Greeks no nor of the Italians French Spaniards Germans c. That is notorious to Scholars which is not so to the unlearned and to Antiquaries which is not so to other Scholars Here W. I. answereth two things 1. That to know some Laws of the Commonwealth is of importance to salvation 2. That God should have made a visible Government imprudently whose Governors could not be known but by revelation R. B. 1. And how comes importing to be put instead of necessity to salvation This is but fraud 2. It were worth our diligent enquiry could we prevail with these men to open to us this mystery How it is that the Pope and his Council may be known to be the supreme Governors of the world without revelation I will abate my Antagonists the answering of all the rest if they will but be intreated to answer me this one question It seems that it is by no promise of Christ no word of God no nor by any revelation of the Spirit or Miracles that we must know them to be our Governors I confess I can know without revelation that they claim such authority as any Traytor or Usurper may do but that they have such authority it is past my reach to conjecture which way it is to be proved without revelation But I intreat the Reader to remember this in all our further disputes with them That they confess that it is not by revelation by Scripture Spirit Miracles or Tradition made known that the Pope and his Council are the supreme Governors of the Universal Church And yet we must know this before we can believe in Christ or believe the Scripture to be true And we must know it of necessity to salvation And another difficulty here seemeth insuperable viz. Seeing this is not a matter of Revelation it can be no matter of Divine faith and if so how is all other faith resolved into it and how is the belief of this which is no belief called our implicite belief of all the word of God can no man be saved that cannot unriddle all these contradictions Next I further noted R. B. That if he lay the sufficiency on the respect to all mens various capacities of receiving the notice then they can never know who are Hereticks but if they lay it on a general publication then all or almost all men are Hereticks being unavoidably ignorant of many things so published To this he saith That he Judgeth of no mans conscience Ans. But do not they judg of them that burn them and depose Princes for not exterminating them He saith It is sufficient 1. that such as acknowledg themselves they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Roman Church which I infallibly believe to be the true Church and that notwithstanding reject them as errors give me ground to presume them to be Hereticks Ans. 1. I perceive that it is not the Pope only that is infallible but you also are infallible in believing his Church But alas how many are deceived and deceivers that call themselves infallible 2. But if your belief in the Pope were infallible must all others be hereticks and be burnt that have not attained to your degree of knowledg or self-conceitedness 3. Just now you said the Governours of the Church need no revelation to make them known and now it is an article of your belief That the Roman Church is the true Church so slippery is your foundation 4. But what meaneth that hard word The true Church Is it not enough if it were proved a true Church Either you mean the universal Church or a particular Church if the former why speak you so sneakingly and did not speak out that the Roman Church is all the whole Church that Christ hath on earth Which assertion we abhor and despair of any thing like a proof of it If the latter what is it to us whether Rome be a true Church any more than whether Ephesus Thessalonica or such other be so 5. But to leave your parenthesis what 's all this to the most of the Christian world that do not acknowledg themselves that they know such points of faith to be propounded by the Church of Rome There is not one of five hundred among us that ever read your Councils nor knoweth one of many things propounded by you to be such And are all these now absolved from heresie How long will that be their security if the burning and exterminating Religion should prevail And is it my hard fate to become a Heretick more than all the rest of my neighbours because I have read your Councils when they have not Then I would counsel all that love not to be burned to take heed of medling with such Councils I have oft read how dangerous a thing you judg it for unlicensed men to read Gods word and of many that have been burned for it and its consequents and how you account it the way to Heresie But I have not oft before read how dangerous it is to read your Decrees or to know all that the Church of Rome propoundeth for he that knoweth them all must have a very ready commandable faith such as can believe in despight of Sense Reason Scripture and Tradition to escape the guilt of Heresie But I pray you were you not inexorable executioners when it cometh next to the burning of Dissenters that you will spare all that confess not that they know what is propounded by your Church yea though they take not their parish-priest that tells it them to be infallible especially if they know him to be a common lyar or one that holds that lying for mens good is a venial sin or none W. I. 2. Such as oppose what all visible Churches have most notoriously practised and believed as Divine truths while they were so universally taught and practised I may safely presume to be Hereticks R. B. 1. No Oâ—…dipus can tell whether while here refer to believed or to oppose If to the latter then neither Abassines Armenians Greeks or Protestants are Hereticks for they oppose not such points while they were so universally taught and practised whatever their forefathers did for they have themselves so many partners as derogates from the pretended Universality of the Adversaries But if by all the visible Church you mean all except themselves or if the word while relate to believe then the Church of Rome are characterized by you for certain Hereticks for I defie impudence it self in challenging it to deny that the Universal
which they may shortly expect by the perswasions of some I have attempted to make this Return to this one Reply which is all that ever they published against me that I know of And because true Order requireth first that we understand each others terms I must begin with that though it be the last thing in his Book in which you will see what a sandy fabrick it is which is adorned by them with the great Epithetes of Apostolical Ancient Universal Infallible and how little they know or can make others know what it is of which they do dispute or what that Church is to which so many hundred thousand Christians called by them Hereticks have been sacrificed by sword and flames In the second Part I defend the Visibility of the Church which the Protestants are members of against his vain Objections And in the third Part I defend those Additional arguments by which I proved it In all which I doubt not but the impartial understanding Reader may see that their Terrestrial Universal Monarchy and their condemnation of the greatest part of the Church of Christ are contrary to Sense Reason Tradition Consent Antiquity and Scripture and that their Kingdom standeth but on three Legs IGNORANCE and deceit worldly INTEREST and the SWORD and violence And when these and especially the sword of Princes do cease to uphold it it will presently die and come to nothing For though Melchior Canus say that the Roman Priviledges as he calleth them have stood though the greater number of Bishops and Churches and the Arms of Emperours have been against them yet was it upheld against all these by no better means than those aforesaid The greater number of Churches and Bishops viz. of East and South being against them and all the other four Patriarchates renouncing them as they do to this day they laid the faster hold of the West and by mastering Italy flattering and advancing France promising Kingdoms and Empire to their Adherents threatning the deposition of others dividing Germany and all Europe that many might need the Pope and few be able to resist him and by keeping men ignorant that they might be capable of their Government by these means they overcame the Arms of Emperours and made them their Subjects whose Subjects they had been If there were nothing else to satisfie the Reader against Popery but these following Particulars it were a shame to humane nature to receive it 1. The natural incapacity of one man to be a Church-Monarch any more than to be a Civil Monarch of the whole Earth 2. That Bellarmine confesseth that the Pope succeedeth not Peter as an Apostle but as an Universal Pastor But Peter never had any higher office than to be the first Apostle 1 Cor. 12. 28. God hath set in the Church first Apoctles not first a Vice-Christ 3. That they affirm that it is not de fide that the Pope is Peter's Successor 4. That none of the other Apostles had Successors as in superior seats nor did any Patriarch much less twelve claim power as Successors of any Apostle save Antioch and Rome and Antioch as from the same St. Peter but no Universal Soveraignty 5. That whoever will turn Papist must confess that he was an ungodly hypocrite before and that all professed Christians are so save the Papists that know their doctrine 6. That he must renounce the senses of all sound men and believe them all deceived by Miracle The Contents of the first Part. CHAP. 1. Sect. 1. HIs Explication of the terms CATHOLICK CHURCH 1. He excludeth all from Christs Universal Church and Christianity that are no Members of Christian Congregations Yet meaneth not only Churches but Families Ships or any civil Assemblies Damning all solitary Christians or that are alone among Infidels 2. He maketh subjection to the supreme Pastor necessary and yet saith the Votum of it alone will serve Sect. 2. He unchurcheth Parish-Churches He maketh dependance on lawful Pastors in general necessary but not on the Pope particularly Sect. 3 What Faith must be in a Church-member His implicite discourse of implicite faith which indeed is no faith of any particular Article Several senses of implicite faith opened His general faith proved No particular faith In what sense we believe all that God hath revealed Sect. 8. His instances explained Sect. 9. When virtual repentance sufficeth Sect. 10. His avoiding to answer Sect. 11. The Papists Church invisible Sect. 12. His strange Doctrine of generals Sect. 13. What Christianity is is no point of faith with them Sect. 14. The invisibility of their Church further proved Sect. 15. Their contradictions about receiving all faith on the Churches Authority Sect. 16. 17. The true method of believing Sect. 18. Humane faith is joyned with Divine Sect. 20. What the Essentials of Christianity are Sect. 21. Papists utterly disagreed what a Christian is and confounded and their Church invisible Sect. 22. Notes of great moment hereupon The baptizing of men that believe only that there is a rewarding God is a new false baptism Sect. 23. Q 3. Who are the Pastors whose rejection unchurcheth men Of Parish Priests Q. 4. How shall all the world be sure that Popes and Priests had a just Election or ordination Sect. 24 25 26 27 28. CHAP. 2. Their sense of the word HERESY Whether Heresie be in will or understanding Sect. 1. Hereticks by their definition are unknown Sect. 2. The power of judging of the Sufficiency of proposals make 's the Clergie Masters of all men lives Sect. 3. He maketh none Hereticks that deny not Gods Veracity Sect. 4. And all Hereticks to deny it Yea all that receive not every truth safficiently proposed Yet unsaith all and saith that not culpable neglect of sufficient proof of all but contradiction to the known proposal of lawful superiours makes a Heretick Sect. 7. Q. What sufficient proposal is Sect. 8. 9. He saith that the true Church-Governours may be known without Revelation Sect. 10. Sufficiency further examined Sect. 11. He hereticateth themselves or none Sect. 12. Whether every misunderstanding of an intelligible Text of Scripture be Heresie Sect. 13. What Heresie is indeed Sect. 14. CHAP. 3. Their meaning of the word POPE Sect. 1. Popes judged Herteicks by many Councils Where Christs institution of the Papacy must be found Sect. 2. Who ad esse must elect the Pope Sect. 3. W. J. cannot and dare not tell Consecration denyed to be necessary to the Pope Sect. 6. Neither Papal nor Episcopal Iurisdiction he saith depends on Papal or Episcopal ordination Sect. 7. So they may be Laymen What such jurisdiction is Sect. 8. What notice or proof is necessary to the subjects CHAP. 4. Their sense of the word BISHOP The Pope is not of Gods ordaining in their way Sect. 1. 2. Their Bishop of Calcedons testimony put off Sect. 3. They make all men that will or no men to be Bishops His great confusion and contradictions Saying we want not Episcopal Consecration but Election
His shameful reformation of Syllogisms and pretence of Logical form Sect. 6. He denieth Protestants to be of the Church of Christ. I prove it His silly cavils at the form of the Argument Sect. 7. Protestants profess all the Essentials of Christianity Proved His cavils shamed Sect. 8. His oft repeated Reason confuted of not receiving the Churches expositions Sect. 9. The novelty and discord of Popery The confusions in Councils Sect. 10. My second Argument's to prove that we hold all essentials The Popish faith explained Sect. 12. My third Argument Creed and Scriptures are with them too little and yet an insufficient proposal makes Christianity it self unnecessary Sect. 12. He giveth up his Cause confessing the sufficiency of our explicite belief Sect. 13. My fourth Argument His ridiculous denying that to deny the minor is to deny the antecedent Sect. 14. The minor proved All Protestants as such profess to love God Ergo sincere Protestants do love him What miracles believing in the Pope doth Sect. 15. He had no way to deny that Protestants profess true faith but by his impudent denying 1. That we profess to love God 2. And that we feel that we do love him Sect. 20. My second Argument to prove the perpetual visibility of our Church confoundeth him Sect. 21. Scripture sufficiency Sect. 22. My third Argument and his shameful Answer Sect. 25. My fourth Argument proveth the visibility of our Church not only as Christian but as without Popery Ten sub-arguments for that 1 From the twenty-eighth Canon of Conc. Calced 2. From the silence of the old Writers against Hereticks Sect. 28. 3. From Tradition proved 4. From Churches never subject to Rome His citations briefly confuted Sâ—…ct 30. 5. From the non-subjection even of the Imperial Churches Sect. 32. 6. From Gregory the first 's testimony Sect. 33. 7. From their confessions Aen. Silvius Reynerius Canus Binnius vindicated Sect. 38. 8. Phocas giving the Primacy to Boniface Sect. 39 9. Their Liturgy new Sect. 40. Twelve instances of new Articles of the Papists Faith which he durst not Answer Sâ—…ct 42. The tenth Argument he yieldeth the cause in sense Sâ—…ct 43. Notable testimonies unanswered Sâ—…ct 44. Papists differ de fide Sect. 47. What Hereticks are or are not in the Church fully opened His shameful exclaiming against me for distinguishing Sect. 48. Fifty six of Philastrius Heresies named many being small matters and many notorious certain truths Sect. 49. The woful work of Hereticating Councils Sect. 50. Councils hereticated Popes and one another Almost all the Christian world hereticate one another Sect. 55. His reasons answered for unchurching all Hereticks Sect. 60. Their Doctrine of sufficient proposal fullier confuted and their hereticating and unchurching themselves evinced Mr. Iohnson's alias Terret's Explication of seven Terms of our Questions examined and his confusion manifested CHAP. I. Question 1. WHAT mean you by the Catholick Church W. J. The Catholick Church is all those Visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external Communion with one another and in dependance of their lawful Pastors R. B. Qu. 1. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external communion nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you make the Catholick to to be constituted W. J. It is sufficient that such be subject to the supreme Pastors in voto or quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be designed for them by that Pastor to be included in my definition R. B. You see then that your definitions signifie nothing No man knoweth your meaning by them W. J. You shall presently see that your Exceptions signifie less than nothing R. B. 1. You make the Catholick Church to consist only of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are no visible Assemblies W. J. I make those converted Infidels visible Assemblies as my definition speaks though not actual members of any particular visible Church For though every particular visible Church be an assembly of Christians yet every assembly of Christians is not a particular visible Church I do not therefore allow such to be of the Church who are no visible assemblies as you misconceive R. B. 1. Would any man have understood that by Visible Assemblies the man had not meant only Churches but also Families Schools Cities c 2. Doth he not here expresly deny all those persons to be of the Church who are not members of some other visible assemblies And if a man be a Pilgrim a Hermite or if one or many be cast upon an uninhabited coast and if any are members of no visible assembly as Merchants Embassadors to Infidels c. when will he prove that this unchristeneth or unchurcheth them R. B. 2. You now mention subjection to the supreme Pastor as sufficient which in your description or definition you did not W. J. Am I obliged to mention all things in my definition which I express after in answering your Exceptions Ans. All that belongs to a notifying definition R. B. 3. If to be only in Voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary To be only in Voto of the Catholick Church proveth no man a member of it because it is terminus diminuens but the contrary Seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholick Church why do you not only mention it in your definition but confine the Church to it W. J. I make them actually inexistent in some visible assembly according to my definition and in Voto only in a particular Church Now every particular family or neighbourhood nay two or three gathered in prayer is an actual assembly R. B. Strange Doctrine so it is of necessity to our Christianity and Salvation that we be members of a Christian City or Village or Fair or Market or some Meeting And so all Christians that live solitarily in Wildernesses or among Turks or Heathens are all unchristened and damned W. J. St. Hierome saith Ecclesia est plebs unita Episcopo In this consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the Universal Church unless they be actual members of some particular Church which I deny R. B. I thought verily it had been I that was denying it all this while This is dispuâ—…ing in the dark Will you say that you meant in Voto who can understand you then when you say They must be of visible assemblies and mean that they need not be of any but wish they were or purpose to be so W. J. It is sufficient if they be actually of some assembly or congregation of Christians though it be no particular Church R. B. 1. Here is a new Exposition of Solomon's Vae soli Wo to him that is alone for he is unchristened by it or
to another or the King may pardon all crimes by an Act of Oblivion without knowing what they are But if the question were about an intellectual act whose object doth specifie it intrinsecally in the mind As whether the King actually know the particular crimes which he pardoneth If you say that he knoweth the particulars actually in confuso because the only knoweth in general that some crimes there are this is but to talk against all the usual â—…ense of mankind and to call that An actual knowing of particulars in confuso which other men call No actual knowledg of particulars but only of generals which in some cases may be called a virtual knowledg of Particulars which is no actual knowledg of them and in some not But if he had heard some imperfect confused Narratives of the crimes themselves this might be called An actual confâ—…ed knowledg of them But mark Reader what edification is to be expected from these mens Disputations He knew very well that he and I are agreed that all Christians must take Gods Veracity in his Revelations for the formal object without which faith is no faith and so must believe that God cannot lie and that all is true which he asserteth And that we Protestants hold that this is not enough nor includeth the knowledg or belief of any thing which he hath revealed beside this one general He knoweth that our question is Whether it be not necessary to believe some particulars as revealed by God And whether this faith do not go to essentiate a Christian and a member of the Church And if so then what those particulars are which must be believed to constitute a true Christian and member of the Church Now he durst not come into the light and answer this question but as if he were mocking women or children saith All that God hath revealed must be believed explicitely or implicitely We understand you Sir that we must believe this Proposition All that God revealeth is true But is that enough then Heathens Idolaters Sadducees Infidels Mahometans are Christians and members of your Church But do they think so themselves If you can thus with a juggle make all the world Christians the like art may make them subjects of the Pope No saith he there must some things also be believed explicitely But the question is What they are O there you must excuse him he dare not he cannot tell you what But Sir are these some things essential to Christianity and Church-membership or not If you say Not what nothing essential to Christian faith in particular Is it faith and yet a belief of nothing in particular Is there no material difference at all between a Christian and a Sadducee Infidel Mahometan or Heathen And yet cannot Protestants be saved for want of the right belief O marvellous Religion But if any particular belief be necessary cannot it be known what it is How then can a Christian be known by himself or others from all the unbelieving world or your Church from other men This was my question to you Is not your Church then invisible when no man can know what makes a member of it And yet the man talketh confidently in his darkness as if this would serve instead of light and saith I make my Church visible though by comprehending in it all those who profess an explicite faith in several Articles which they understand distinctly and an implicite belief of the rest whereof they have not distinct understanding by professing that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them whatsoever they be in particular Now so long as they persevere in this belief though they should happen through culpable negligence not to arrive to the knowledg of many things which they ought to know necessitate praecepti yet they remain members though corrupt and wicked of the Church Whereby you see how easily I avoid that difficulty which you thought I could not Ans. Too easily against all reason Reader this Paragraph is worth the nothing 1. Several Articles must be believed explicitely but not a word to tell you which or what they are or whether it be any whatever that will serve the turn if it be but that Cain was the son of Adam 2. The implicite belief of all the rest is not here said to be any implicite belief of the Pope Council or Church of Rome but that they believe all that God hath revealed to be believed by them And are we not yet so far right and reconciled This is too kind to the Protestants For it takes in all mankind with them who confess a God For to give him the Lie is to deny his Perfection that is his Godhead 3. Mark that even culpable ignorance of other things unchurcheth not 4. And yet all this denoteth but a corrupt and wicked member of their holy Church which if such cannot be saved 5. And with this chat the man thinks he hath done his business And doubtless there are some so ignorant as to believe him But all this wants but two things to make it just the true Christian faith One is to name those Particulars essential to Christianity which must be believed The other is to distinguish between a sound and serious practical belief and a dead opinion or profession And to conclude that the sincere practical belief constituteth invisible justified members and the profession maketh only visible ones Next he hath another bout against Omne animal vivit the question was whether to know this be to know that W. I. Bucephalus a Phoenix or an Unicorn liveth I say No because it may stand with the ignorance that ever there was or will be such an Animal as is called W. I. or any of the rest But he makes all good on his side by talking of Impossibilities and such-like words which are of the same use in respect to our arguments that Drums in an Army are to drown the groans of dying men and put courage into the Soldiers He saith When Philosophers say Omne animal vivit they mean it of the essence or notion of Animal to be a living thing and this is true of me and all particulars whether we be in actual existence or not Is not here excellent Philosophy It 's very true that this is a true Proposition Omne animal vivit whether VV. I. exist or not But is this true of VV. I. and all particulars VVhether they exist or not That which existeth not is nothing neither VV. I. nor any particular The sum is then Nothing is a living thing or animal There is a VV. I. and all particulars which are all nothing and yet are animals or live Who would not turn Papist and run into a Nunnery that is but charmed with such Philosophy Next pag 15. he saith That how much must be believed explicitely is a dispute among Divines not necessary to be determined here yet I will say something to that presently Ans. I warrant you
denominated from the prime or second efficient of the revelation it is the belief of God and of Christ as Mediator and not of the Apostles and so Gods own Veracity and not mans is the objectum formale fidei divinae 4. But why may not a subordinate humane faith be conjoined with this and so we believe Christ to be the Messiah at once 1. By the testimony of God 2. Of Christ as man 3. And of the Prophets and Apostles 1. Did not the union of the Divine nature with the humane make Christ as man to be credible If so why should we not believe him 2. Did not the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost and divine inspiration joined to it make the Apostles and Prophets credible persons If so why should we not believe them 3. Did not the Miracles which they wrought render the persons and their testimonies credible together with the circumstances of their being eye-witnesses and such-like 4. Is not every honest man credible according to the measure of his skill and honesty 5. Doth not every man know that there may be many efficient causes conjoined in producing one effect May not faith now be wrought by the Preachers word and Spirit Why else doth Christ say to Paul Acts 26. 17 18 I send thee to open their eyes and turn them c. And Paul directeth Timothy to save himself and those that hear him Why may not believing God believing Christ as man and believing Peter and Iohn c. that saw him risen be conjunct causes of our faith in Christs Resurrection If they might not produce one faith at least they might produce three faiths united by conjunction But would one ever have expected this from a Jesuit or Roman Priest Remember Reader that Divine belief and a belief of the Church Council Pope or Priest are not to be taken for conjunct causes of our believing the Gospel or Christian faith in this mans opinion But he saith Though the Prophet be a humane person yet he speaks when he is inspired by God not by humane but divine authority God speaking by his mouth Ans. It is Veracity that is the thing that we now speak of and is the authority in question And doth not Gods Veracity give Veracity to the Speaker and use it Doth God speak by Prophets and Christs Humanity as through an inanimate Pipe or Whistle or as by Balaam's asse Doth he make no use of the reason and honesty of the speaker nor make them more knowing and more honest true and careful that they may be the fitter to be believed Is this Roman Divinity Why then do the Apostles so oft protest that they speak the truth and lye not even of that which they had seen and heard Would the Gospel have been equally credible to us if all the witnesses had in other matters been knaves and lyars 2. Reader judg whether those that accuse the Roman Clergy of Fanaticism and Enthusiasm do them any wrong while they think that God maketh them infallible by such inspiration as maketh no use of their Reason Learning or Honesty And read but what their own Historians say of Fifty Popes together besides all the rest and of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries of the Church and of the Popes that were lads and could not read Mass but were illiterate Read what their Councils have said of some whom they deposed as inhuman Monsters and judg whether it be easie to believe that any inspiration used those men as infallible deliverers of that Christian faith and see here why it is that they think wit and honesty no more necessary in Pope or Councils if God use them but as an organ-pipe or trumpet Pag. 18. When he is urged to tell me what it is that is the necessary belief of their Church which must make a man a member of it he again bids me tell him what points I make essential to a Christian and I shall save him the labour Ans. And are we indeed agreed And yet do they writeso many Volumes to the contrary Reader I take him at his word I have said that it is The belief and consent to the Baptismal Covenant that is the constitutive essence of a Christian. Remember this when they jest at Fundamentals and tell us of damnation if we believe not their Councils and the Country-Priests that are the reporters of them Remember now the extent of the Christian Church that it reacheth to all that believe and consent to the Baptismal Covenant But will these wavering men long stand to this and confess their Sect to be but a fourth or third part of the Church But perhaps they will say That words not understood are no true faith we are yet to seek what believing in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost do mean and comprehend Answ. These ignorances or artifices have too long abused unstudied men It is not now the unsearchable truth of mens subjective faith or internal acts which we dispute of But it is of necessary objective faith or what ex parte objecti is essentially necessary to true subjective faith in case it be truly believed which God only can tell And I say 1. It is no meer words spoken more or less which can prove to another the sincerity of the speakers belief of them 2. But the words of the Baptismal Profession and Covenant if sincerely believed contain all essential to the Christian faith 3. And for more or fewer words I say that the more understanding any man hath the more fully and easily he may understand the sense of those words though general and few but to an ignorant person there must be many words and oft repeated to make him understand the same thing which the other doth by these few And must we therefore have as many symbols of Christianity as there are various degrees of Understandings 4. And the Church hath in its best times taken up with the Creed as the Exposition of the Baptismal faith and if it now contain any words more than essential that crosseth not its use which was to be a just and satisfactory Explication of that Baptismal faith which had nothing but the Essentials And accordingly till faith and piety degenerated into opinion and tyranny Baptized persons were accounted Christians and members of the Catholick Church and as obliged to live as Christs Disciples in love to one another it being none but Christ himself who instituted Baptism as our Christening to be the symbol and badg of his Disciples Pag. 19. When I had prest him to a particular answer and told him what would follow upon the Answers which I supposed he might make he tells me that Divines have a hundred times told us that some things must be believed necessitate praecepti and some things necessitate medii Ans. We have heard some things some things so oft that we would fain know what things at last are necessary ut media Reader if these Writers must not be ashamed of their
the Cause in naming Integrals for those are not Accidents Ans. 1. My affirming that the Papacie is as much an Accident as a Leprosie is to a Man did not make me forget that I was confuteing his assertion that all is essential to the Church which is instituted to be for ever or indeed which had been ever in it for that was his saying And though Integrals be not Accidents yet they are not Essentials was this hard to see And 2. by his now putting in the word instituted he would make the Reader think that I had granted that the Papacie was instituted by Christ. 2. He saith that Nothing can be an accident to the Church which Christ hath instituted to be perpetually in the Church and consequently the Churches holding any thing to be so if true is essential to the subsistence of the Church if false is essentially destructive of the Church so that whether true or false it will never be accidental to the Church Ans. 1. What work will Interest and Errour make If so then every Errour and every Sin of the Church is essentially destructive of the Church For Christ hath instituted that the Church shall perpetually hold and teach the truth only and obey all his commands without sinning If he say that the Church never hath nor had Sin or Errour I answer 1. If an essential part of the Church have had Sin and Errour then so hath the Church had But an essential part in their account that is their supposed Head hath had Sin and Errour To pass by Peters denying Christ disswading him from suffering till he heard Get behind me Satan Mat. 16. his dissembling Gal. 2. sure Marcellinus sinfully offered Incense to an Idol and Honorius and Tyberius sinned and it was some sin in those Popes that defiled Wives and Maids at the Apostolick doors and that were Whoremongers and came in by Whores and Poyson and that were condemned as Simonists Hereticks Incarnate Devils Perjured Murderers c. and that by Councils 2. If all the particular Members of the Church have some Errour or Sin then so hath the Church But all the particular Members have c. If any Man say that he hath no Sin he is a Lyer and the truth is not in him 1. Joh. 1. And in many things we offend all Iam. 3. 2. c. 2. Why then doth he accuse us for separating from Rome if it be as certainly unchurched as it is certain that they have had Sin and Errour it is certain that the Popes were such as aforesaid or the Councils sinned that condemned them as such and it is certain that either the Councils of Constance Basil and Pisa erred and sinned which decreed that Councils are above the Pope and may condemn and depose him and that this is de fide and the contrary Heresie or else the Councils of Laterane and Florence erred and sinned that said the contrary And so of other Instances 3. But as I have proved the Antecedent of his Argument false already so his consequence that the Churches holding any thing to be instituted for perpetuity is essential and the denying destructive of the essence would not follow but on two suppositions 1. That such institutions are not only no Accidents but no Integrals 2. That every commanded truth is essential which are both false For else the institution might be essential and yet not the believing it such be essential And he confesseth that such belief is not essential to every Member nor can he tell to how many nor to whom ad esse Ecclesiae If he say To as many as have a sufficient proposal 1. Then if none had a sufficient proposal it would cease to be essential to the Church 2. Then if any one sin be committed by the Church against a sufficient proposal the Church is nullified If he said It is not known how many must believe it ad esse Ecclesiae then no man can know whether the Church be nullified or not He saith pag. 6â—… So the acknowledgment of it by all those to whom it is sufficiently propounded is necessary to make them parts of the true Church and the denyal of it when so propounded hinders them from being parts Ans. 1. Still this sayeth nothing to the question how far and in whom it is essential to the Church 2. And this unchurcheth every person that erreth and sinneth against any one word of Scripture after a sufficient proposal yet this same man said pag. 36. of his explications Whatsoever their neglect be to know what is propounded yet so long as they believe explicitely what is necessary to be believed necessitate medii and implicitely the rest they can be no Hereticks for it is not the ignorance though culpable c. And do the wilfully ignorant acknowledge it reconcile these if you can 2. This Unchurcheth your whole Church For it is sufficiently proposed even in express words in the Scripture that there is Bread in the Eucharist after Consecration thrice together in 1 Cor. 11. and that the Church should communicate with the Cup This do in remembrance of me even to shew the Lords death till he come and that we should not make to our selves any graven Image nor bow down to it nor worship it and that we should pray publickly in a known Tongue and that Bishops should not Lord it over the Flock c. and you erre and sin after this sufficient proposal Pag. 36. I had given several Instances of the Iberians Indians Americans the primitive Christians and their own Converts to prove that the belief of and subjection to the Pope is not necessary to Christianity or Salvation to which his answer is very remarkable Viz. I never said that all particular persons or COMMUNITIES are obliged to have an express belief or acknowledgment of the Roman Bishops Supremacy that being necessary to all neither necessitate medii nor praecepti It is sufficient that they believe it implicitely in subjecting themselves to all those whom Christ hath instituted to be their lawful Pastors and when the Bishop of Rome is sufficiently proposed to them to be the Supreme Visible Pastor of those Pastors upon Earth that then they obstinately reject not his authority Ans. There is some moderation in this though it utterly overthrow their cause 1. This fully proveth that the poor Abassines Armenians and such others for all the Popish Accusations of them are neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks for not acknowledging the Pope whose Supremacie hath not been sufficiently proposed to them And so that the Church is greater than the Popes Kingdom 2. This maketh out a receiving of the Popes Supremacie to be no more necessary than the receiving of every Word of the holy Scripture or tradition noâ—… than the receiving e. g. of the Cup in the Lords Supper For all are essentially necessary say they when sufficiently propounded 3. This undeceiveth us that thought their Doctrine had been that the Scripture and Christianity must necessarily be
Iudgments which he executeth Psal. 9. So all things and power now are given unto Christ and he judgeth the World as Lord of all For the Father judgeth no Man but hath committed all Iudgment to the Son Joh. 5. 22. 7. He denyeth Christ's final visible Judgment if he hold strictly to his words That the Exercise of Christ's Pastorship is only in spiritual Influences and internal Graces If you say that some of my Instances are not of his Pastoral but his Regal Offices I answer that it is but some that you so except 2. It is a mistake because his Pastoral and Regal Office are one and the same indeed not two Offices but two inadequate Metaphorical conceptions of one and the same Office of Christ And it belongeth to the Pastor to provide Food for his Flock to govern them to fetch them home and to defend them and destroy the Wolves He saith all that is visible is done by visible pastors and all that is invisible by Christ in the Pastoral Function as if Christ did nothing which they do or no more than they do And he reproacheth Christ's Church as being a Monster unless it have some other visible Head Like Cardinal Bertrand see his words in his Book in Biblioth Patrum that saith God had not been wise if he had not made one Universal Monarch over all the World And when we have fully proved that a mere Humane visible Church-Governour over all the round Earth is impossible and such Power never was deputed by Christ to any and that the far greatest part of the Church never owneth or did own such Will it not then follow that his reproach of Christ's Church and Government is unjust and rash And would it not follow by the same reason that the Earth as Gods Kingdom which Christ also is the King of is a Monster being a visible Body unless it had one mere Humane visible Head Are not Men as Men and governable by the Sword as visible as Men as Christians and governable by the Word and Keys If so which is undeniable Why is the Christian World any more a Monster without a Monarch Bishop than the Humane World without a Monarch King But pag. 66 67. he asks Whether Christ performed immediately any visible Action in relation to the Church and saith Men will expect that I shew that Christ not in his Person but in the Exercise of his Pastoral Headship works visibly by himself Answ. If it be not the Person 's Visibility that you require but the Action that is considered either as it is Agentis or as in Passâ—… in the Receiver The former is seen if ever only when it is the seen Moâ—…us of a Body If the latter I have named you divers visible Acts of Christ. But why must immediate come in Doth not my hand write visibly unless I do it without a Pen How little Government do great Emperours exercise immediately in all their Empire even none in the far greatest part in all their Lives but give out their Laws and Mandates to others What Government hath your Pope exercised immediately in Abassia Armenia Tartary Persia yea or Mexico much less at the terra australis incognita and all that side of the Earth which Lactantius Augustine c. denyed He confesseth that he cited not Ephes. 4. to prove the Papacie but successive Pastors Reader think seriously 1. whether the Pope be not an invisible Head and his Church a Monster by this mans rules Doth he rule all his Church immediately or by others If by others doth not Christ do so and better And was Pope Zachary the visible Head at the Antipodes when he commanded Boniface to excommunicate Vigilius for holding such a World under us as we call the Antipodes And is this Pope a capable Head of all the World that denyeth the very Being of them and holdeth that there is no such thing as so great a part of it O what a Pastor or Apostle is this that excommunicateth men for affirming the existence of the charge which he undertaketh The Answer to W. J's second-Chapter Whereas W. I. would perswade men that it is first incumbent on us to prove where there hath been a Church in all Ages without the Roman Papacie I first evidenced that it is incumbent on them as having the Affirmative to prove that the Universal Church hath been headed by the Pope in all Ages For 1. our Religion is nothing but Christianity as such And this they confess hath been in all Ages since Christs and Churches professing it so that all our Religion being past Controversie between us and them which is still to be noted we have no need to prove that which is not denyed who denyeth that there have been Christian Churches But it is their addition of the Papal Soveraignty over the Universal Church which is denyed by us and must be proved by them according to the common Rules of Disputation 2. And the denyal of their addition is the Renunciative Consequence and no direct and proper part of our Positive Religion True Faith is one thing and the Renunciation of all Errors contrary to it is another thing The one is such as may be defined the other in particulars hath no bounds I can soon say that There is one God the Father Almighty c. and in general that I deny any other but if I will undertake to name them all that are worshipped as Gods and say e. g. Sathan Iupiter Sol c. are no Gods I can never know when I have done and this is but a consequent of my Faith so it is to believe that Mahomet Amida Zachea c. are no Saviours Now if any would bid me prove Where there hath been Church in all Ages that did renounce Arrianism Macedonianism Nestorians Eutychians Monotheliâ—…es c. I cannot prove that any did expresly renounce these before they were known in the World and yet Christianity was the same Religion of the Church without any change before and after So W. I's demand upon his Plea of present possession is as if he should say The man of seventy years of Age which is now gray-headed and lame was ever so Or the Church which now honoureth St. Martin St. Thomas Aquinas as Saints is the true Church of Christ And if you cannot shew us that your Church hath in all Ages so honoured St. Martin c. you are not the true Church of Christ. What if it had been The Church that keepeth Easter-day as now we do and Christmas day on the 25th of December is the true Church of Christ therefore you must prove that your Church hath ever done so Could they prove their Papacy in the Empire as old it would have the same answer viz. It was but a part of the Church and not the whole that kept Easter and Christmas as we do now for one part kept Easter on another day till the Nicene Council ended that Controversie in the East and Christmas-day
you have said a word to prove that Christ instituted the Universal Head-ship of the Pope Or rather do you not overthrow it your self by such arguing seeing 1. the Headship of Rome hath not been ever in the Church as you confess 2. It never was in the Universal Church either instituted by Christ or received by the Church one hour but only for a time received by a corrupt oppressed part of the Church 3. The Pope hath cast out divers things instituted by Christ for continuance as is proved I told him that though the King were absent it is only the King and Subjects that are essential to a Kingdom the Deputy is but an Officer and not essential He replyeth 'T is so indeed de facto But suppose as I do that a Vice-King be by full authority made an ingredient into the essence of the Kingdom then sure he must be essential Ans. Yes by very good reason if he be made essential he is essential and now I understand what is your proof you suppose it to be so But if it be so in our case then the Pope is essentially so the Churches constitutive Head that when-ever he dyeth the Church is dead unless you can say as our Law doth of the King Papa non moritur and when the Church hath been two or near three years without it was no Church and when it had two or three Popes it was no Church or two or three Churches But saith W. I. This is evident in our present Subject for though all the Pastors in Christs Church be only his Officers and Deputies yet you cannot deny such Officers are now essential to his visible Church Ans. 1. When I heard the word Evident I lookt for something But I had nothing but you cannot deny it and what true Christian ever yet denyed it But I do not remember that ever I heard it disputed before affirmed or denyed He that would deny it will say that as all the Mayors Bayliffs and other Magistrates of Corporations are indeed essential parts of those Corporations and these Corporations are the noblest integral parts of the Kingdom but no essential parts of it so that if the Kingdom should be resolved into a King and meer common Subjects only it were a Kingdom still so it is in the Church Particular gathered Churches are the noblest integral parts of the Universal Church but not essential And Pastors are essential parts of those particular Churches But if all the particulars and Pastors should cease the Church would be a Church still while there is a Christ and meer Christians But this never will be in this world because Christ will not only have a Church but a well-formed organized Church Those that had rather use the word essential of the Pastors will say that as soul and body are the only essential parts of a man and yet the brain heart and liver may be called essential parts of the body as distinct from the rest because without these it is not corpus orgâ—…nicum and so not humanum so though Christ be the only soul of the Church yet Officers may be essential parts of his body as organical capable of such a soul And though the other will reply that this is but a deceiving Metaphor Christ being not only the soul but the head and no organical Members being more than noble Integrals because if an Intellectual separation be made the Church is a Church still in such a conception Yet all this is but a Controversie of the aptitude of the word Essential in that case we are agreed that Officers shall be in the Church to the end And yet Saint Paul 1 Cor. 12. calls them but eyes and hands and never heads but reserveth that title to Christ alone yea even when he speaketh of Apostles And yet if any Officers were Essential it would be Apostles who are called Foundations and Pillars of the House but none of them the Head 2. But what 's all this to our Controversie What if Pastors were Essential to the Church viz. that there be some Doth it follow that the Bishop of Rome is any more essential to it than the Bishop of Ierusalem or Antioch If so then 1. Before Peter is feigned Bishop of Rome the Church was no Church All the while that he dwelt at Ierusalem and Antioch 2. And then if Rome were burnt or the Bishop of it ceased the Church were no Church Sir our true question is Whether a trayterous Usurper of Universal Soveraignty received by a third part of the Church and refused by all the rest be essential to the Church Not as whether the heart or head but a Scab or Cancer be essential to the body After some vain repetitions pag. 82. he repeateth the sum of his fraudulent Argument which he calls The force of his Discourse viz No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which acknowledgeth the Popes Supremacy Ergo No Congregation of Christians is Christs true Church save that Ans. I will therefore repeat the sum of my Answer viz. The word Congregation is ambiguous 1. Either it meaneth a company met together 2. Or a number of such Congregations owning one Superiour being part of the Universal Church 3. Or the Universal Church it self Accordingly I answer 1. That in the first sense a Congregation is called the same either because the same men live or because the survivors dwell in the same place or because they are of the same profession In the two first respects it is not necessary that any Congregation continue the same for men dye and places may be conquered or ruined In the third sense All true Christian Congregations in the world are of one and the same species as Christian from the beginning to this day II. In the second sense of the word Congregation I answer like as to the former The men dye the places are mutable but as to the common Christian Profession they are the same that they have been but as to the extent of Diocesses neither you nor we can deny but that they have altered Scotus Petavius and Doctor Hammond who hold that Bishops without Presbyters were first setled must hold that a Church then was but one Assembly or no more than one Bishop could speak to But de facto all agree that it was not long before they widened by degrees And in this sense the Churches of Abassia Armenia Ierusalem Alexandria c. are visible and have been from their beginning and some of them before Rome was The Churches of Ephesus Smyrna Thessalonica c. are and have been such And some Churches are visible which do not acknowledge the Popes Soveraignty that sometimes did viz. The Church of Britain in England and Scotland at first owned it not and after did receive it and after that cast it off again but it is visible and hath been from its beginnings The Churches of Denmark Sweden Transilvania and divers Countries of Germany were not
Churches from the beginning of the Christian Church nor was Rome it self so but ever since their beginnings they have been visible sometimes obeying the Pope and sometimes rejecting him the Abassines and several other Extra-imperial Churches never obeyed him The most of the Churches of the Empire the Eastern and African sometimes obeyed him as the chief in the Empire by the Laws of the Empire amd sometimes they cast him off when the Eastern Empire cast him off but they never obeyed him as the Soveraign Bishop of the whole World III. In the third sense of the word Congregation as it signifieth the Universal Church I confess that I can shew you no Universal Church now visible rejecting the Pope for the Universal leaveth out no part though a corrupt part and while Papists own him I cannot say that the Universal Church disowneth him but I can prove 1. That the Primitive Universal Church never owned any Universal Head or Governour but Christ and his twelve Apostles whose indefinite charge may be called Universal 2. That the Universal Church never owned the Roman Universal Soveraignty 3. That the far greatest part of the Church doth not own it at this day and therefore if the whole may be denominated from the major part we may say that now the Universal Church disowneth him And now Reader answer these like Sophisms and you have answered this man of Art 1. No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which acknowledgeth the Patriarchs in the Empire at least heretofore Ergo no other is the true Church of Christ. Answ. 1. But another is part and the best part of the Church of Christ. 2. And none that doth or ever did acknowledge those Patriarchs was the whole Church 3. And none of the Church acknowledged them at first before they were erected So 2. Inst. No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which condemneth the Monothelites the Nestorians the Eutychians the Audians the Luciferians the Quartodecimani c. Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. 1. Part of the Church condemn them and part never heard of them And before they rose none of the Church condemned them So another Instance is No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which Administreth the Eucharist only in one kind without the Cup and which useth publick Prayers in an unknown Tongue and which forbiddeth the reading the Scripture translated without special License c. Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. 1. Only a corrupt part now doth these The most discover it and none were guilty of it in many Generations Doth there need any other Answer to such palpable Sophismes His Argument plainly should run thus No Congregation of Christians hath been perpetually visible but that which now owneth the Trayterous Usurpation of the Pope and the Council of Trent and of Lateran and part of whose Religion is for exterminating or burning all that will not renounce all belief of Humane Senses in believing Transubstantiation and for casting out Princes that execute not this and absolving Subjects from their Oathes of Allegiance to them and which hath corrupted the Doctrine Worship and Government of Christ Ergo no other is the true Church Answ. A diseased part of the Church only is guilty of this now and the whole Church was far from it heretofore But pag. 83. he telleth me that he meaneth neither one present Assembly nor yet one as united in one visible Humane Head but abstracting from that also be it but truly and properly one whencesoever the Unity is drawn 't is all alike to the solution of the Argument Answ. Then sure our business is in a hopeful way if not as good as ended Remember this and fly not from it Our Unity is in Christ our Head One King maketh us one Kingdom All Christians are one Body of Christ. Yea moreover we are one in all the seven Points of Unity required by the Holy Ghost Eph. 4. viz. We have 1. One Body of Christ not of the Pope 2. One Spirit 3. One hope of our Calling viz. Eternal Glory 4 One Lord without a Vice-Christ 5. One Faith summarily in the Creed and integrally in the Holy Scriptures 6. One Baptisme or solemnised Baptismal Covenant 7. One God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in us all Yea as to the Integrals though our Grace hath various degrees we all receive the inspired Prophets Apostles and Evangelists Authority and Doctrine and the ordinary Pastors and Teachers that are sent by the Holy Ghost and called by the way which God hath appointed though we receive not an Usurper that maketh himself the Governour of the whole World in Title while he Governeth not the tenth part of it nor any according to God's Law and who is oft obtruded by Whores and Murders and is a wicked Slave of Satan so judged by his own General Councils We acknowledge that there are among us different Opinions but neither for Kind or Number comparable to the differences of the Papal Sectaries among themselves Not for Kind such as about Murder Adultery Perjury Lying False-witness yea about the Love of God it self are by the Iansenists charged on the Iesuits and proved out of their express words Nor such as Mr. Clarkson hath collected from the express words of their most famous Doctors of all Parties Nor such about King-killing dissolving Subjects Oathes c. as H. Fowlis hath gathered from the express words of your greatest Doctors And for Number all the Sects in the World of Christians set together have not half the Controversies and contentious Writings against each other as your Schoolmen and other Writers of your Church have For our parts we look not that our Union should be perfect till our wisdom and holiness and patience and we our selves be perfect They that know but in part will err in part and differ in part We believe that there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit and differences of Administrations but the same Lord and diversity of Operations but the same God who worketh all in all For as the Bedy is one and hath many Members and all the Members of that one Body being many are one Body so also is Christ For by one Spirit we are Baptised into one Body and have been all made to drink into one Spirit Thus are we the Body of Christ not of the Pope and Members in particular And God hath set some in this Body the Church first Apostles not first a Vice-Christ secondly Prophets thirdly Teachers but no Universal Vicar-Head All these are Members and should so live in love that there be no Schisme in the Body But pag. 84. the Man is not satisfied though I name them what I mean by These Churches united in one Christ. Answ. How should I make a Man know that is unwilling or how but by naming them by their Country and Profession I mean All the Christians of
necessary to make us Members Answ. As the union of King and Subjects maketh one Kingdom so the union of Christ and Christians maketh one Church and we call none Christians that profess not true Faith and Charity and their seed But he saith the Question is How a Heretick or Schismatick can be a true Christian. Answ. Ambiguous words are the game of deceivers and to open the ambiguity marreth their cause The word Heretick I have told you signifieth either one that denyeth an Essentiall part of Christianity or one that only denyeth an Integral part The former are no Christians the latter may § 13. But he will prove that no Heretick is a Christian or hath true Faith viz. Whoever hath true faith believeth the material object of faith for the Divine authority of God revealing it That is certain But so doth no Heretick That 's very false of both sorts of Hereticks 1. You call the Luciferians the Novatians c. Hereticks and who can see reason to doubt but they might believe that all that God saith is true 2. Overdoing is undoing As you are the greatest causes of Schisme by overdoing as against Schisme so you would justifie almost all the Hereticks in the world by your blind overdoing as against Hereticks and while you would make most or much of Christs Church to be Hereticks you would make men believe that there are none All that believe that there is a God believe that he is Verax no Lyar but true All that believe that God is no Lyar but true of his word believe all to be true which they judge to be his word But saith W. I no Heretick believeth any thing on the authority of God revealing that is because God that revealeth it is true And so all those that believe that God is true and that any thing is true because he revealeth it are no Hereticks And who knoweth other mens hearts better You or They You take me it's like for a Heretick I say that I believe that God cannot Lye and I believe in Christ because God the â—…evealer is true You say Then I am no Heretick If an Arrian can but truly say that he believeth all Gods word to be true but he taketh not Christs Consubstantial eternal Deity to be Gods word you will justifie him to be no Heretick And yet the poor Iconoclasts the Waldenses the Berengarians can find no place in this mans Church when yet he thus acquitteth almost all Hereticks in the whole world Nothing but humerous singularity can pretend any probable reason why an Arrian a Nestorian an Eutychian a Monothelite yea a Mahometan or other Infidel may not believe that God is no Lyar but all that is indeed his word is true § 14. But he will not be unreasonable without reason His Argument is Whosoever believeth the material object of Faith for the Divine Authority of God revealing it must believe all things which are as sufficiently propounded to him to be revealed of God as are the Articles which he believeth protesteth to and believe nothing as revealed which is as sufficiently declared to him to be erroneous and not revealed c. But every Heretick doth otherwise If he believe some and refuse others equally propounded it is not for Divine Authority Answ. If you believe this reasoning your self you deserve little belief from others 1. The word sufficiently propounded will never sufficiently be expounded by you nor ever is like to be Sometimes by sufficient as in the Dominicans controversie of sufficient grace is meant that which quo posito res fieri potest sine quo non potest And so taken as necessarium or possible for the minimum tale it hath no degrees But usually we take sufficient in such a latitude as that things may be in many degrees one more sufficient than another that is more apt and powerfull to produce the effect And for the first remember that if you judge so mercifully of Hereticks as that no one is such that hath not a proposal in the very first sense sufficient you can call no Arrian nor Photinian or Gnostick a Heretick till you know that the Proposal was to him sufficient And how much less can you call the Nestorians or Eutychians or the Abassines Syrians Armenians c. Hereticks when you know them not and know not the sufficiency of their proposals And to know that a proposal was sufficient to Nestorius Eutyches or Dioscorus doth not prove that there was such sufficient proposal to all others that go under such names either then or now Who knoweth not that an unlearned man hath need of clearer and ofter teaching than the Learned and one that by Education is prepossest with contrary conceptions hath need of more than the unprejudiced and one that is corrupted by sensual lusts hath need of more than the temperate And what man is well able to judge of the measures of sufficiency as to other then much less to whole Nations whom we know not 2. But as to your Minor which by the word as sufficiently sheweth that you take sufficiency as it hath degrees here you seem plainly to absolve all the Hereticks in the world e. g. As if a Monothelite were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently in degree revealed that Christ hath two wills as it is that he is the Christ and rose again or as if an Arrian were no Heretick unless it be as sufficiently revealed that Christ is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same substance with the Father as it is that he dyed 3. And the supposition in your Minor is notoriously false that all Hereticks have as sufficient a proposal of all they deny as of that which they believe For if the meaning of the words revealing be not equally plain and intelligible then the proposal is not equally sufficient But c Can any man not blinded by faction believe that God hath no more plainly told us that Christ dyed rose and ascended than that he hath two distinct wills or that he hath but one person or that his mother is to be called The parent of God and one that did beget and bring forth God and that God dyed yea or that Christ is God of God Light of Light very God of very God and yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only from the same substance but the same substance Though these are equally true they are not equally clear and evident Do the Quartodecimani the Luciferians the Iovinians deny Truthes as sufficiently proposed as that there is a God or a Christ If you say that though they be not equally proposed in Scripture yet they are by Councils or Traditions I Answer 1. Were they no points of Faith nor the denyal Heresie for 300 years before the first General Council 2. When they of Constance and Basil are for the Supremacy of Councils as de fide and they of Laterane and Florence against them when the Council of Basil decreed the Immaculate conception of the
shall be saved that holdeth all the Essentials of Christianity truly and practically 5. I have proved that your Definitions absolve more from 〈◊〉 and Schism than I do But it 's here to be noted That this Man maketh multitudes to be under the Papal Head that are no Subjects of Christ our Head and so that the Pope hath a Church of his own that is none of Christs Church § 7. I Noted That either their Church hath defined that 〈◊〉 and Sâ—…hismaticks are no parts of the Church or not If not how can he stand to it and impose it on me If they have then their Doctors that say the contrary named by Bellarmine are all 〈◊〉 themselves He saith None of ours ever held them parts as you do that is united to Christ by Faith and Charity Answ. Is not this Man hard put to it All this while he hath been Disputing us and all called by their Usurping censure Hereticks out of the Church Visible and calling on me to prove the perpetuity of our Church Visible and telling me that without a more Visible Head than Christ it is not Visible And yet now it is but the Invisible Church as Headed by Christ and endowed with true Faith and Charity which these Doctors of theirs exclude Hereticks and Schismaticks from § 8. I said Arrians are no Christians denying Christs Essence He replyeth True and so do all Hâ—…reticks I Answer If indeed they did so not only in words not understood but in the undâ—…tood sence so that this is really their belief and really Exclusive of the contrary Truth I place no such Hereticks in the Church He proveth his charge thus Whosoever denyeth Christs most Infallible Veracity and Divine Authority denyeth somewhat Essential to Christ but so doth every Heretick properly called Answ. Away with such Hereticks as do so indeed For the Minor he cometh to the old obscurity Whosoever denyeth that to be true which is sufficiently propounded to him to be Revealed by Christ denyeth Christs Verity and Divine Authority but so doth every Heretick Answ. I have oft enough shewed 1. That the Argument is useless because no Man can judge of the Sufficiency of Proposals till they come to very high degrees as to the capacities of other Men. 2. That the Major is false For a Man that doubteth not of Christs Verity and Authority may not understand and so may deny many Truths sufficiently propounded hindering the understanding of them by sloth senfuality partiality prejudice or other faults Can any Man doubt of this 3. That his Minor also is false He may be a Heretick that denyeth that which is not sufficiently proposed if his own crime either blinding his mind or forfeiting better proposals cause the insufficiency § 9. I noted how they charge one another with Pelagianisme And he saith Not in the point of Original Sin Answ. And is all the rest come now to be no Heresie Was it for nothing else that they were judged Hereticks The rest should have as fair play if your interest were but as much for it § 10. But saith he Who ever before you said that the Catholick-Church could be divided it self when it is a most perfect unity A grand novelty of yours Answ. This is because I said that some make divisions in the Church that divide not from it much less from the whole I proved before that in this sense Paul usually speaketh against Schisme or Divisions As when he tells the Corinthians of the divisions among them c. But this man would make Scripture and common sense and reason to be grand novelties may there not be divisions in a House in a Kingdom in an Army in a particular Congregation as that at Corinth and that after which Clement wrote his Epistle to heal Have there not been abundance of such at Alexandria Antioch Constantinople was there no Division in the Church of Rome when part cleaved to one Pope and part to another for above forty years Did the Councils of Constance and Basil meet to heal their Schismes upon mistake when there was no such thing And do all their Historians erroneously number their Schisms Reader pardon my oft answering such bold abuses These are their arguers that hope to subvert England § 11. And his reason is such as would shew him a Catharist viz. The Church is a most perfect Unity If so than all grace is perfect which is necessary to perfect unity Then the Popes and Anti-Popes the warring Papalines and Imperialists the Iesuites Dominicans and Iansinists are all at perfect Unity Then there is no disagreement of Judgement Will or Practice among any Papists in the world no Volumes written against other Alas how far are such words from proving it or from ending their present Controversies or Wars Watson and Preston had scarce perfect unity with Father Parsons and the Iesuites Doth perfect unity draw all the blood between France and the house of Austria or in France between King Hen. â—…d and the Leaguers It is enough for me to believe that all true Christians have a true unity in Christ with each as his members but that this Unity among themselves is sadly imperfect and so was when they had all the contentions in many General Councils and when the people have oft fought it out to blood about Religion and the choice of Bishops at Alexandria Rome c. Is this perfection It is in heaven that we hope for perfect unity where all is perfect § 12. I told him Heresie being a personal crime the Nations cannot be charged with it Without better proofs He saith if he hath 1. the testimony of one of our Writers Answ. Alas poor Kingdoms of Christians that can be proved Hereticks if Pet. Heylin or any one of our Writers do but say it 2. He tells a story of Prestor Iohn sending to Rome for instruction Answ. Confuted so oft and by their own Writers that it 's a shame to repeat it Nor doth that prove them so much as Papists much less Hereticks 3. That their Canon of the Mass proveth them Eutychians in that they name the three former Councils and not that of Calcedon Answ. Small proof will serve the turn with such willing men What if Dioscorus made them believe that That Council did condemn the doctrine of Cyril which he verily thought was the same which he defended and rejected the Nicene Creed which he appealed to and that they divided Christ Might not the consent of the neighbour Egyptian Bishops put them out of conceit with that Council though they owned no Heresie Do not your Writers now ordinarily quit them of such Heresie Do they that disown the Councils of Constance or Basil own all the Errors or Schismes which They condemned You justifie the Abassines when you tell men that your calumnies have no better show of truth § 13. Erasmus laments the Age when it became a matter of the highest wit and subtilty to be a Christian. This seemeth about Cyrils dayes when
Confirmation Vocation Missions Jurisdiction All these explained Sect. 8. He makes the Chapters in Queen Elizabeth days to have had the power of choosing all the Parish Priests Popes no Popes for want of common consent Sect. 9. who must choose a Monark of all the earth Sect. 10. Their succession interrupted Sect. 11. 12. Is it essential to a Bishop to have many Congregations parishes or presbyters By affirming this he nullifieth all the first Bishops who were Bishops before they made presbyters under them and so denyeth all succession by denying the root CHAP. 5. What they mean by TRADITION Sect. 1. He thinks the Tradition of all the world may be known by every Christian as easily as the Tradition of the Canonical Scripture Sect. 2. Tradition against Popery Sect. 4. The Protestants Abassines Armenians Greeks c. are of one Church Sect. 4. The contradictions of W. J. The unity of all other Christians as such greater than the unity of Papists as Papists Sect. 5. CHAP. 6. What they mean by a General COUNCIL His definition of a general Council is no definition Sect. 2. Councils of old not called by the Pope Sect. 3. His confusion and contradictions Sect. 4. General Councils were but of the Empire proved Sect. 5. The impossibility and utter unlawfulness of a true universal Council of the whole Christian world proved Sect. 6. How many make an universal Council Sect. 7. They make presbyters uncapable of voteing in councils and yet the highest ancient part of the Papacy viz. to preside in councils is oft deputed to presbyters Sect. 8. The council of Basil that had presbyters rejected by them for other reasons Sect 9. CHAP. 7. What they mean by SCHISM Papists acquit all from schism who separate not from the Whole visible Church of Christ Sect. 1. We separated not from the Greeks Arminians c. Sect. 3. He absurdly requireth that we should have our Mission and Jurisdiction from them if we have communion with them Sect. 4. We have the same faith with them Sect. 5. How far we separate from Rome Sect. 6. They were not our lawful pastors Sect. 7. Of hearing the pharises Sect. 8. We infer not Rebellion against Authority by our rejecting trayterous Usurpers Sect. 9. Whether the first Reformers knowingly and wilfully separated from the whole Church on earth Sect. 10. He pretendeth that the Churches unity is perfect and therefore that it is impossible there should be any schism in it but only from it when their own sect had a schisme by divers Popes for forty years Whether all that followed the wrong Pope those forty years were out of the Church and damned Sect. 11. His definition of schism agreeth best to the Papists who separate from all the Church save their own sect Sect. 12. An admonition to others Sect. 13. My Reasons unanswered by which I proved 1. That we interrupted not our Church succession when we broke off from Rome 2. That the Roman Church is changed in Essentials PART II. The PREFACE ALL was not well said or done by every Bishop or Council of old Sect. 1 2 3. Of the considerableness of the extra-Imperial Churches of old Sect. 4 5. The plea of Peters supremacy and their succession overthrown There never were twelve Patriarchal seats as the successors of the twelve Apostles No one Patriarch claimed to be an Apostles successor but Rome and Antioch and Antioch never claimed supremacy on that account Sect. 6. The true state of the controversie about the Churches perpetual visibility Sect. 7. Papists make Christians no Christians for not obeying the Pope and no Christians to be Christians if they will be his subjects Sect. 8 9. What I maintain Sect. 10. A discourse republished proving that Christs Church hath no Universal Head but himself Pope nor Council CHAP. 1. The Confutation of W. I's Reply Twelve instances confuâ—…ing the wild fundamental principle of W. J. that whatever hath been ever in the Church by Christs institution is essential to it Sect. 4. By this he unchurcheth Rome Sect. 5. He saith that every such thing is essential to the Church but not to every member of the Church but to such as have sufficient proposal confuted Sect 6. By this their Church cannot be known or the faith of a few may make others Christians Sect. 7. His assertion further confuted Sect. 8. His Logical proof shamed that every accident is separable and therefore all that Christ instituted to continue is no accident Sect. 9. Whether the belief of every institution for continuance be essential to the Church Sect. 10. They unchurch themselves Sect. 11. He acknowledgeth that all Christian Nations are not bound to believe the Popes supremacy expresly but implicitely in subjecting themselves to them that Christ hath instituted to be their lawful pastors Five notable consequents of this The true method of believing Sect. 12. The instance of the conversion of the Iberians and Indians vindicated He supposeth that every revealed truth was taught them by lay-persons Sect. 13. The instance of Peters not preaching his own supremacy Act. 2. vindicated Sect. 14. The Indians converted by the English and Dutch are taught the true faith Sect. 15. And so are the Abassines Sect. 16. His Doctrine against Christs visible reign containeth many gross errors commonly called Heresies And by making the Christian world a Monster if it have not one Papal Head he maketh the humane world a Monster because it hath not one humane King Sect. 17. CHAP. 2. Our Churches visibility confessed Theirs to be by them proved How far any Protestants grant the power of Patriarchs and the Pope as Patriarch Sect. 1. He biddeth me but prove that any Church which now denieth the Popes Soveraignty hath been always visible and he is satisfied whether that Church always denyed it or not Sect. 2. Notes hereon Whether they should exclaim against Christ as an invisible Head who make him as visible in the Eucharist to every receiver as a King is in his cloathes Sect. 3. Whether a Ministry be essential to the universal Church Sect. 4. His Argument against our Christianity re-examined and confuted by divers instances of such fallacies Sect. 5. He requireth an instance of any Church-Unity though without a humane head which endeth the controversie Sect. 6. More differences and greater amongst Papists than among all the other Churches Sect. 7. He hath no evasion but saying that these Churches are not Christians because they depend not on the Pope from which he before said that he abstracted Sect. 8. He denieth us with the Abassines Greeks Armenians c. to have been of the Church and of one Church both fully proved Sect. 9. The charge of Nestorianism and Eutichianism on many Churches examined Sect. 10. His shameful calling for the names of sects and requiring proof of the Negative that they are not such Sect. 11. CHAP. 3. More of our Unity Of the speech of Celestines Legat at Ephesus Sect. 1 2. His saying and unsaying Sect. 3. His
unchurched O poor Anchorites Hermites that are alone and shipwrackt Christians c. 2. Here is a new found priviledg of having company if in a Tavern or Alehouse and of being married and in a family such may be Christians when the solitary cannot Who would have thought that the Papists had held this But you say nothing to the case of them that are converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher that never tells him of a supreme Pastor as the English and Dutch convert many Indians Can they be subject to him that they hear not of W. J. Whether he be named or no the Church must be supposed to be sufficiently explicated to them as having some prudent manner of Government so that they must be instructed to render obedience to such Governours as Christ instituted in his Church which is virtually to a chief Pastor R. B. 1. So they that take the Pope for Antichrist may virtually be Papists Be content with that virtue 2. But I think that even that general belief of Pastoral Government is necessary ad bene esse rather than ad esse of a Christian. R. B. 1. I note by the way to be hereafter remembred his description of a particular Church as given by Hierome that it is Plebs unita Episcopo and Cyprian saith Ubi Episcopus ibi Ecclesia And Ignatius To every church there is one Altar and one Bishop with the Prosbyters and Deacons But by this Rule they make those that are now called Parish-Churches to be no Churches but only parts of a particular Church 2. Note that in his Definition he maketh living in external communion essential to those Congregations or Communities of Christians who make up the Catholick Church but tells us not whether it must be a Civil or only a Religious Communion or what Religious Communions besides unity of faith and dependance on Pastors it must be If by those words pag. 3. every particular family or neighbourhood he express that external communion then if their Pastors never give them Gods Word Sacraments or Prayer it may serve 3. He saith p. 4. In this consists your fallacy that you esteem none to be actually members of the universal Church unless they be actual members of some particular Church which I deny Which is his meer fiction of which I was so far from giving him any occasion that I was charging it as an error on himself reasonably supposing that by Visible Assemblies he had meant Churches 4. Note that he maketh it essential to the members of the Catholick Church that they depend on their lawful Pastors and yet that it is but a virtual subjection to the Pope by subjecting themselves to Christs manner of Government which is essential 1. Are not all Protestants and other Christians that own not the Pope true members of the Church then while they subject themselves in general to Christs manner of Government 2. He subjecteth himself to no Governour who doth it not to some existent individual For the universal existeth not but in the individuals And if it be not necessary that the Pope be this individual then subjection to some other is more essential than to the Pope And who is that who must be preferred before him Q. 2. What is that Faith in unity whereof all members of the Catholick Church do live Is it the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part and of what part W. J. Of all either explicitely or implicitely R. B. He might easily have known that it is explicite belief which the question meant for his implicite belief is the actual belief of nothing but the general and not of any unknown particulars Where there is no object in esse cognito vel percepto there is no act of faith for the object essentiateth the act in specie And where only the general object is perceived and no particular e. g. All that God saith in Scripture is true when one word of Scripture is not known there is no object for a particular belief But it is the belief of this or that in particular that we enquire of e. g. that Jesus is the Christ c. Your implicite belief is actual belief of the general but of particulars it is actually none at all as common reason tells us His reply to this I shall answer by parts in order R. B. We have here a most implicite account of the implicite faith which is essential to a Church-member The man would make the ignorant believe that their Schools are agreed of the sense when he might easily know the contrary I mentioned different senses of implicite faith 1. When Particulars are known and believed actually but confusedly and not distinctly but in gross So Dr. Holden in Analys sid seemeth to take it so the parts are seen or known oft in the whole so a purblind man seeth all the letters men trees c. before him I see all the sand in the hour-glass or much but not distinctly one sand from another This is a real knowledg of the very things but an imperfect knowledg 2. But besides this there is a knowledg of things only in their general nature which is a real knowledg but partial and imperfect As when I see something coming towards me afar of and know not whether it be a man or a beast I say it is an animal or a wight but what I know not This is not to know the thing formally but to know aliquid rei somewhat of that thing 3. There is also a knowledg which besides the general nature extendeth to some inadequate conception of the form but leaveth out other parts of the conception which are essential As when one knoweth so much of a man as that he hath a rational soul and not that he hath a body or that his soul is a virtus intellectiva but not that it is volitiva or when one knoweth that fire is formally a virtus illuminativa but not that it is calefactiva or motiva This is a real knowledg but partial and not formal being not of the whole essence So when one knoweth Christ to be God but not to be man or man and not God or to be a Teacher but not a King or Priest this is not properly to know Christ but somewhat of Christ. 4. There is a knowledg of meer universal Propositions which is but Organical as to things And this is no knowledg of all the particular things spoken of nor oft of many nor sometimes of any of them nor of the particular Propositions which should be further known nor of the conclusion that should be infer'd from both For instance Men may say that Omnis spiritus est immaterialis And one may mean and know by it but as the Sadducees or Hobs or Gassendus that a spirit is a chimaera si daretur spiritus immaterialis foret And another may doubt and mean si detur spiritus immaterialis est And another may hold that there
is no spirit but God and the Anima Mundi and say that these are immaterial and never the more believe that Angels or Souls are spirits And no man can reasonably imagine that omnis spiritus est immaterialis doth include omnis anima est spiritus or that W. I's est spiritus immaterialis So one may say that all that are sanctified shall be glorified and yet not believe that Peter Paul yea or Christ were Holy of this sort of knowledg I mentioned that which is a belief of no more but the formal object of Faith that is Gods veracity that God cannot lye and so that all that God saith is true when yet one that confesseth this denieth all the Bible to be his Word and believeth rather Mahomet Amida or Confutius to have been Gods Messengers or the ancient Oracles at Delphos c. to have been his word But the confused Head of W. I. confoundeth several of these different sorts and because he thought that he might handsomly call a meer general knowledg or faith confused therefore he confoundeth the true confused faith with the general which are easily distinguished And first he calls for my proof That a meer general belief is no belief at all of the particulars though a confused faith may I prove it 1. Where there is no intellectual conception of the particulars there is no actual belief of the particulars But where there is only a conception of a general proposition there is no intellectual conception of the particulars Ergo c. the major is undeniable and the minor no less 2. Where the particular Object is not understood or believed there is not the particular Act of knowing or believing that Object for the Object is essential to the Act But where there is only a knowledg and belief of the general Object there the particular Object is not understood or believed Ergo c. 3. That is not an actual belief of the particulars which may consist with the actual belief of the contradictory But a meer belief of the General Proposition may consist i h the contradictory to the belief of particulars Ergo c. But he comes upon me with some instances so worded as may deceive the ignorant 1. Saith he Doth not this Proposition Omne animal vivit contain the substance of these truths Equus vivit Leo vivit Aquila vivit c Answ. No surely unless by substance you mean not the other Proposition but somewhat else what you list for it containeth not the very subject that there is such a thing as Equus Leo Aquila in being and that they are animalia May not a man that never heard or believed that there was such a creature as an Eagle Lyon c. no more than a Unicorn or Phaenix yet know that omne animal vivit 2. He saith Believing all that is in Scripture is the Word of God and true expresly I believe in confuso all that is in Genesis c. Answ. Yes if in confuso be terminus diminuens to actual belief of the particulars By meer believing the first you do not actually believe a word of Genesis or Exodus c. for your Proposition saith not that there is any such Book in the Scripture As I believe all the holy Scripture to be true and yet believe not Tobit Iudith Bell and the Dragon to be true because I believe them not to be the Holy Scriptures so may others by Genesis Exodus c. as the Hereticks of old denied many Books and as Infidels may believe all that is Gods Word to be true and yet not believe that the Scripture is his Word 3. Saith he Is not an express knowledg of the Genus a confused knowledg of species under it and so the species of the individua Answ. Yes if by confused knowledg you mean no knowledg of them it is no true knowledg of them at all 4. But he saith that my words not knowing whether you be Animal or Cadaver is a contradictory Proposition Answ. Say you so May not I see you asleep and think that you are dead Doth this Proposition Omne animal vivit include that there is such a Wight in being as W. I. or N. N or that he is now alive or that it is really a Man and not a Horse that is so called any more than that Bucephalus was a Man Yet doth he back these absurdities with advising me to a little more heed to what I write Note that page 9 he asserteth that The object of implicite faith delivered in the Schools is nothing save particular truths contained in substance under some general propositions so that they be neither known nor believed distinctly and expresly yet in confuso they are by the knowledg or belief of their general proposition Answ. But there is a confused knowledg of particulars which is actual of the Being of them though not distinct not fit or ripe for words to utter it This is different from the knowledg of meer Generals which is indeed no knowledg of the particulars that any such are contained in those generals at all He next comes to expound his words That faith believeth all that God revealeth explicitely or implicitely that is now some things explicitely and some things implicitely when as I asked him What was the faith in which we must unite who would have expected such an answer That it is a general belief of all things revealed and a particular belief of some things That it is such a belief of all particulars as is no real actual belief of some of them and it is an actual belief of other some But is any man ever the nearer the knowledg of their minds by this 1. Here is no notice what the General is that must be believed He professeth that it is not the formal object only that is The veracity or faithfulness of God the Revealer And what else it is whether that all that the Scripture revealeth is true or that all that the Church declareth to be Gods word is true and whom we must take for that Church c. he hath not told us and so hath given an answer which is no answer 2. Nor hath he told us what the Particulars are that must be believed But we may know what faith it is that the Church must unite in by hearing that it is something we know not what or that it is somewhat in general and somewhat in particular Doth this account satisfie themselves or do they look that it should satisfie us Will this distinguish their Church from Hereticks or Mahometans Do not these believe somewhat in general and somewhat in particular And do not Heathens do the same If this be enough for Christianity or Concord why do they call us Hereticks Are we not all of that Faith which believeth somewhat in General even that all Gods Word is true and somewhat in Particular But it 's well that he saith that the explicite belief of somewhat is necessary though
we may not know what And he tells us That while they have an explicite belief of some Articles they can never be thought to be without faith Answ. Either he meaneth that faith which was in the question which must notifie us from Hereticks and from others without and which the Church must unite in or some other faith If any other doth he not wilfully juggle and fly from answering when he pretends to answer If he means the faith in question then Mahometans and Heathens are of their Faith and Members of their Church yea and all that they call Hereticks and anathematize themselves yea and the Devils that believe and tremble But one would think that pag. 11 he described the necessary implicite Faith when he saith Our ordinary sense is so to believe that point that we have no distinct or express knowledg of it but only a confused understanding because it is contained in confuso under this proposition I believe all that God hath revealed or I believe all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Answ. 1. But I must again repeat that here the word confused is used but to confound This is no actual belief of any particular under that proposition When a thing is actually known in it self but only by a General knowledg or not dâ—…stinct this is truly an Impersect knowledg It is to know somewhat of that thing though not its form or individuation If I see something which I know not whether it be a Man or a Tree a Steeple or a Rock I verily know somewhat of that thing it self but not the form of it If I see a Book open at two-yards distance I see the Letters distinctly but not formally for I know not what any one of them is If I see a clod of Earth or a River I see much of the very substance of the earth and water but I discern not the sands or the drops as distinct parts Here something is known though the special or numerical difference much more some accidents be unknown But in knowing W. I's general proposition only I know nothing at all of the particulars as shall yet be further manifested 2. And mark what his general Proposition is which he saith is the object of their Implicite saith viz. I believe all that God hath revealed or all that is delivered to be believed in the Holy Scripture Either he really meaneth that this is the implicite faith by which Christians are notifiâ—…d and which uniteth the Members of the Church and distinguisheth them from those without or he doth not If he do not what doth he but deceive his Râ—…ader If he do then as I said All Christians Hereticks most Mahometans and Heathens believe the first proposition viz. That all is true that God revealeth And Protestants and Papists and most other sorts of Christians agree in the second The Scripture-truth Here then is a justification of our Faith so far But do you think that he meaneth as he seemeth to mean Do they not hold it also necessary that men must take their Church to be the declarer of this Scripture-truth And also that Tradition not written in the Bible be believed Must not both these make up their Implicite Faith If our general Faith and theirs be the same what maketh them accuse us herein as they do But now pag. 11. he proceeds to assault me with such reasoning as this No man knoweth all that God hath revealed to wit with an actual understanding of every particular Ergo say I No man believes all that God hath revealed Now I proceed If no man believe all that God hath revealed then you believe not all that God hath revealed Then further Whoever believeth not all that God hath revealed is no good Christian nor in state of salvation But you believe not all that God hath revealed Ergo you are no good Christian nor in a state of salvation See you not how fair a thred you have spun Or will you say that he that believes not all that God hath revealed is a good Christian If you will you may but no good Christian will believe you Answ. The man seemeth in good sadness in all this Childish Play And must Rome be thus upheld And must poor mens Faith and Consciences be thus laid upon a game at Cheating Words No wonder that this Hector would have nothing said in dispute but syllogism c. Few Lads and Women would unmask his pitiful deceits whether the great disputer saw their vanity himself I know not But men at age that can speak and try sense will see that all this Cant is but the sporting-equivocation of one syllable ALL This ALL is either a term of a meer general proposition e. g. All Gods word is true Here I believe what is predicated of this general word ALL and take this for a true proposition ALL Gods word is true Or it signifieth the very things species or parts as in themselves known and so if the very things species or parts generally expressed by the word ALL be not themselves known as such things species or parts it is no actual knowledg of them at all to know that truth of the said general proposition And doth not every novice in Logick know this The same I say of Beliefs as of Knowledg He is no good Christian who believeth not that all Divine Revelations are true which Hereticks and Heathens believe But neither I nor any Christian known to him or me knoweth or believeth ALL the particular verities which God hath revealed And he believeth not one of them beside that proposition it self which is found among the rest who believeth but that general But yet he will justifie his vanity by more instances pag. 12 he saith When you profess in tâ—…e Creed that God is the Creator of all things visible and invisible I demand Do you believe as you profess If you do then you may believe with an actual belief that he is the Creator of many things visible and invisible whereof you have no actual understanding or which are wholly unknown particularly or distinctly to you or by any other knowledg than as confusedly contained in the word ALL. Ans. 1. What 's all this but to say that I believe this proposition All things of which many are unknown to â—…e are created by God This proposition I know and believe but the things themselves as such I no further believe than I know if I know not that they are I believe not that they are if I know not what they are I believe not what they are that is if I have not an intellectual conception That they are and What they are for believing is indeed but a knowing by the medium of a Testimony or Revelation and the veracity of the Revealer I believe that God maâ—… all that is about the Center of the earth and yet I neither know nor actually believe any one thing species or individual or
Church cannot or doth not err in telling me what is Gods Revelation before I can know or believe any of his Revelation If they mean that this act of faith must go first before I can have any other why may I not know and believe other articles of faith without the divine belief of the Churches authority or infallibility as I may believe this one God hath revealed that the Church is infallible or true in telling me what I must believe If one Article may be believed without that motive and sure it is not believed before it is believed why not others as well as that 3. And which way or by what Revelation did God confer this Infallibility on the Church If by Scripture it is supposed that yet you know not what is in the Scripture or believe it not to be true till you have first believed the Churches Veracity Therefore it cannot be that way If by verbal tradition it is equally supposed that you know not that Tradition to be Gods word and true before you know the Churches Veracity that tells you so So that the Question How I must believe the Churches Veracity herein by what divine revelation before I can believe any other revelation is still unanswered and answerable only by palpable contradiction But were it not for interpreting him contrary to his company I should by his words here judg that it is no Divine faith of the Churches Veracity which he maketh pre-requisite to all other acts of faith but it is Prudential motives of creâ—…bility which must draw him to afford credit to that authority as derived from God which commends to him the Bible as the word of God now that can be no other than the Authority of the Catholick Church Ans. Mark Reader It can be no other than the authority of the Church which must be the prudential motive to credit the authority of the Church as derived from God So the Churches Authority must be first credited that he may credit it or else the Authority not credited must move him to credit it which is all contradiction unless he mean that the Churches Authority credited by a humane faith or by some notifying or conjectural evidences besides divine revelation must move him to believe that it is authorized by God When they have told us whether that first credit given to the Church have any certainty for its object and also what and whence that certainty is we shall know what to say to them Knot against Chillingworth is fain tosay That it is the Churches own Miracles by which it is known to have divine authority before we can believe any word of God And so no man can be sure that Gods word is his word and true till he be first sure that the Church of Rome hath wrought such miracles as prove its veracity as from God which will require in the Catechumene so much acquaintance with Historical Legends which the more he reads them the less he will believe them as will make it a far longer and more uncertain way to become a Christian than better Teachers have of old made use of And 2. it seems when all is done that he taketh this Authority of the Church but for a prudential motive But is it certain or uncertain If uncertain so will all be that 's built upon it If certain again tell us by what ascertaining evidence Reader it is the crooked ways into which byassing-interest hath tempted these men to lead poor souls which are thus perplexing and confounding How plain and sure a way God hath prescribed us I have told you in a small Tractate called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery In short it is possible if a man never hear but one Sermon which mentioneth not the authority of the Church or find a Bible on the high-way and read it that he may see that evidence in it that may perswade him savingly to believe through grace that it truly affirmeth it self to be the word of God But the ordinary method for most rational certainty is To have first Historical ascertaining evidence of the matter of fact viz. that This Book was indeed written and these miracles and other things done as it affirmeth Or first perhaps That this Baptismal Covenant Lords Prayer Creed and Decalogue have been delivered down from the first witnesses of Christ and Miracles wrought to confirm the Gospel which is also written at large in that Book This we have far greater Historical Certainty of than the pretended authority of a judging-Church of Rome even the infallible testimony of all the Churches in the world and as to the essentials Baptism the Creed c. of Hereticks Infidels and Heathens which I have opened at large in a Book called The Reasons of Christian Religion and another called The Unreasonableness of Infidelity and in other writings And the matter of fact with the Book being thus certainly brought down to us as the Statutes of the Land are we then know the Gospel and that Book to be of God by all those evidences which in the foresaid Treatises I have opened at large and more briefly in a Treatise called The Life of Faith the sum of which is the Holy Spirit as Christs Agent Advocate and Witness in his Works of Divine Power Wisdom and Goodness or Love printed first on Christ himself his Life and Doctrine and then on the Apostles their Works and Doctrine and then on all sanctified believers in all ages and especially on our selves besides his antecedent prophesies Pag. 16. He again pretendeth that he need not name the necessary Articles of Faith because I my self say They must be the Essentials and it is supposed I understand my own terms Ans. A candid Disputant The light followeth him while he flyeth from it Doth it follow that if I know my own meaning I therefore know yours and if I know which are the essentials that therefore you know them and are of the same mind Pag. 17. The man would make me believe that I speak not true divinity when I say that Divine and Humane Faith may be conjunct when the testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure that it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly guideth and inspireth him He would make you believe that I am singular and erroneous here Ans. And why He saith that would make Christian faith partly humane But 1. when I talk but of two faiths conjunct what if I called the former divine faith only the Christian faith May not a humane yet be conjunct with the Christian 2. But words must be examined If Christian faith be so called from the Object then Christ and not his Apostles are the reason of the name materially we are called Christians for believing in Christ and not for believing in them 2. If Christian faith were taken subjectively it is humane faith for men are the subjects of it 3. If Christian faith be
separateth from that Parish-Church may yet be 〈◊〉 member of the Church Universal while he separateth not from it But I see that Guiliel de Sancto Amore and such others had greater reason to condemn the Friers and Watson and such others the Jesuits than we knew of I noted also the difficulty How we shall know the Authority of every Parish-Priest Bishop Archbishop Patriarch and Pope And 1. in a Country where Orders have ordinarily been forged To this he answered As much as you can be assured of any being Pastor of such a Church or Bishop or Iustice c. Aâ—…s 1. If you prove it a duty to believe and obey every such deceiver that hath no authority we will not believe till you prove it that to do otherwise doth unchurch us 2. And if two or three claim authority over us at once as they did in the Papacy about forty years together are we cut off from Christ if we receive not both or how shall we know which If either will serve then they that took Iohn of Constantinople for Universal Bishop were as much in the Church as they that received Pope Boniface as such And they that followed Dioscorus at Alexandria being Orthodox as they that adhered to Proterius c. Is it no matter who it be so we think him to be the right Why then do you deny our English Clergy when we judg them to have the true authority 2. I asked What if we be ignorant whether the ordainer had intentionem ordinandi how shall we be sure of the authority of the Ordained He answered As sure as you can be that you were the lawful child of your parents who could not be truly married without intention Ans. This is new Doctrine they that speak the words and do the actions which properly signifie a true intention and do profess it do thereby mutually oblige themselves in the relation of husband and wife to each other and they that truly so oblige themselves are truly though sinfully married For what is Marriage but such a mutual obliging contract they are truly my parents and I owe them obedience whatever their intention was But you hold a man to be no Priest that was not ordained ex â—…entione ordinandi and our Salvation to lie on our obeying him as a Priest who is none My fourth Question was How the people that dwell in other Countrys can know whether the Priest Prelate or Pope had necessary Election and Ordination To which he saith Wâ—…en it is publickly allowed in the Church witnessed to be performed according to Canonical prescription by those that were present and derived to the people without contradiction by publick fame Ans. 1. This alloweth the Ministry in Ethiopia Armenia Moscovie Grâ—…ece as much as the Roman For it is publickly allowed and attested and brought to the people by uncontradicted fame And so is the Ministry of the Reformed Churches to all that hear not your contradiction 2 But with Rome the case is otherwise one part of the Church hath publickly allowed one Pope and all his Clergy and another part rejected him and allowed another and his Clergy and publick fame hath contradicted one party 3. And what can fame say to us in England of the Election or Ordination made at Rome of a Pope Prelate or Parish-priest when we hear not any witness of it 4. And how can we expect contradiction of an action done a thousand miles off which none near knew of 5. And yet how few Priests or Prelates are they whose authority fame publisheth without contradiction Do not Protestants contradict the authority of your Priests and most of the Christian World the authority of your Pope My fifth Question was If you tell me your own opinion of the sufficient means to know the Popes or Priests authority how shall I know that you are not deceived unless a Council bad desined it sufficient To this he saith That the orders prescribed in the Canon Law and universally received are sufficient for this without Decrees of General Councils for they are no points of faith but of order and discipline whereof a moral certainty and Ecclesiastical authority are sufficient Ans. 1. Is this moral certainty true certaints or uncertainty If true certainty it hath its moral ascertaining evidences And what are those 2. Who is the maker of this Canon Law If not General Councils how shall we know their authority If the Pope and Cardinals how shall we know whether those of e. g. Stephen Sergius or Formosus be the authentick ones and so of many other contradictory ones If a General Council damn and depose e. g. Eugenius the fourth as a Heretick c. and he make Canons after how shall we know that they are authoritative 3. But are your matters of order and discipline no matters of faith Then God hath not bound us to believe that the Pope is the Universal Bishop or Pastor or that Rome hath any authority over the world or other Christian Churches or that your Priests are the true Ministers of Christ and have any authority over us or that the Mass is to be celebrated c. But either these are matters of Divine or Humane Law If man only command them how cometh our Christianity and Salvation to be laid on them What man commands man may abrogate unless extrinsick accidents hinder If God command them doth God command any thing which he binds us not to believe to be our duty Many things may be de fide revealed which are not de moribus nor to be done but nothing is by God commanded to be done which is not first to be known or believed to be duty 4. If it be no matter of faith how to know that your Elections and Ordinations are true then it is no matter of faith that you are true Pastors or have any authority because without true Election and Ordination it is not so and if so then it 's no heresie to believe that you are all deceivers 5. Your Authority or Decrees below that of Pope and General Councils pretend to no Infallible certainty upon this it seems your Church is built and into uncertainty its authority resolved and yet from this we must fetch our certainty of the Gospel in your way And is not the Gospel then made uncertain by you which must be believed on the authority of an uncertain Ministry yea and are not Councils uncertain which consist of such a Ministry 6. It 's a vanity to pretend that your Canon Law is universally received most of the Christian World receive but part of it and much no part at all unless you call the Scripture the Canon Law 7. If your Canon Law be so universally received and sufficient then when that Law is received into England England must be burnt as a land of Hereticks for that 's part of your Law and so your Ministry and our burning as Hereticks have the same authority My next Question was If I culpably were
ignorant but of some few Priests authority among thousands am I cut off from all the rest and the Church His answer is It is not all Priests but all Pastors in relation to their flocks Ans. 1. But if my Parish-priest be but one of twenty or an hundred thousand doth my culpable ignorance of his authority cut me off from all the Church It may be I believe Pope Nicolas Decrees that a man must not hear Mass of a Priest that hath a Concubine Or that a Simonical Pope or Bishop is no true Pope or Bishop 2. And remember that my Parish-Priest and my Bishop Metropolitan Patriarch and Pope can never make a General Council Either I may be safely ignorant of the Priesthood of all the rest in such a Council or not If not then I must know the certain Priesthood of all others as well as of my own Pastors contrary to what you say If yea then I have no certainty of the Priestly authority of Councils I next argued That it is not the rejecting of a Constables authority which maketh him no subject thâ—… owns the Soveraign To this he rejoineth That yet if I reject the Constable and with him all superior Magistrates and at last the Sovereign I am a rebell And so if I reject the authority first of a Parish-priest and then the Bishop of the Diocess and after of all his Superiors to the highest I am a rebel to the visible Church and cast out and reject Christs authority Ans. 1. Do you see what all our dispute is come to at last All this while it was the rejecting of any one Pastor that cut us off and now it is the rejecting of him and all above him to the bighest Is it not lost labour to dispute with these men 2. When you have proved that Christ hath such a thing as you call the visible Church that is all the world obliged to obey any one man or Governour besides Christ when he is naturally as uncapable of it as of being the Universal Physician even at the Antipodes and where he can never send then we will take it for rebellion to reject that Head Till then we shall take it to be Treason against Christ to claim and own that which is his prerogative How cometh it to pass that no one yet learned to call himself the Universal King of the Earth or the Universal Iudg Physician School-master c. as well as the Universal Priest and Teacher of Religion Next I craved his answer to much which I had written on this subject before in my Safe Relig. which he refuseth and tells me That I make a visible body with an invisible head to the Church which Government is internal and invisible abstracting from visible supreme authority Ans. 1. Christ was seen on Earth 2. He is seen in the Court of Heaven 3. He hath left a visible Universal Law by which he governeth 4. He hath appointed visible Officers over the world though no Head which is the way that the Pope pretendeth to govern even per alios when he never sent to a quarter of the world 5. His subjects are men visible known by audible profession and visible worship 6. He will visibly judg the world in Glory and be seen by all his Church for ever And when you prove that he hath a Church that is otherwise visible we will hear you They that assert an Anima Mundi and they that think one Intelligence or Angel ruleth all the Earth say that which is possible though they can never prove it But to talk of a Governour of all the World that never heard who dwelleth on a third part of it and that can get no Ships to sail about the Earth in many ages and when they do come not near the hundredth part of the world this is a prodigious claim for a waking man My fourth Question about his definition of the Church was Why exclude you the chief Pastors that depend on none He answereth I include them Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo unita Ans. 1. But he had defined the Church as those that depend on the Pastors which seemed to exclude the Popes that depend on none 2. Hierome defineth a particular Church and not the universal 3. They oft call the Clergy the Church He rejoineth That Terms have different acceptions Ans. But by all this ado I can have no reasonable satisfaction from you what you mean by the Church or what that Church is which you call us to unite with and which you accuse us as separating from We are like to dispute well with men that cannot or will not explain the terms of the question CHAP. II. Of their sense of the Word HERESIE W. J. HERESIE is an obstinate intellectual opposition against Divine Authority revealed when it is sufficiently propounded R. B. Q. 1. Is the obstinacy that maketh Heresie in the Intellect or the will W. J. In the Will by an imperate act restraining the understanding to that R. B. Still your descriptions signifie just nothing you describe it to be an Intellectual Obstinate opposition and now say that it is in the will He replieth that the error is in the Understanding but the obstinacy in the Will Ans. Indeed the obstinacy is in both but radically in the Will but did Intellectual opposition notifie this R. B. And you contradict your self by saying that it is an imperate act For no imperate act is in the will but of or from the Will The imperant act is in the Will but the imperate as Intelligere in the commanded faculty To this he replieth That 1. he meant not the act was in the Will though he said it was an act of the Will 2. That all Philosophers are against me and say that the Will may command Charity and other acts in it self Ans. 1. Who could conjecture that by an act of the Will you meant not an act in the Will but from it 2. It 's true that Volo velle is a proper speech and one act of the Will may be the object of another and a good man willeth nothing more here than to will better and if you will call this commanding I will not contend about the word But certainly all these Volitions are such acts as they call elicite which they usually distinguish from imperate and thus you confound them Otherwise every act of the will which is willed by a former act should be called imperate and so none but the first should be elicite And who knoweth when that first act was in being seeing the will doth still will its own future action R. B. 2. I hence noted that if wilful obstinacy be essential to Heresie their Church cannot know a Heretick while they burn them For they know not the heart and many that they burn would take their oaths that they are not willing to err He answereth W. J. We enter not into mens hearts that we leave to God only the Church presumes
all men that believe a God believe him to be true and no lyar and so W. I. maketh none but Atheists to be Hereticks To this he answereth W. J. There is a twofold denying of God one formal and direct the other virtual and indirect Atheists are guilty of the first Hereticks of the second This I oblige my self to prove Whosoever obstinately contradicts any truth revealed from God as all Hereticks do some or other of them they sinfully and wilfully affirm that what God hath revealed is not true and consequently that God is a lyar and by that destroy as much as in them lieth the very essence of God R. B. Here is little but novelty and deceit 1. It is deceit to call that a denying of God in a controversie of such moment whatever you might do rhetorically in an Oration which you confess your self is not a denying him For you say that it is not a formal but a virtual denying him and that is truly no actual denying him for forma dat nomen esse Boys will deride you if you deny this If you object Paul's words Tit. 1. They confess him in words but in their works they deny him I answer that they denied him formally by their works For those works signified that their minds did not formally believe God to be God indeed according to his Essentialities 2. It is novelty and deceit to affirm and stoutly undertake to prove that the denying of one of the Propositions from which the Conclusion must arise is virtually a denying of both e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but the story of Bell and the Dragon and of the Angel in Tobit saying he was the Son of Ananias of the Tribe of Naphthali and that the intrals of a Fish would drive away all Devils that they should never return c. are the word of God May not a man firmly believe the Major that taketh the Minor for a lie And suppose that the Roman Church say that I am obstinate my reasons are 1. Angels be not born of man 2. Christ saith This kind goeth not out but by fasting and prayer c. so that I must take Christ for a lyar if I take not Tobit to be false may not I be obstinate in this and yet not deny that all the Word of God is true If the Manichees tell me that the Gospel of Nicodemus and of Saint Thomas is the word of God and the Papists that the Apostolical Canons and Constitutions and the Itinerary of Peter were written by Clemens is obstinate unbelief of this a denying that God is true Your sufficient proposal is that of your Church A General Council is your highest proposer with the Pope I find that the Council at Constance and Basil and Pisa say one thing and that at Lateran and Florence say the contrary and I obstinately refuse to believe them both may I not yet firmly believe that God is true you are not God And verily I have more reason to suspect you than God The Country-man that never read Councils nor travelled to Rome knoweth nothing of your matters but by his Parish-priest If he know this Priest to be a common whoremonger and lyar may he not suspect him without denying God But if you can prove what you undertake it is the sadder with you that can triumph in sentencing your selves as Hereticks to Hell e. g. Whatever is Gods word is true but it is Gods word that the Lords Supper should be administred in both kinds bread and wine This do in remembrance of me and that it is bread after the consecration 1 Cor. 11. and that it is better to pray in a known tongue than in an unknown 1 Cor. 14. and that they know not what manner of spirit they are of who would have the resisters of Christs Apostles and of Christ himself consumed with fire and that the Clergy must not Lord it over Gods heritage but as servants to all rule them willingly and not by constraint c. Ergo this is all true And whoever denieth this truth of God indirectly denieth Gods essence and maketh him a lyar But the Church of Rome denieth all these Doth it follow that the Church of Rome are Hereticks blasphemers and lyars And all this is sufficiently revealed for it is plainly written in the Word of God 3. Note Reader that such a contradiction of any truth revealed by God doth make a man an Heretick O then what abundance of Hereticks be in the world What one man can say that he doth not contradict some truth revealed by God by nature or Scripture or both Every mans mind and will is depraved and being so hath some degree of obstinacy in resisting some truth of God and so all men in the world as well as the obstinately erroneous Papists are Hereticks Not only Papists that will believe neither the Scripture Tradition Reason nor all mens senses that there is bread after Consecrations but any one that doth not believe who was the Father of Arphaxad e. g. or any point of Genealogy or of Chronology or differing Numbers in Kings and Chronicles Ezra and Nehemiah Mat. 1. and Luk. 3 c. Or that doth not believe that every word in Iudith Tobit c. are Gods word are all Hereticks and deniers of Gods Essence Nor doth he except any age of persons so that if a School-boy should but obstinately deny to believe his Master about a tradition or a Scripture-name or number he were a Heretick The Council of Basil revealeth the sinless conception of the Virgin Mary and yet the Papists that deny it are not accounted Hereticks And what shew is there of this consequence the Council of Ephesus 2. of Arminum of Lateran of Nice 2 of Florence of Constance Basil Trent may lie Ergo God is a lyar Hereticks should be softer in defining Heresie I next instanced What if a man deny that there is a Heaven Hell Resurrection and also the revelation of these and yet deny not the veracity of God no nor of the Church is this no Heretick He answereth No if not sufficiently propounded to him as revealed from God But that Proposition must be made by the Church and as long as he believeth the infallible veracity of the Church propounding he cannot disbelieve what it propoundeth sufficiently c. R. B. 1. But a man that doth not believe the Infallibility of the Church may believe Gods Veracity and yet be an Heretick 2. A Papist that holdeth your Church infallible may disbelieve what General Councils deliver as de fide for so you do So that this word Sufficient is as unintelligible among your selves as meer non-sense For even General Councils proposals are not accounted sufficient when you are against them and yet every Priest is when your turn requireth it 3. And many a man may take the Churches proposal to be certain and yet think that the Roman Church is but an erroneous faction and scarce a corrupt third
Church did notoriously believe and practice the administration of the Lords Supper in both kinds the Cup as well as the Bread and the celebration of publike worship in a known tongue and the reading and hearing of the Scripture in a known tongue by the people and others such like But yet I will not take you at your word nor call you Hereticks meerly on the account asserted by you for I know that your rule is false And if a man had known that the Universal Church had held some opinion of Chronology or Genealogy or Cosmography as about Cainan or the age of Sem or that there were no Artipodes especially in the dismal Ninth Century and if he had thought that they took this point for a Divine Revelation believing the Septuagint or some other mis-translation which was commonly received before Ieromes time this man so thinking that the whole Church then erred in so small a point was no Heretick for so thinking for I would know of your self whether the Popes and all their followers be not Hereticks For the Septuagint was long taken by the Universal Church for the Word of God and so was the Vulgar Latin long after by your Universal Roman Church and consequently that those Texts were Gods Word which yet afterward you altered Many hundred or thousand alterations in the one were made by Sixtus 5 and Clement 8 all which were so many judgments that the Church had erred that before took the other readings for the Word of God unless you can make one thing Gods word to day and the contrary to morrow 5. But by this rule also we are acquit from Heresie if it was not notorious to us that the Universal Church believed and practised contrary to us which sure is notorious to very few at most And indeed we differ from the Roman Church the more because we dare not with them differ from the belief and practice of the far greatest part of the Church of Christ in this and in former ages R. B. Is not the Bible a publick testimony and record and being universally received is an universal tradition and yet abundance of truths in it are not actually known or believed by most of your own Church W. J. It is only a Tradition that whatever is there delivered is the word of God but it is no tradition that such a determinate sense and no other is the word of God in every sentence contained in it when according to the analogy of faith the words are capable of many senses R. B. Worse and worse still 1. Tradition tells us that this Bible is Gods Word This Word of God is significant and intelligible or else it is worse and more defective than the common words of men This intelligible Bible or Word therefore delivereth to us its own sense If not then Councils do not deliver us the sense of Gods Word or their own For God could speak as well as they and their words are no more plain than his Yet a multitude of plain intelligible Texts are not understood by many of your Church whom you call not Hereticks yea your learned Commentators differ and fight about their sense 2. Therefore when you talk of every sentence you do but fly and hide your fraud If your meaning be that no sentences of Scripture are Divine revelations as they are in Gods own words but as expounded by your Church all Christian ears should abhor your blasphemy If you mean only that there are some Texts so difficult as that most Christians cannnot understand them or that are capable of various senses we grant it But what are those to all the rest Is every man a Heretick that erreth about the sense of any one plain Text of Scripture or not And it is perverse that you say of divers senses according to the analogy of faith For a Text may be expounded contrary to the plain words and context which yet is not expounded contrary to the analogy of faith if by that word you mean as is usual contrary to the harmony of Christian necessary Truths yea or contrary to any other truth whatever save that Text it self And now Reader I leave it to thy reason whether this man have given us any regardable notice at all what is Heresie or what they mean by it or have not trifled and said nothing But what Heresie is I will briefly tell you The word signifying Election was used in the beginning sometime for any Sect or Party divided from the common body of the Church And Christians were called a Heresie by the Iews By the Christians the name signified any party of men that professing to differ in some necessary thing from the common body of Christians and the Doctrine of the Apostles did separate from them as unmeet for their Communion and gather themselves into divided Societies So that differing from the Apostolical Doctrine and Churches and making different Sects or Societies therefore which separated from and opposed the Churches was called Heresie by the Apostles and it was the same thing with the grossest sort of Schism And the commonest sense of the word Schism then was lower signifying either the contentious making of divisions within a Church without separating from it or else the breaking of one Church into many without separating from other Churches or the generality of Christians And so long after the word Heresie was sometime used for such Schism only and hence Lucifer Calaritanus and the Novatians and many others were called Hereticks And sometimes used more cautelously in a narrower sense for those only that denied some essential article of faith or practice And sometimes in a yet narrower sense for those only that upon such a denial of some essential point did gather into a separated Society to maintain their error and oppugn the truth And according to these various senses of the word Horesie and Heretick we must conclude that a Heretick may or may not be saved and is or is not within the Universal Church which W. I. doth deceitfully confound Of which I have said more in the End and shewed you by an instance of Philastrius how mischievous it is to abuse the name of Heresie against every different opinion of true Christians and so to make Hereticks of all Believers in the world CHAP. III. What mean you by the Word POPE W. J. By POPE I mean St. Peter or any of his lawful successors in the See of Rome having authority by the institution of Christ to govern all particular Churches next under Christ. R. B. I am never the nearer knowing the Pope by this till I know how St. Peters Successors may be known to me Q. 1. What personal qualification is necessary ad esse W. J. Such as are necessary ad esse of other Bishops which I suppose you know R. B. If so then all those were no Popes that were Hereticks or denied essential points of faith W. J. 'T is true they were no Popes while
may elect a Schoolmaster Pope and any man may be Pope or an hundred may be Popes But if not then it must be known who it is that hath the power of Election and that it was done by them The people of Barnet or Brainford have no authority to elect a Lord Mayor of London nor would one of their choice be any better than a Play-house Lord. Our Question is Who must choose the Governour of all the world In reason all the world should meet by themselves or their just Delegates to choose him But the man that claimeth this Divine Soveraignty hath been sometime chosen at Rome by a meeting of Lay-citizens and sometimes by neighbour-Bishops and sometimes at the best by Citizens and Presbyters together Bishops approving it and sometimes by the Emperors of Rome of Constantinople or of Germany and sometime by a sort of things called Cardinals Now if none of these have more right to choose him than the rest then either any body hath right that can carry it out and get possession or else no body hath right or none can tell who hath it Accordingly for above forty years together the Emperour and his party chose one Pope and the King of France and his party chose another one reigned at Rome and another at Avignion in France Part of Europe chose or owned one and part another and at once saith Wernerus there were six alive that were then Popes or had been Popes of whom one honester than the rest because he could not read himself chose another Pope to be his partner to read the Mass which he could not do and to help him in the rest Here in the answer of W. J. 1. He durst not tell us who have the power of Election 2. But he saith it must be those that are fit for the charge If I should ask who must choose the Lord Mayor of London and you should so answer me Those that are fit for the charge would not any sensible Reader judg by your answer that you were unfit for an honest disputation 3. He saith that the Electors must be so esteemed fit for the charge by those to whom it doth belong To whom what doth belong why to esteem the Electors fit But how should a man know to whom it doth belong to judg who is fit to be an Elector Doth it belong to the World or to Rome To the people Presbyters Bishops Emperours or Cardinals Here we have more difficulties than we thought of we must know who is fit to be Pope and who is fit to elect him and to whom it belongs to judg who are fit to be Electors that is to elect Electors and when shall we come to know all this If he say that it is the people that must choose the Choosers what people be they they of Rome or they of all Italy or they of Germany or of France or of all Europe or of all the World 3. He saith that the choosers must be such as by custom are esteemed fit by these But what custom doth the man mean when there have been four or five ways or sorts of Election had not every one of them a beginning and at their beginning could they plead custom O that your sword were no stronger than your reasons 4. Yea he saith It must be approved customs But not a word who must be the approvers of all these new customs 5. And when all is done no more is needful but that the unknown persons to whom it belongs do esteem the Electors fit and so be they fit or unfit their estimation carrieth it 6. But yet the hardest part remaineth The Church must be satisfied with the Election But 1. Either the Election is valid or invalid before If valid will the Churches dissatisfaction invalidate it If invalid will the Churches satisfaction make it valid or make him Pope that was none before Who would have thought that a Pope had been a wight so utterly unintelligible 2. And what way must the Churches satisfaction be notified to me Is it by some note of approbation or by silence It 's in vain for men to contradict that have no power But what if I believed in my conscience that most of the Church is unsatisfied in the Election Must I take that man to be no Pope Then I am necessitated to believe that when Whores and Murderers and such like brought in the fifty that Baronius and Genebrard called Apostatical c. there was an interruption of the Succession by the dissatisfaction of the Church Good Sir was the Church satisfied with such men Was it satisfied with those that the foresaid Council condemned as Heretical wicked and one of them a Devil incarnate Did those Councils signifie no dissatisfaction of the Church 3. And must I suspend my reception of the Pope till the Abassines Armenians Greeks yea or Mexicans and the Antipodes signifie their satisfaction 4. But what is the Church that must be satisfied when half Europe was for one and the rest for another for forty years and more with which of them was the Church satisfied Was France or Germany the Church 5. Lastly by this we are acquit from acknowledging your Pope at all while we know that three fourth parts or at least two third parts of Christs Church on Earth is unsatisfied with your Pope and Papacy it self To all this he answers W. J. 1. Tour exceptions are fallacies à sensu conjuncto ad sensum divisum R. B. See Reader what the Papacy is come to if it had not the sword or ignorance to uphold it when he puts together so many things as necessary ad esse to the Election of a Pope and yet makes nothing but a meer name to deceive the ignorant of any one of them is it fallacious of me to expect that all those things be found in the Election Or is it not fallacious in him that can shew us never a one of them Next W. I. saith If the Church did really acquiesce in such an elected person as Pope it was satisfied according to the substance of the Election though not in the circumstances R. B. 1. Reader is this any answer to any of the foresaid Objections what satisfaction what Church when part of the Church was divided and the greater part abhor'd them all And was he Pope or no before this acquiescing If so what made him so And 2. What doth he but cheat us by his distinction of the substance and circumstances of Election Doth he not obstinately but necessarily refuse to tell what is the substance of Election Have those that were brought in by Whores Poyson and Murders the substance Had those that were chosen by people Presbyters Bishops Emperours and Cardinals all the substance If so why may not twenty have the substance at once or four or five at least what is it that is the substance Alas we ask in vain that which cannot be told us Next he saith If the Church never accepted them as
no man could say that the common consent of the people was always for him that carried it at last as right But if you mean as you seem that the universal or common consent of the people is the determining cause that must qualifie the person for the power Then either you mean an antecedent or a consequent consent If antecedent that is election which you say may vary If consequent it could not cause that which was caused before And it is not true that the consequent consent of the most of the people depriveth the King of his Power or proveth it to be in a Usurper 3. But seeing you here also say that Consecration is not absolutely necessary nor Election by any one sort or way but may be varied as times vary you have made either any man a Bishop that any men will chuse or you have made no man a Bishop for want of a determining application or no man can know himself or be known to be a Bishop If the question were Who is the true Husband of such a woman and you should say That her own antecedent consent or election is not necessary but without it sometimes the Kings election sometimes the Ministers sometimes the Parents may serve and Matrimonial celebration is not necessary it would follow that the woman may have a Husband against her will and before she consent and she may have many or can never know which is he for the King may chuse her one and the Priest another and the Parents a third So here 4. And if his Consecration be not necessary to Episcopacy how will you prove Ordination necessary to the Priesthood Here I noted R. B. that he resolveth the mysteries of their succession and mission into popular consent To this W. I. saith that he meaneth it only as the means of knowing it Ans. But I enquired of the causes or evidences by which a Bishop may be known from a Usurper what it is that maketh him a Bishop as I would know a man from a brute a Judg a Physician a Merchant from other men But he durst not come to this because guilt makes them conscious of their own defect But W. I. saith p. 50 It is sufficient that some generalities of Election be determined jure divino Ans. Let them be such that I may know a Bishop from a Usurper by and it is enough W. J. As that it he done by Christians by such as are capable to know who is a fit person for the Office chusing freely occording to the Laws of God the further determinations are left to the Church c. R. B. Worse still 1. If the men of York chuse a Bishop of London or several parties chuse ten Bishops here they are all chosen by Christians But that is not enough What if ten parties chuse ten Popes ten Kings ten Bishops the Christianity of the chusers will not prove them all authorized 2. Nor will the choosers capacity of knowing the capable prove it Three or four very wise men may best know who is capable to be a Judg a Bishop a Husband a Tutor a Physician c. and yet if they should choose all the Judges Bishops Husbands c. in the land the persons chosen by them would be never the more such than the unchosen 3. But being conscious that you had said nothing you put in these words according to the Laws of God But the question is How shall I know what makes a true Bishop according to the Laws of God and you skilfully tell me he must be chosen by knowing Christians according to the Laws of God He that is not satisfied by you with such talk let him be unsatisfied R. B. I here noted again that by his way none of our Churches are disabled from the plea of a continued succession for want of Episcopal Consecration Ordination or due Election 2. But that we cannot know their Bishops to be true Bishops because we cannot know that they have common consent He answereth W. J. No man argues you of the want of succession in your respective Sees because you want Episcopal Consecrations but because you want Episcopal Election Confirmation Vocation Mission Iurisdiction For your first Bishops in Queen Elizabeths time and the same is of your Ministers of Parishes were intruded by secular power the Capitula had the present power of electing the Bishops vid. caet R. B. 1. It 's well we are now quite rid of the old cavil of the Nags-head Consecration Why was not this confest sooner Did you well to abuse the people so long 2. I thought we had nothing to have proved but due Qualifications due election or consent and due Ordination or Consecration But here now comes in I know not what and how much more Confirmation Vocation Mission Iurisdiction All hard words Had I put him but to have told us the meaning of these also what work should I have made him 1. What is Confirmation without which Qualifications Election and Ordination make not a true Minister or Bishop O that we knew it 2. What is Vocation besides the three aforesaid and which is necessary ad esse 3. And what is Mission besides those three which is also so necessary 4. And what meaneth he by Iurisdiction that was wanting was it the Iurisdiction of the Collator or of the Receiver not the former for we never knew that God gave any Jurisdiction to the Clergy but the Pastoral power of guiding the Churches by the Word and Keys which is the work of their own office and the office of the Ordainer is â—…o ordain and if he have power to Ordain or Consecrate he hath that Jurisdiction which consisteth of that power If it be the Receivers Jurisdiction that he meaneth that is the same contradiction For to ordain one to the Pastoral office is to give him all the jurisdiction which is part of that office And for any other jurisdiction we wish Princes would keep it both from the ordainers and the ordained But he saith that our Bishops wanted Episcopal Election Is it come to that and yet the way of Election all this while made so indifferent What is Episcopâ—…l Election not an Election by Bishops that you affirm not Not an election to be Bishops that you deny them not It is therefore such an Election as is necessary to the being of a Bishop And what is that why all that we have been able to extort from you is That it be done by Christians capable to know fit persons choosing freely according to the word of God But what it is that is according to the Word of God and what measure of consonancy to the Word and in what points is necessary ad esse you durst never tell us And we say that our Bishops were chosen by Christians capable of knowing fit persons I confess that it is my own judgment that they should have the choice or consent of the people whom they are to oversee and
Christ had made us a King or Bishop of all the world he would have told us who must chuse him to save the men at the Antipodes their journey 2. But why pretend you then the peoples consent when you plead it unnecessary In Poland that their Diets chuse their Kings is from a known reason it is the Constitution of their Kingdom which the people agreed to and chuse many of the chusers But when did the Universal Church constitute your Cardinals to be the Electors Or which of the Cardinals are chosen by the Universal Church or any other than the Pope himself God made Bishopricks like Corporations where all may chuse the Mayor Who made them like great Kingdoms or set one over all the world where the people cannot chuse nor God made any chusers is the question R. B. 4. According to this rule your successions have been frequently interrupted when against the will of General Councils and of the far greatest part of Christians your Popes have kept the seats by force W. J. These are generalities What Popes What Councils in particular Name and prove if you will he answered R. B. What disgraceful ignorance are you forced to pretend What need I go over your Schisms What need I name any more than Eugenius the 4th deposed by a great General Council and two or three parts of the Church disowning your Pope at this day R. B. I told him how his instance even about Civil Power failed seeing the consent of a people pre-engaged to their Prince giveth not right to a Usurper W. J. The people cannot be supposed to consent freely and lawfully to an usurper c. R. B. Lawfully indeed they cannot and that 's the same thing that I affirmed you confute me by granting what I say When the Bishop of Rome hath a lawful election to be Bishop of all the world we will obey him and so we will any Prelate or Priest that hath a known lawful election R. B. Will any Diocess suffice ad esse What if it be but in particulor Assemblies W. J. It must be more than a Parish or than one single Congregation which hath not different inferior Pastors and one who is their Superior c. R. B. 1. How ambiguously and fraudulently do you answer No man can tell by this whether you unbishop all that had but one Parish or Congregation or only all that had not Presbyters under them Which ever you mean it is notoriously false and a nullifying of the ancient Episcopacy Ignatim tells you that in hiâ—… days one Church was known by one Altar and one Bishop with the Presbyters and Deacons And though I think not as Dr. Hamond that all the first Bishops in Scripture-times were setled as the sole Pastors of single Congregations without any Presbyters under them yet when you consider with whom he agreeth in this viz. Dionysius Petavius and what St. Clara saith for it fathering it on Scotus we think you should not so far differ from your own Doctors as to deny all those to be true Bishops of the Scripâ—…re-times who they think were the only Bishops You have a custom of calling the Apostles Bishops even Peter Bishop of Antioch and Rome Did not those first Bishops then make all the Presbyters that were under them Qu. Whether they were no Bishops till they had made those Presbyters If no then those first Presbyters had not Episcopal ordination If yea then habetur quaesitum The truth is all the ancientest Bishops were the Pastors of single Churches not near so big as many of our Parishes I have elsewhere proved this at large I instanced to him only in Gregory Neocâ—…sariensis who was Bishop only of Seventeen souls when he came thither first He answereth W. J. How know you that there were no more in the Countrey adjacent 2. Know you not that he was sent to multiply Christians and make himself a competent Diocess R. B. I know the first by the consent of History that telleth us of the Seventeen in the City over whom he was set and speaketh of no more in such circumstances as would have occasioned it 2. And I believe your second but do not you see that you desert your Cause and contradict your self 1. Speak out Was he the bishop of the Infidels Were they his Church Or was he only to convert and gather them to the Church 2. Was he not a Bishop there before he had converted any one to those seventeen alone You dare deny none of this Therefore he was a Bishop before he had more Congregations than one and before he had any Presbyters to govern And here you may see how the changes that Popes and their Prelates have made in the Church constraineth them to defend them by subverting their own foundation For if those were no Bishops who had but one Congregation yea and those that had no subject-Presbyters then the first ages if not also the second except in Rome and Alexandria had no true Bishops or at least the founders were not such and their Episcopacy as they describe it hath no succession from the Apostles Truth and Error will never make a close coalition CHAP. V. Q. What mean you by TRADITION W. I. I Understand by Tradition the visible delivery from hand to hand in all cases of the revealed will of God either written or unwritten R. B. I suppose by visible from hand to hand you mean principally of the unwritten audible from ear to ear by speech But all the doubt is by whom it must be delivered by the Pastors or people or both by the Pope or Councils or Bishops disjunct by the major part of the Church Bishops or Presbyters or by how many W. J. By such and so many proportionably as suffice in a Kingdom to certifie the people which are the ancient universal received customs in that Kingdom which is to be morally considered R. B. O wary Disputant that taketh heed lest you should answer while you seem to answer Reader a Kingdom is not so big as all the world The Customs of a Kingdom may be known by the constant consent of the people of that Kingdom and if they differ about it Records and Law-booke decide it expositorily and judges by the decision of particular mens cases by such rules But can customs be known as well over all the world Yea and can matter of faith and doctrine be as easily known as practised customs Can we know as easily what are the Traditions of Abassia Armenia Syria Egypt c. as of England Can they of Abassia tell what are the true Traditions of all the Christian world that have Traditions in their own Countrey so different from ours They have many books as sacred among them by tradition which we receive not They have annual Baptism and other ceremonies by Tradition which we account to be unlawful Here I told W. I. 1. How certainly Tradition is against them when most of the Christian world
may help to deceive the ignorant 1. Your Popes as Universal Bishops had never true Power over us 2. Nor any Bishops as their Ministers as such 3. For this treasonable Usurpation we were bound to avoid them as scandalous Invaders of Christ's Prerogative which some call Antichristian 4. Our English Bishops and other Pastors when they came to see that such an Usurper had no right to govern them forsook him but forsook no Governour 5. Those Bishops that adhered to him the People justly forsook as Usurpers under him 6. Those that forsook him they obeyed as their true Pastors And now will it follow if I be obliged to renounce a Usurping Vice-King and Traytor as having no power over me as such and that I partake not of his Treason that I must therefore forsake the King for his personal faults If the Deputy of Ireland should say I am Vice-King of all the Kings Dominions and I challenge Obedience from all the Subjects and the King forbid us to obey him as such I may obey him in Ireland till the King depose him and I must renounce him in England and yet I must not tell the King Sir why must we not then for your faults also renounce you The scandal of Treasonable Usurpation differeth from a meer immorality or miscarriage R. B. Qu. 2. Is it no Schism unless wilful W. J. No. R. B. Again you further justifie us from Schism If it be wilful it must be against knowledge But we are so far from separating wilfully from the whole Church that we abhor the thought of it as impious and damnable W. J. Abhor is as much as you please for your own particular I know not what may be pleaded for you I am certain that your first beginners did it and that knowingly and wilfully and you still maintaining what they began must by all considering Christians be judged guilty of the same Crime for still you remain separate from all these Christians from which they departed that is from all the visible Churches existent immediately before they sprung up and in their time and still continue through the whole World R. B. A naked bold and shameless assertion without one word of proof Our Reformers knew no Head of the Church but Christ and they neither renounced him nor any one Member of his Church as such but only a Trayterous Usurper and his Sect indeed while he claimed but as Patriarch some Government of them jure humano by the Will of Princes they gave him answerable obedience and in their ignorance most gave him too much and many perceived not his Usurpation But when the Empire was down that set him up or had no power here and their own Princes no longer obliged them hereto he had not so much as such a humane Authority And when they that renounced him as a Traytor to Christ protested to hold Communion with all Christs Church on Earth according to their distant Capacities and to abhor all separation from them would not a man have expected that this Dispute should have given us some proof that to forsake this false Head was to separate from all the visible Churches on Earth I proved our Union with them before Yea he presumes to say That he is certain that they did it knowingly and wilfully As if he knew all the hearts of thousands whose Faces he never saw when they that should know them better thought that they were certain that they separated from no Christians but an Usurper and his Adherents as such And this we have great reason to continue as much as Subjects have to separate from Rebels R. B. Qu. 3. It is no Schism if men make a division in the Church and not from the Church W. J. Not as we are here to understand it and as the Fathers treat it For the Church of Christ being perfectly one cannot admit of any proper Schism within it self for that would divide it into two which cannot be R. B. 1. If there be other Schisms besides separating from the whole Church why should you not here understand it unless understanding things as they are will hurt your Cause 2. What a stranger doth this Disputer make himself to the Fathers if he know not that they frequently use the word Schism in another sense than his I will not be so vain as to trouble my self or the Reader with Citations The Indexes of the Fathers and Councils will satisfie those that will but search them Was it a separation from the whole Church which Clemens Romanus the eldest of them all doth write his Epistle to the Corinthians against or rather a particular Schism between the people and some few eminent men Read it and see what credit these men deserve when they talk of the Eathers Judgments 3. But his reason is most unreasonable That the Church of Christ is so perfectly one that it cannot admit of any proper Schism within it self Can the Unity be perfect while all our uniting Graces are imperfect When every Member is imperfect in Knowledge Faith Love Holiness Obedience Iustice Patience c. how can the Union be perfect 4. Reader do but read their Councils Church-Histories Baronius Genebrard Platiâ—… Wernerus to whom I may add above one hundred and if thou dost not find them and also their polemical and practical Divines commonly mentioning Schisms in the Church of Rome it self then believe these deceivers and call me the deceiver Do they not lament their Schisms Were not the Councils of Constance Basil Pisa c. called to heal them Do they not number the Schisms that fell out in 40 or 50 years time and continued Dare any man deny it Were these then Proper Schisms or not No it 's like this man would say that none of these Writers speak properly when they call it Schism I would he would tell in the next what proper word to use But either these Schisms were within the Church or without it Reader see whither falshood will run at last If they were within the Church then W. I. doth but abuse you by his falshoods If without the Church then one half the Roman Church was Unchurched for 40 or 50 years when they followed one Pope while the other half followed another And who knoweth which of these parts was the Church It seems whoever adhered to the wrong Pope was none of the Church But saith Wernerus and other Historians sometimes the wisest were at their Wits end and knew not which was the true Pope nor is it known to this day Nay the matter is yet worse A great General Council deposed Euginius the Fourth as no Pope but an uncapable wicked Heretick and yet he kept in and became the only Head of their Church whom the rest succeed And so all that Church by this rule was unchurched Sure necessity must make you recant and say that yet both Parties in your long and odious Schisms were within the Church or else what a Wound will ye inflict
on it But an ill Cause will admit of no defence If you come to this mark what will follow Even that millions are in the Church that are no Subjects of the Pope but do reject him If there were two real Popes there were two real Churches and therefore neither of them was Universal and consequently neither of the two were Popes because not Universal Bishops so ill do such Forgeries cohere But if only one of them was a true Pope then all that followed the other rejected the Pope Either these were saved or damned If saved then men that reject the Pope may be saved And then why ask you us where was a Church that rejected the Pope before Luther when you tell us where at home If damned what a happiness befell one Kingdom and what a misery the other by the Title or No-Title of the Popes Was it all France and that Party or Germany and that Party that were damned all those times Hell had a great Harvest by it which soever it was and it 's pity that one Man should be able to damn so many Nations by pretending that he was the true Pope And methinks such a division as this should be called a proper Schism unless he will be so jocular as to say that it was a proper division and rent but no proper Schism I add this note Reader if there be any Sect in the world that are true Schismaticks according to W. I.'s own definition judge whether it be not the Papal Sect For it is they that condemn all the World save themselves and say that none else are Churches of Christ and consequently separate from the whole Church of Christ except themselves who are but a third or fourth part of the whole I never knew any of all our Sectaries do so no not the Quakers themselves who come nearest it unless perhaps the Seekers that say the Church is lost but the Papists do so Indeed they separate not always from themselves though they do from all others no more do any other Sect. R. B. Though I am sure St. Paul calls it Schism when men make divisions in the Church though not from it not making two Churches but dislocating some Members and abating Charity and causing Contentions where there should be Peace yet I accept your continued justification of us who if we should be tempted to be dividers in the Church should yet hate to be dividers from it as believing that he that is separated from the whole Body is also separate from the Head W. J. I am glad you accept of something at the last up-shot If it be for your advantage God give you good on 't I speak not of Schism taken in a large sense but of that only which is treated by the Fathers and reckoned up among the most horrid Sins which a Christian can commit and that separateth from the whole Church See Dr. Ham. of Schism c. 1. 2 3. R. B. This is already answered I again intreat you then to consider what a horrid sin it is in the Papal Sect to separate from all the Churches in the World and then to divert their Consciences by crying out of Schism against all that will not joyn with them in so dangerous a Schism 2. And I humbly admonish those Protestants that cry out Schism Schism against all that will not do as they do even in a thing which they call indifferent and others account a heynous sin to remember that even these Papists are so moderate as not to condemn other men as Schismaticks unless they separate from the whole Church of Christ. And I hope to refuse the Tridentiu◅ Symbolical Oath or any other false or sinful Covenant or Profession is not to separate from the whole Church of Christ for false Oaths Covenants or other Sins are not essential to Christ's Church R. B. Sir urgent and unavoidable business constrained me to delay my return to your solutions or Explications of your definitions till this June 29. 1660. When you desire me to answer any such questions or explain any doubtful passages of mine I shall willingly do it In the mean time you may see while your Terms are unexplained and your explications or definitions so insignificant how fit we are to proceed any further till we better understand each other as to our Terms and Subject which when you have done your part to I shall gladly if God enable me go on with you till we come if it may be to our desired issue But still crave the performance of the double task you are engaged in Richard Baxter W. I. Sir I have thus far endeavoured to satisfie your Expectation and to acquit my self of all obligations wherein I have sought as I strongly hope first Gods eternal Glory and in the next place your Eternal good with his for whom I under take this labour and of all these who attentively and impartially peruse this Treatise William Johnson R. B. Your intentions I leave to your self of your performance and my answer I desire such judges as you describe even attentive and impartial re◅ders But O how rare is impartiality even in them that think they ha◅ it In the end I added an Appendix in answer to this objection of theirs that We can have no true Chūrch without Pastors no Pastors without Ordinations and no Ordination but from the Church of Rome Therefore when we broke off from the Church of Rome we interrupted our succession which cannot be repaired but by a return to them To this I gave a full answer of which W. I. taketh no notice Lastly I concluded with an address to himself in which I gave him the reasons why I published our Writings and also proved that the Church of Rome hath not successively been the same from the Apostles much less received no corruptions which I proved first because it hath since received a new essential part even a pretended Vice-Christ or head of the Universal Church 2. Because it hath had frequent and long intercisions in that essential head 3. Because it hath had new essential Articles of Faith and Religion To all this he giveth no answer PART II. Richard Baxter's Vindication of the CONTINUED VISIBILITY of the CHURCH of which the Protestants are Members In answer to William Johnson alias Terret's Reply called by him Novelty represt THE PREFACE I Have great reason to suppose that if I should make this Book as long as it must be if I repeated and answered all the words of W. I. it would frustrate my writing it by discouraging most Readers whose Leisure and Patience are as short as mine Therefore I purpose to cull out all which I take to seem his real strength and of any importance to the understanding Reader and to omit the Vagaries And particularly where he and I differ about the words or sense of any Fathers or Councils what need I more than to leave that Matter to the perusal of the Reader who cannot
which we charge them with in Europe and yet the Papists so charge them still that they may seem to have reason for condemning them fearing that their non-subjection to the Pope will not seem enough with impartial men And as to the great Confidence that they seem to place in their succession to St. Peter and Christs words to him on this Rock I will build my Church and to thee I give the Keys c. and feed my sheep I have oft answered it more fully than is fit again to recite but these few hints I would commend to the Reader 1. That we affirm that Peter was among them as a fore-man of a Jury and no more and so Christ spake to the rest in speaking to him and the same power is given to the rest The Church is said to be built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ being the head Corner-stone Is not this as much as is said of St. Peter Christ gave them all the power of Holy Ghost and the remitting and retaining sins binding and loosing which is the Keys which he gave to Peter And they are all sent forth to feed Christs Sheep Now the Fathers give as high Titles oft to others as to the Pope yea and to Peter see what I have cited in my Key for Catholicks pag. 175. 176. and what Gataker hath cited out of Dionysius Tertullian Basil Ierome Augustine Theodoret Gildas Nicephorus c. Cin. 395. 396. 2. Peter never exercised any authority over any of the rest of the Apostles He called them not governed them not There is mention of Paul's reproving him Gal. 2. but none of his reproving them Schismes being among them and greatly lamented they are never directed to unite in Peter as the way to Concord nor to have recourse to him to end them Nay when the over-valuers of Peter made one party in the Schism among the Corinthians Paul seeks to take them off that way and set Peter in the same rank with himself and Apollos as Ministers only by whom they believed calling them Carnal for saying I am of Cephas never calling them to unite in him as the Head of all And had this been necessary what had this been but to betray the Churches 3. The Apostles were never properly Bishops but of a higher rank Bishops were the fixed Over-seers of particular Churches and no one had many But Apostles only planted them and governed them for their Confirmation and so passed on from one to another and had care of many such at once If any one Church might pretend superiority by vertue of succession it would be Ierusalem and next that Ephesus where it is said that Iohn the Beloved Disciple was as Bishop and which hath continued to this day 4. The Apostles as such had no Successors nor as Bishops in any distinct Seats The same Christ that called Peter called the rest and called especially the Beloved Disciple to whom on the Cross he commended his Mother when Peter had denyed him and he promised to be with them to the end of the World But no Bishops on Earth ever pretended to superiority over any other Churches as the Successors of the other eleven Apostles Where are those Seats or where ever were they If the Apostles Successors must rule the Churches as such tell us which be the other eleven and which be their Diocesses and of what extent Nay it is considerable that even in the times of domination there were but five Patriarchates ever set up and not twelve and not one of those claimed Power by vertue of succession from any Apostle Constantinople never pretended to it Alexandria claimed the honour of succession only from St. Mark who was no Apostle And Ierusalem from Iames whom Dr. Hammond laboureth to prove to have been none of the Apostles but a Kinsman of Jesus Only Antioch and Rome claimed succession from Peter and Antioch as his first Seat but they did on that single account claim Power then over other Churches And seeing the Church is built on the Foundation of Apostles and Prophets and that all the Apostles 1 Cor. 12. are mentioned equally as the noblest Foundation Members or Pillars and the People chidden sharply by Paul for making Cephas a Head What reason have we to believe that Peter only hath perpetual Successors fixed to a certain City and that no other of all the Apostles have any such What word of God will prove that Peter hath left his Power at Rome and no other Apostles no not one hath left theirs to any Place or Person on Earth yea and that he left it more to Rome than to Antioch when Antioch claimeth the first succession from him and Rome but the second and when Nilus and others have said so much to make it probable that Peter never was at Rome and when it is certain that Paul was there and those old Fathers that from some word of one of Eusebius his doubtful Authors do say that Peter was at Rome and Bishop there do also say that it was the Episcopal Seat of Paul and when it is certain that no Apostle was any-where a Bishop formaliter but only eminenter as being not fixed nor fixing their Power to any Seat And Dr. Hammond giveth very considerable conjectures That if Peter and Paul were both at Rome they had divers Churches there Paul being the Bishop of the Uncircumcision and Peter of the Circumcision only from whence we may see that the Spirit of God in his Apostles judged that there might be more Churches and Bishops in one City than one much more over a thousand Parishes though as the contrary Spirit prevaileth the contrary Interest and Opinion prevailed with it These things premised the Reader must know that the state of the Controversie between Mr. Terret alias Mr. Iohnson and me is this Finding the Church of Rome in possession of abundance of Errours and Vanities he would not only perswade us that they are of God and have ever been the same because it is so with them now but also concludeth that these Carbuncles are essential to Christianity and the Church and that we cannot prove that we are a Church and Christians unless we prove that we have had from the Apostles a continued succession of their Errours As if a man could not prove himself to be a man unless all his Ancestors from Adam had the French-pox or the Leprosie On the contrary I maintain that the Church of Christ which is his Body is essentiated by true consent to the Baptismal Covenant which is our Christening and integrated by all the additional degrees that this Covenant is expounded in the Creed Lord's Prayer and Christian Decalogue The Lord's Supper is but the same Covenant celebrated by other signs not for Essence but Confirmation That all that consent to the celebrated Baptismal Covenant heartily are Members of the invisible Church and all that profess consent in Sincerity or Hypocrisie are visible Members
Church 6. Christ himself washed his Apostles Feet and taught them to do the like which was used in those hot Countries where it was a needful Act of Ministry but yet it is not essential to the Church 7. Baptism from the beginning as Instituted by Christ was Administred by dipping over Head in Water but you take not that to be essential to the Church 8. The Lord's Day 's holy Observation as Instituted by Christ and his Apostles hath ever been in the Church and yet many of your Doctors do equal it with other Holy Days and make it not essential to the Church 9. Christ and his Apostles distinguish Essentials from Integrals and Accidents in their time therefore they are still to be distinguished And it is a strange Society that hath not ever had Integrals and Accidents Christ Instituting Baptism saith He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved Thus the Essentials Yet he saith Teach them to observe all things whatever I have Commanded you But all those are not Essentials for Christ himself distinguished Tything Mint Annise and Cummin from the great things of the Law And yet saith These ought ye to have done And St. Paul saith The Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Ioy in the Holy Ghost c. And yet more than these were then a Duty All things were to be done decently and in order And yet who ever said but you that all this is essential to the Church Christ by his Apostles instituted that Collections for the Poor should be made on the first Day of the Week yet is not that essential to the Church 10. Afflictions are Accidents of the Church and of Christ's appointment and have been ever there and yet are not essential to it 11. All the numbers of Christians and the higher Degrees of Gifts and Grace have been of Christ and ever in the Church and yet it is not essential to it that Christians be just as many as they have been or of such measures of Gifts and Grace for even Perfection is a Duty 12. Few of your own do think that extreme Unction is essential to the Church and that if it ceased it would be no Church The like may be said of many other things But see how these Men Unchurch themselves For if this be true then the Church of Rome can be no true Church For it hath cast off that which they call Essential Were it but the Cup in the Lords Supper and Publick Prayers in a Known Tongue the change hath Unchurched them These Consequents fall on them that will Unchurch most of the Church of Christ. But Page 55 56. he saith That he doth not say that every such thing must be necessarily believed by every Member No not the belief of the Pope's Supremacy but to such only to whom they are sufficiently propounded Answ. 1. And yet these Men tell our People to affright them That they cannot be saved out of their Church or in our Religion And now it is not essential to believe the Pope's Supremacy 2. But who can ever know what will pass for a sufficient propounding while twenty degrees of Mens Capacities make twenty degrees of Proposal respectively sufficient what Man of Reason can believe that such self-confuting Disputes as yours are a sufficient Proposal of the Pope's Supremacy And sure the Christian Empire of Abassia then had no sufficient Proposal when but lately your Emissaries told them that they never heard from the Pope till now because he could not have access or send to them Q. Whether that Empire be true Christians through so many Ages seeing they received not the Scriptures on the Authoritative Proposal of the Pope or Papal Church and yet confessedly were never bound to believe the Pope's Supremacy 3. By this account all Christians essentially differ from each other in their Religion and Christianity is a word of such monstrous ambiguity that it signifieth as many several Religions as there be persons in the World whose divers Capacities maketh diversity of proposal become necessary or sufficient to them But he saith that these are all essential to the Church though not to the several Members More difficulties still 1. How shall we ever know the Church this way If the belief of the Popes Supremacy be essential to some and only to some how many must they be that so believe Will one serve or one thousand to make all the rest Church-Members that believe it not Or how many will this Leven extend to Why then may not the belief of Italy prove all the World to be the Church 2. How cometh another mans belief to be of such saving use to others If you say that it is not his belief but their own who believe not then all the World is of your Church that want sufficient proposal And Unbelievers are Christians or of the Christian Church so be it they never heard of Christ and so all the unknown World and Americans and most of the Heathens are of your Christian Church And why may not the Pope be saved then without believing his own Supremacy I verily think that there is not one Pope of twenty that believeth his own Infallibility Doubtless some illiterate or ill-bred Popes have had but very defective Proposals of their own Supremacy it being rather affirmed by Flatteries than ever proved to them Pag. 57. Having first called for sense in my words because the Printer had put as for is he turneth his former assertion whatever hath been ever in the Church by Christs institution is essential to it into another Because Christ hath instituted that it should be for ever in the Church it is essential And this yet more plainly shameth the asserter than the former For no man can deny but that Christ hath instituted 1. That every word of the Canonical Scripture should be ever after its existence in the Church 2. And that no Ministers should preach any thing but truth in the Church 3. And that no man should commit any sin at all 4. And that the Eucharist be delivered in both kinds in remembrance of Christ till he come c. And yet sure all this is not essential to the Church Pag 58. He would perswade me that I miscite Fr. Sta. Clara and that he saith not that Infidels may be saved but only those that have not an explicite Faith in Christ through invincible ignorance and that he saith not that it is most of the Doctors Opinions nor that any may be saved who are out of the Church and that my Friends will be sorry to see me so defective in my Citations and he hopes I will mend it in the next Ans. That I will if plain words transcribed be any amending but I cannot amend your deceitful dealing 1. I did not say that Sta. Clara saith They may be saved out of the Church but that such are in your Church and so may be saved who indeed are no
Christians and so not of the Church indeed 2. We know of no Faith in Christ but that which you call Explicite Faith in Christ Common custome calleth those Infidels that never heard that there is a Christ or who he is or hearing it doth not believe it And he cannot believe it that doth not hear it Most of the Infidel and Heathen World profess to believe Gods veracity and that all that he saith is true if this be an implicite believing in Christ almost all the Heathen World believeth in him use Names and Words as you see cause These are Infidels in our use of speech 3. The place in Sancta Clara is pag. 113. besides 109 110. c. the words are too large to be transcribed he citeth many Authors to prove such in the Church and saved where after much to that purpose he saith What is clearer than that at this day the Gospel bindeth not where it is not authentically preached that is that at this day men may be saved without an explicite belief of Christ For in that sense speakes the Doctor concerning the Iews And verily whatever my illustrious Master hold with his Learned Mr. Herera I think that this was the Opinion of Scotus and the Common one and he citeth many for it Read the rest your self in the Book and I defie your pretence that this is unjust Citation I cite none of this as if I were handling the question whether any besides Christians are saved But whether the Nations that never heard of Christ be Christians and Members of your Church But pag. 60. he will prove that nothing which Christ hath instituted to be ever in the Church is accidental to the Church For every accident is separable from the subject without destroying the subject whose accident it is But what Christ hath instituted to be ever in his Church is inseparable from it Ans. 1. What if it were not an Accident must it therefore needs be Essential Are there not Integral parts that are not Essential parts 2. You that boast so greatly of your Logick faculty should not so absurdly erre as you do in your major Do you not hereby deny all proper accidents which agree as omni soli ita semper Is not Risibilis an accident of man and yet inseparable 2. Is not quantity inseparable from a Body or natural substance 3. What the Porphyrians speak of an Intellectual separation you ignorantly or deceitfully apply to an actual eventual separation If Christ had been otherwise put to death than by crucifying or else-where than at Ierusalem if his Bones had been broken if he had not had the same integral parts and accidents of Body as he ever had he had been Christ still But yet it was Logically impossible that any of these should have been otherwise than they were they being fore-decreed of God If the Sun should cease moving illuminating heating you may say it would be still the Sun But yet it is certain that these accidents are eventually inseparable from it If you will cause Humidity to cease from Water or separate Gravity from Earth of Stone c. I shall think you have made them other things 4. But to instance as you do in such a being as the CHURCH dishonoureth your boasted Logick greatly The ratio formalis of a Church is Relative and Relation is an accident and to say that accidents may all be separated from the Church without destroying it is to say that Relation may be separated that is the Church from it self or formal Essence without destroying it Do you conquer by such disputing as this was it by such that you had your boasted printed victory over such great Logicians as Bishop Gunning and Bishop Pierson Can you also prove that all accidents that is Relation may be separable from Families Schools Kingdoms without destroying them I hope you will not say that you mean that the separation destroyeth not the humanity of the Members and that this is the subject you mean for no more would Apostasie or Unchurching them destroy Humanity 3. And that no part may be sound your minor is false as well as your major What Christ by his Law commandeth or prescribeth to be in the Church that he instituteth But all cometh not to pass which Christ commandeth or instituteth He commandeth us higher degrees of Faith Love and other Duty than we perform You say No Man may change his institution but doth it follow that no man doth change it No man ought to plead for Errour or deceive poor Souls Doth it follow that therefore you and such others do not so It is Gods command that we never sin It doth not follow that we never do sin When the Apostles strove who should be greatest it was Christs institution that they should not seek for domination or superiority as the Princes of the Earth do but be as little Children and strive who should be most humble and serviceable and take the lowest place and it was St. Peters Doctrine that Bishops must not Lord it over the Flocks nor rule them by constraint but voluntarily but doth it follow that all this is done by all no nor by your pretended Head who is made an essential part of the Church I conclude then 1. That many accidents are not separable without destruction of the subject 2. That many more shall never be separated 3. That relation is not separable from the Church nor numbers neither 4. That there are Integral parts which are neither Accidents nor Essentials 5. That every thing is not ever in the Church nor in any man which Christ hath commanded or instituted to be ever in it And if that may be in a man which Christ forbiddeth so may it be in the Church and so that be absent which he commandeth 6. That it is a novel Opinion contrary to common Reason and all true Theologie and which a Catechized Child should be ashamed of to hold that all that Christ hath instituted to be ever in the Church is essential to it And so that the Church would be nullified if one word of the Holy Scriptures perished by the carelesness of Scribes or Printers or if one decent order were changed or if one Office were depraved c. 7. It aggravateth the errour to hold that every instituted apex or perfection for continuance is Essential to the Church and yet even the explicite belief that Iesus is the Saviour is not essential to a Church-Member or a Christian. 8. That this Disputer absolutely nullifieth the Roman Church which hath changed the Sacrament and Prayer and Church-Officers c. which were instituted by Christ to be ever in the Church But I noted to him that our question to him was Whether the holding such thing to be instituted be essential to the Church and not whether the institution it self be so May not the Opinion be but integral or an accident Here he replies without blushing 1. That thus I yield up
Abassia Armenia Egypt Syria the Georgians the Iacobites those falsly called by you Nestorians and Eutychians the Africans Greeks Muscovites the Britains Seots Swedes Danes Belgians Saxons Helvetians the rest of the Germans Transilvanians Hungarians French c. which now disown the Papacy who were some Countrys never under the Pope some Countries at first under him and after rejected him and some at first from under his Government next under him and after repented and all of them have been Christians from their first conversion to this day Can I speak plainer But Num. 42. he granteth that All that are true Christians are one Kingdom or Church of Christ but denyeth that these are true Christians And pag. 84. He would seem to give some reason for his denyal saying I deny it if they were independent on the Bishop of Rome Answ. 1. Even now he abstracted from this But now they are no Christians unless they be Dependendents on the Pope Such a Denyal is an easie Task and the sum of all their Writings But what need there then so many Ambages and large Volumes to bring out such a short and crude Assertion Could you not have said this without all the rest He is no Christian that dependeth not on the Pope But is it not incumbent on you to prove it Undoubtedly it is 1. In foro Scholastico as an Affirmer 2. In foro civili Ecclesiastico as an Accuser And till you have proved it what need they or I care for yoùr words Must all Men pass for no Christian that a Priest or Jesuit will say are none Or am I and all Men disobliged from loving all those as Christians whom such as you will affirm to be no Christians Love is easily destroyed if this much will do it But it costeth more than so to cause it Pag. 85. He addeth Let them have been as visible as you please that 's nothing to me so were the Arrians Sabellians Montanists c. Prove they were no more than one visible Congregation of Christians among themselves and with Orthodox Christians that 's the present Controversie Answ. I hope we shall find out the Controversie at last though it seems as hard almost as to resolve it How oft must I repeat the same Proof Again my Proof is this Those that are baptised into the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and hold all essential to Christianity not apostatizing from the whole or any essential part are true Christians But such are they before mentioned 1. That they are Baptized is not denyed and Baptizing is Christening and supposeth the profession of all that is essential to Christianity or else it could not make them Christians 2. No man that professeth himself a Christian must be taken to be no Christian till he be convict by lawful proof because as sincerity or heart-consent to the Covenant of Grace is our Christianity as invisible before God so Baptism and professed consent to that Covenant is our visible Christianity before men every man being the Expositor of his own belief and resolution but that these Churches have Apostatâ—…zed from the whole or any essential part of Christianity is unproved and therefore not to be supposed As every particular man is to be taken for a Christian who is baptized and professeth it till his profession be disproved so much more whole Countries and Churches that profess Christianity must not be supposed without proof to be no Christians If a Papist will say to all the men in the City prove that you are no Thieves no Adulterers no Murderers no Lyars no Traytors or else I will take you for such I think they may more justly say prove that we are such or else we will take you for a standerer And that they are of one Church I prove All Christians are one Church but those are Christians therefore of one Church The major is certain They that are the Members and Subjects of one Christ are of one Church All Christians are the Members and Subjects of one Christ therefore they are of one Church All that have the seven terms of Union before mentioned out of Eph. 4. are of one Church but such are these before named Here remember 1. That I plead not for the Christianity of any that are proved to deny indeed any one essential point of Christianity but I will not believe this man that every thing instituted by Christ and so every word in the Bible is such an essential nor that our Church or Religion is so strange a thing as to have no perpetual integral parts nor accidents but what will not some men have a Face to defend 2. That this same man hath already maintained that no man is bound to be subject to the Pope to whom he is not sufficiently propounded and that he confesseth that it is not yet agreed among them that any more is necessary to Salvation to be explicitely believed than that there is a God and reward for good works And yet two or three parts of the Christian World must be no Christians nor Members of the Church of Christ because they are not Members of the Pope And let it be still remembred to acquit the Eastern and Southern Churches from the Papists charge of Heresie as being Nestorians and Eutychians 1. That the Accusers are to be taken for Calumniators till they prove it by all the rules of common Justice 2. That if they could prove Dioscorus e. g. an Eutychian that 's no proof that all the Bishops that adhered to him were such for it 's apparent by the Acts of the Councils that Multitudes adhered to him because they thought him no Eutychian and Derodon de suppositâ—… hath undeniably proved that Dioscorus said but what his Predecessor Cyril hath oft said whom you approved and many because they thought the Judgment unjust that judged him so and cast him out and many for the honour of the Seat yea many for fear of death by the people that were affected to him as their Patriarch though they understood not the cause in question He that readeth the Bishops at the Council of Calcedon part crying out prostrate on the Earth miseremini miseremini non dissentimus else kill us here we dare not go home if we desert and raile against our Patriarch before another be chosen the people will kill us and another part of them confessing that fear made them subscribe at the Council at Ephes. 2. and some crying out Away with them they are Hereticks who cryed non dissentimus may well judge that all were not Hereticks that clamor called so 3. If they could prove those few Bishops that were openly accused and noted to be Eutychians that 's no proof that the rest were so 4. If they could prove that many then were so that will not prove that those that now there inhabit are so 5. And of Nestorianism there is less publick shew of proof 6. And indeed the main Body of the Common
People yea and Clergy it 's most probable never understood the Controversies 7. Yea he that with judgment readeth the Acts History and Debates of those times may well doubt whether Nestorius Eutyches or Dioscorus understood them themselves and whether the Heresie lay not mostly in an unskilfulness of interpreting of words and expressions Dioscorus solemnly professed that he held neither division of Natures nor confusion of them nor transmutation and that antecedent to their Union they were two These are unskilful expressions But one would think that he that held that Union did neither change nor confound them must needs mean that they were distinct though not divided and the Orthodox denyed division as well as he And if men had in those Councils but distin guished the senses of the word Union or One half as exactly as all Metaphysicks and Schoolmen use to do it 's a great doubt whether it would not have reconciled both Eutyches and Nestorius to the Orthodox it being most undeniable that there is a sense of the word in which Christs Natures may be said to be One and a sense in which they cannot be so said A sense in which he had two Wills and a sense in which he had â—…ut one A sense of the word person in which it might be said to have had two persons and a sense in which it could not be so said And he that readeth how Hierom was a while Hereticated for refusing the word hypostasis and what Controversie was about that word and persona between the Eastern and Western Bishops till it was found out by Nazianzene and other peaceable men that they meant the same thing may possibly hope that if such men as are peaceable and skilful in discussing ambiguous terms and driving unskilful men to understand others and speak aptly themselves had patiently searched the business to the bottom they would have found fewer Hereticks than were judged such And their own Writers have no other Argument to excuse Pope Honorius condemned for a Heretick by a Council as well as Nestorius and Dioscorus but that he understood not the words and was misunderstood And Nestorius whatever some say to the contrary denyed Christ to be two persons These are his words to Cyrils Papers In eo 〈◊〉 laudo quod distinctionem Naturarum secundum Divinitatis humanitatis rationem harumque in Una duntaxâ—…t persona proedicas His Heresie lay in two words 1. That he said Mary was not to becalled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deipara but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mother of Christ 2. That he said in the Synod He would not say that God was two or three months old and do not Cyril's answer to the objections of the oriental Bishops plainly shew that the aptness of the word Deipara was the Controversie And he that had but said that Christus non Qua Deus sed Qui Deus qua Deus Unitus humanitati was born of Mary had been like to have reconciled them all However the number so judged was inconsiderable as to all the Christians in those Countreys and among millions of Christians it is not twenty Bishops thought guilty that are a proof that the Country or Multitude was so 8. To conclude the Papists themselves ordinarily justifie them from that charge and confess that the Christians of those Countries are honest harmless men that understand not what such Heresies are or detest them as I have before shewed out of Brochardus that dwelt at Ierusalem and others And what man can tell us that millions of professed Christians are Hereticks that never declared any such thing themselves Were it lawful so boldly to censure others how much more excusable should we be if we judged the Pope and his Followers Hereticks who are far more corrupt and erroneous than these whom they accuse and deny to be Christians But page 86. 87. malignity is so hard put to it for some sorry pretensions against Christian charity and for Unchurching the most of the Church of Christ that he hath nothing to say but such stuff as this I require the nomination of the determinate Opinions of Societies as Hussites Waldenses Nestorians Eutychians c. not of their persons and therefore I say you nominate none much less prosecute you those with whom you begun Now these were Greeks Armenians Ethiopians Protestants So that I speak undeniably of the nomination of Sects and Societies not of Names and Sir-names and Genealogies of persons There were different Sects and Professions in different Countries as Armenia Abassia c. I require the nomination of which of those Sects or Parties you mean in those Times and Nations not what were their Names and Sir-names nor is it sufficient that you say there were Christians that is Christians univocally so called or true Christians in all Ages in Armenia Ethiopia Egypt c. who denyed the Popes supremacy for unless you nominate of what Party Sect Opinion or Profession they were how shall any man judge whether they held not some Opinion contrary to the essentials of Christianity and by that became no Christians c. Answ. I would not insult over Men in their sin and folly but I must say that I reverenee that Wisdom and Justice of God which hath made the Evidences of Christian Truth and the Rights of his Church and the Obligations to Love and Concord so clear that Learned Malice trained up in Satan's 〈◊〉 cannot speak against it without such impudencse as this Man here is put to exercise When he denyed most of the Church to be true Christians he puts me to prove that they have been such I convince him that I am not bound â—…o name the Men and even the Country it self may prove but a mutable Seat of Religion but I prove that Christians that deny the Pope's Supremacy or are none of his Subjects have successively from the beginning inhabited those Countries And now the Man is angry that I will not call them by the Names which their malice casteth on them but only call them Christians of Armenia Ethiopia c. Their factious Interest taught them to stigmatize better Men with odious Titles and I must needs do so too But Sir resume some modesty if I prove them Christians do you prove them unchristned if you can I prove that they are baptised and profess all these Creeds which were the Symbol of Christians for many hundred years and they receive the Holy Scriptures Do you prove that they invalidate all this Profession or confess your self a Calumniator Must I tell you what By Opinions they all hold that you may judge whether they are Christians or not Cannot you judge by their Baptism Creeds and Profession of Christianity till you are told their Opinions in controverted things Why then said you that you call not for their Names How can I tell the Opinions of Men un-named and unknown but by their Professions I know not the Opinions of my Neighbours at the next Doors and
Andrew cited by me elsewhere and many a Protestant that taketh Peter to have been among the Apostles as the Fore-man of a Jury to the rest would say the same words But he intimateth that the Pope is Peter's Successor True he so supposed him as a Bishop but not as an Apostle and therefore not in equality of Power And common reasâ—…n will interpret him in the common sense of all the Councils and those times viz. as having the first place in the Imperial Councils and being the chief of the Patriarchs in the Empire but not as being the Bishop of all the World There is no probability that this one Man extended his Power further than the Empire and so that he was a Papist and yet you have not proved one in 400 years and more But he saith had not the Council of Ephesus consented they would have contradicted one imposing a Superiour and a Iudge Answ. 1. They never took him for a Judge any further than as the first Patriarch had the first Seat and Vote 2. Cyril was there the first the Legates coming after the Decrees past 3. Cyril was glad of the consent of the West it being become too much of the cause of the day Whether Nestorius or he was the wiser Speaker and should prevail 4. What 's this to the Government of all the World Shew us when that Council subjected any without the Empire to the Pope or to themselves 5. Yea in the Empire he is blind that seeth not that Councils were above Popes and when the major Vote carried it they condemned Popes as well as others as they did Honorius and many since Pag. 90. You have another Instance of his saying and unsaying When I named the Churches of Ethiopia India the outer Armenia c. that were not under the Popes jurisdiction he faith I must mean that they were never under it for if they were under him in any Age and for any time since Christ you can never make them an instance of those who were perpetually in all Ages a visible Congregation of Christians not acknowledging the Popes Supremacy Ans. And yet this same man said before that he did not put me to prove that in all Ages they did not own the Pope but that they that own him not now had been a Church any other way truly united who can answer him that saith and unsaith and changeth his Cause as the occasion tempteth him I have oft told him 1. I prove that the extra-imperial Churches never were subject to the Pope unless when any of them by conquest fell under the Empire or on such an odd accident in some singular instance which I have enumerated in my Naked Popery 2. And that no Church in the whole World owned him as the Bishop of all the World for above 400 if not above 600 years 3. And that those that owned him not as Britain at the first and owned him after and disowned him again were still Christian Churches united in Christ. But the man is loth to understand and pag. 91. saith You mean all other extra-imperial Nations or some If all I find the quite contrary for the Gothes successively Inhabitants of Spain never acknowledged themselves Subjects of the Empire who yet are now subject to the Roman Bishop and consequently were and are sometime under him Ans. I have oft and plain enough told you my meaning This is very cautelously written 1. If the Gothes in Spain were not subject to the Empire the old Inhabitants were before the Gothes conquered them and the Gothes themselves when by Theodosius's leave they dwelt in Thrace and near it And though the Gothes became their Masters they did not exterminate all the Inhabitants who had been used to some subjection to the Pope 2. Yet how little Spain then depended on the Pope is known even by the current of all the Gothick Councils the Toletane Hispalense c. where their Kings called them and were oft present and made certain parts of their Canons and were over and over magnified and Canons made for their honour and security and the due election of Successors when there was not a word of subjection to the Pope 3. And you do well in affirming no more but that Spain is now and therefore sometime under the Pope that they are now so indeed their Inquisition witnesseth nor was it ever in my thoughts to deny it But what of that 〈◊〉 He addeth And the Swedes and Danes though now they reject all obedience to him yet in the year 1500 they acknowledged him c. Ans. Very true and what of all this no doubt but long before 1500 the Pope got possession of the Western Churches we doubt not of it But he tells me that to maintain my Cause I must shew that all the extra-imperial Churches were from under the Pope Ans. My Causâ—… is not of your stating but my own I maintain 1. That the Pope was never made the Bishop of all the World 2. And that the Primacy so much mentioned in the ancient Canons was only over or in the Imperial Churches and was a humane institution and that the Councils and Emperours never pretended to give or acknowledge any more Nor did the Councils themselves and all the Patriarchs pretend to any more nor dream of Governing all the World 3. That the Churches that were from the beginning without the Empire were none of them subject to the Pope for above 400 if not 500 or 600 years 4. That the Empire of Abassia and all the Eastern and Southern extra-imperial Churches Persia India c. were never under the Pope to this day save that the Portugâ—…ls and Spaniards have lately got some Footing in part of the Indies 5. That the whole Greek Church the Armenians Georgians Syrians Egyptians c. never were under the Pope as Pope that is as the Universal Bishop of all the World but only as the primate of the Empire 6. That even in that relation he was not properly the Governour of any of the Diocesses of the other Patriarchs nor the other distinct as Diocesses Carthage Iustinianâ—… c. but the prime Patriarch that had the first Seat in Councils which put in and out Bishops at their pleasure with the Emperours will even Patriarchs and all 7. That those that were under him for some time as Britain were divers of them from under him before and after And yet that the Reader may not mis-understand the matter and this mans importunity I must repeat the exceptions laid down in my Naked Popery pag. 106. 107. and tell him what I grant him 1. Some Cities that were near to Scythia and Persiâ—… had Bishops to whom some Neighbour Scythians and Persians might be voluntary Subjects 2. Some Cities and Countries were sometime under the Roman Power and sometimes under the Enemies Persians Parthians Armenians Gothes Vandales as Africa c. when they were of the Empire their Bishops came to Councils and when they were under Heathen
but the Orbis Romanus the whole Empire I added No credible witnesses mention your Acts of Jurisdiction over them or their Acts of Subjection which Church-History must needs have contained if it had been true that they were your Subjects He replyeth Is not Genebrard a Witness that Pope Eugenius wrote to the Emperour of Ethiopia 1437 to send Legates to the Council of Ferrara as the Greek Emperour had decreed to do to whose Letters and Legates David their Emperour sent a respectful answer and accordingly sent some of his Church to that Council as appears by the Acts of the Council and that 1524 the said David and Helena his Empress promised obedience to the Bishop of Rome Pope Clem. 7. Ans. I had rather you had called Father Parsons or Campion or Garnet your credible Witness than Genebrard a late railing Falsifier Such Tales as these be meet for the Ears of none but such as would believe you if you swore that all the Iews and Turks are Christians Do you think that your obtruding such abominable Forgeries commonly known by the Learned to be such and confessed by your own Writers will not increase our alienation from you Did you ever read the subscriptions of that Council when you say that the Acts declare that some of the Ethiopian Church were there Why did you not name them Do we not know how long a Journey it is to Abassia and how much more time the Pope must have had to have sent a message to the Emperour there and received an answer than the sudden calling of the Council at Ferrarâ—… to break another that had deposed the Pope as a 〈◊〉 and wicked man could consist with and that Council sitting a while at Ferrara removed by the plague to Florence was wholly taken up with the Greekâ—… and no mention of any Abassian there We have by Dr. Creightons Edition a better History of that Council than Binniâ—… c. gives us but nothing of this Indeed Binnius reports the now known Fable of an Armenian coming too late after the subscriptions but we have oft enough heard of your scenical Patriarchs and Bishops and feigned Nuncios You can make a Patriarcch or Bishop of any part of the World at Rome when you will and then say that those Churches have submitted to you These Forgeries are part of your foundation as Dr. Willet hath shewed in his Trerastyloâ—…s Papismi Why have you no Bishops no Regiment in Abassia and Armenia Had it been true that David and Helena had promised obedience to the Pope as Iohan. Paleologus the Greek Emperour partly did and forced some of his Bishops to do in his necessity hoping for help to have kept out the Turk till they were come home and then renounced the Act What had that been to the Question One Man and Woman is not the Church but he that will read but your own Godignus will see the utter falshood of your pretences to any thing in Abassia Next he nameth besides Genebrard six others Platina Nauclerus c. that he saith besides the Acts of the Florentine Council that say that the Armenians and Indians acknowledge the Soveraignty of the Roman Bishop through the Whole World Answ. 1. Though he names but his own late Partners yet he citeth not a word page or book of any one of them If any one of them have so gross a Fiction it is no more honour to them than to himself But the Council of Florence in whose Acts I should as soon look to find a Fiction as in any being a packt Anti-Council of a villainous deposed Pope hath no such word in any of my Books but only that which I cited of a forged too late coming of an Armenian And even their own Fiction talks not of his much less the Indians acknowledgment of the Pope's Soveraignty over the whole World He next addeth And as to more ancient times gives not the Arabick Translation of the first Council of Nice a clear Witness that the Ethiopians were to be under the Iurisdiction of the Patriarch of Alexandria and he under that of Rome Answ. I do not wonder that you use to lead the ignorant in your Disputes into a Wilderness or Wood of History under the Name of Antiquity and Tradition when you know your own Refuges Reader the famous Council of Nice hath been predicated and appealed to and gloried in by almost all Parties save the Arrians for many hundred years after it was celebrated and the Affrican Bishops of whom Austin was one had a long Contest with divers Popes for about twenty years about the true Copy of the Canons And now the other day comes one Alph. Pisanus and tells us that he hath found a Copy of them in Arabick and this tells you of the Ethiopians being under Alexandria by Canon and forty things more that were not in the Canons which the Church had for above a thousand years and this is very good Authority with a Papist And so they can yet determine what shall be in any ancient Council or Father as if they had the doing of all themselves It is but saying we have found an old Paper that saith so Why then do you not receive Eutychius Alexandrinus's Reports of that Council published by Selden which tells us other improbable things of it but hath far more appearance of Antiquity than your new-found Canons Next I noted that Their absence from General Councils and no invitation of them thereto that was ever proved is sufficient Evidence To this he saith I intend to make a particular Tract to prove this and to evidence the falsity of your Allegation from undenyable Testimonies of classic Authors and from the ancient Subscriptions of the Councils themselves Answ. A fine put-off I do not believe you dare attempt it for fear of awakening the World to the consideration of this notorious Evidence against you It is now above sixteen years since our writing and yet I hear not of your Book But the Reader need not stay for it let him but peruse the Subscriptions in your own Volumes of the Councils Crab Surius Binius Nicolinus and judge whether all the Christian World without the Empire were ever summoned to General Councils were present at them or judged by them any Bishops put in or out by them and judge as you see proof Next I noted that Their ancient Lyturgies have no Footsteps of any subjection to the Pope though the Papists have corrupted them which in a Digression I shewed out of Usher de succes Eccles. in that instead of Hic panis est Corpus meum in the Ethiopick Canon Universalis they have put Hoc est corpus meum To this he replyeth pag. 96. No more doth the Roman Missal nor that of France o Spain witness their subjection to the Pope Answ. That 's strange that you have suffered so much of the old form unchanged Gregory that denyed the Title of Universal Bishop was the chief Author
and the claim of the Monarchy of all the Earth was then but in the Egg even after 600 years and came not into the open World till about the time that Mahomet came else undoubtedly your Lyturgick Commemorations and Prayers would have had some mention of the Universal Bishop as well as our Prayers mention the King and Bishops especially when it was then the Custom to record and commemorate all the Patriarchs and greatest Prelates and the Imposition would have come forth as by his Authority as the Trent symbolical Oath doth and as our Lyturgie doth by Authority of the King and Parliament and Convocation Surely this is much against you Because he knew not the Scholiastes mentioned by Usher he questioneth his Citations about the change of the Ethiopick Lyturgie I next added that Constantin's Letters of Request to the King of Persia for the Churches there mentioned by Eusebius in Vit. Const. do intimate that then the Roman Bishop Ruled not there To this he saith Why so The Pope might command and the Emperour intreat Answ. 1. This sheweth that the Emperours who used to call Councils called none out of Persia for they had no Power there 2. And withal Why is there not a Syllable in any Church-History or credible Author that we have heard of that mentioneth that ever the Pope sent one Command into Persia or that ever he corrected suspended or deposed any Bishop there or excommunicated any there though indeed that had been no sign of Governing Power seeing an equal may renounce Communion with an equal Heretical Society or Person Why is there no mention that ever any General Council did any of this No nor ever took any such exterior Churches into their care any otherwise than as Neighbours to help them nor never made any one Governing Canon for them And I pray you How would the Persian King that must be intreated by Constantine have taken it to have the Religion of his Kingdom under the Command of one of Constantine's Subjects But you have the affirmative let us see your proof that ever the Pope Governed the Persian Churches Next I noted that Even at home here the Scots and Britains obeyed not the Pope even in the days of Gregory above 600 but resisted his changes and refused Communion with his Ministers To this he replyeth That 1. This was their errour as our disobedience now is and Beda so chargeth it on them that it followeth not that they had never been under the Pope 2. That they also held that which was condemned as a Heresie at Nice yet it followeth not that they were not under that Council's Authority 3. They also refused Communion with the English Converts Answ. These words signifie what you would have us believe but let us try what more 1. Seeing you can bring no word of proof that ever they had been subject to the Pope before And 2. Seeing they were found utterly Aliens to his subjection And 3. Seeing they were found in possession of Opinions and Customs quite contrary to the Pope's 4. And seeing they pleaded Tradition for this 5. And seeing they renounced Communion with those that came to subjugate them And 6. Seeing the Pope's Ministers never pretended to any ancient possession in pleading with them as you may see in Beda 7. And seeing we read in Beda Gildas and others that they had heretofore made use of the assistance of the French Church by Germanus and Lupus as more Neighbours without any mention of subjection to Rome Let the Reader that careth what he believeth now judge whether ever the Scots and Britains were before subject â—…o the Pope 2. It is false that the Council of Nice condemned their Easter-practice as a Heresie though they united on a contrary resolution And as it is certain that that Council had no authority out of the Empire and so not over Britain when it was out of the Empire so this British Custome plainly intimateth that Britain had not received the decrees of that Council 3. That they refused the Communion of the English as half Papists it is no great wonder And yet I remember no proof of that at all in Beda but only that taking the English for Pagan-Tyrants that conquered and opprest them they refused to join with Augustine the Monki in preaching to them It 's like taking it for a hopeless attempt in them that were odious to them and open Enemies and not to be trusted Next I recite the words of their Reinerius Cont. Waidens Catal. Bibl. Pat. To. 4. p. 773. The Churches of the Aâ—…enians Ethiopians and Indians and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome One would think plain words He replyeth No more are you what then our question is not of what is done de facto for the â—…present but what de jure ought to be done or hath been done The Author saith not These Nations were never under the Church of Rome but are not now Aus It 's no wonder that you desire to be the expositors of the Scriptures and all other Books for that is the only device to make them speak what you would have them If Gregory the Seventh be the Expositor of St. Paul no doubt but St. Paul shall be for the power of Popes to depose Kings and Emperours If Innocent the Third be his Expositor no doubt but by Bread 1 Cor. 11. he meaneth no Bread and by this Cup no Wine And I confess there is greater reason that you should be the infallible Expositors of Reynerius than of Christ or Paul for he was more your own and under your Government But this Reynerius was an unhappy speaker and if he were here I would ask him 1. Why do you speak in such a manner as any ordinary Reader would think that you speak de jure de facto and yet mean de facto only 2. Why speak you so as an ordinary Reader would think that you spake dâ—… statu statuto when you mean but de praeente statu inordinato 3. Why speak you of so great a sin as Rebellion against the Vice-Christ and Schism from the Universal Church without any note of reprehension 4. Why name you the old extra imperial Churches only and not those that since renounced Rome as all the Greek Church if you meant but what you charge the Greek Church with Had you not more easily fastened a charge of Rebellion on all those Eustern Churches that sometimes acknowledged some primacy of Rome than on those that the World knoweth were never under him 5. And why do you say also in general and the rest which the Apostles converted are not under the Church of Rome if there were not some special reason for it We took your meaning to be Though those in the Empire and many without it that were turned from Infidelity by the Popes Subjects be under the Church of Rome the first by the Laws of the Empire and Councils and the latter
by voluntary subjection yet so are not the Churches which the rest of the Apostles planted without the Empire aâ—… those Apostles were not subject to St. Peter 6. And why do you so arrogantly accuse such vast Churches as Armâ—…nia Ethiopia India and all the rest of the Apostles planted besides Peter and Paul and take them all for Rebels and Schismaticks and yet bring no word of proof for your Accusations But the truth is Reynerius though he revolted from the 〈◊〉 of his times was an honester man than the Pope that shall thus be his Expositor and yet W. I is not the Pope and therefore I question his partial exposition Next I mentioned the Canon of the Council of Calcedon which saith that the Fathers in Council gave Rome the preheminence c. He replyeth that 1. The Greek word is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exhibited or deferred to Rome as ever before due to it by the right of the Apostolick See of St. Peter established there Ans. You are hard put to it when you have no better shift than so useless a Criticism 1. You know I suppose that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may have a signification as remote from doâ—…ation as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that your own common Translation is tribuere and I desire no more 2. Is here ever a word in the Canon that saith It was ever before due not a word 3. Is not the same word used of the giving of equal priviledges to Constantinople as â—…is of giving or deferring it to Rome the same word And did they mean that this belonged ever to Constantinople and that of Divine Right You dare not say so 4. Did they not say that by the same reason they judged that Constantinople should have equal priviledges because it was the Royal City And was this famous Council of which you boast as obeying Leo's Epistle so sottish and absurd as to argue thus because old Rome had the first Seat assigned to it on this account because it was the imperial Seat and that was because it was ever before its due as St Peter's Chair therefore we judge that by the same reason Constantinople should have equal priviledges because it is now new Rome the imperial Seat though it was never due to it before as the Seat of any Apostle O what cannot some men believe or seem to believe And how much doth it conern your Church to be the Expositor and Judge of the sense of all Councils as well as of God's Word He addeth that the Canon saith not that this was the sole reason Ans. 1 But the Canon saith This was the reason and assigneth no other 2. And if it made not it the great reason which the Church was to take for the fundamentum juris they would never have laid the Right of Constantinople on the same Foundation as by parity of reason The plain truth is but interest and partiality cannot endure plain truth he that will not be deceived by cited By-words of the Ancients must distinguish between the Titâ—…lus or fundamentum juris and the Ratio or Motives of the Statute or Constitution The first was the Law of Emperours and Councils This only giveth the Right The second was prevailingly and principally that which the Canon here assigneth that Rome was the great City and the imperial Seat but as a honorary Tittle adding to the Motive they say sometimes that it was the Seat of Peter and sometimes of Peter and Paul and sometime they mention Paul alone and cry as at Ephesus Magno Paulâ—… Cyrillo Magne Paulo Celestino But note that they give often the same reason for the Patriarchal honour of Antioch that it was Sedes Petri and therefore never took this to be either the Foundation of the Right or the chief determining Motive of the Constitution He addeth that else it had been a contradiction when the Fathers say that Dioscorus had extended his Felony against him to whom our Saviour had committed the charge and care of his Vineyard that is of the whole Catholick Church Ans. 1. No doubt but they acknowledged that Christ committed the care of his Vineyard to Peter and every one of the Apostles and to all Bishops as their Successors though not in Apostleship and they acknowledged Rome the primate in the Empire and when Dioscor us undertook to excommunicate Leo they supposed that he transgressed the Laws of the imperial Church and therefore Anatolius in the Council when the Indices said that Dioscor us condemned Flavian for saying Christ had two Natures answered That Dioscorus was not condemned propter fidem but for excommunicating Leo and for not appearing when he was sent for 2. Is here any word that saith that the Pope was Soveraign of all the Earth Doth not the Council in that very Letter to Leo say that the Emperour had called the Council not ascribing it to any Authority of the Pope And also that the saying Mat. 28 Go teach all Nations c. was delivered to them which is the care of the vineyard and not only to the Pope Quam nobis olim ipse salvator tradidit ad salutem But saith W. I. The true reason why this Canon mentioneth rather the Imperial Authority of that City than the right from St. Peter was because it suited better with the pretensions of Anatolius Bishop of Constantinople and his Complices for the elevaton of that Sea than any other for they had no other c. Ans. It 's true But did Anatolias and his Complices that is the Council speak sincerely and truly here or falsly If truly that 's all that I cite them for If falsly as worldly unconscionable men that were setting up themselves why hoast we of General Councils even of this and of their words to Leo How can we tell when to trust them and whether they that subscribed against Flavian at Ephes. 2. and after cryed omnes peccavimus at Calcedon when they were under a Martian and not Theodosius would not have acquit Dioscorus and condemned Leo and Elavian again if another Theodosius had come But if they were credible believe them But he tells us that a Law of Theodosius and Valentine put both reasons together c. Ans. I told you in what sense even now even as they put the name of Peters Seat as a reason of the honour of Antioch a honorary motive to their Law And he here confesseth himself That Alexander and Antioch had the second and third places because they were the second and third great Cities of the Empire But he saith that St. Peter thought it convenient that the highest spiritual Authority should be placed in that City which had the highest temporal power Ans. Say you so 1. Where is that Canon of St. Peter's to be found and proved 2. If so then why is not this Canon produced for the regulating of all other Churches Why doth Canterbury take place of London
de Pontifice Romano and others that so speak c. is a vain digression not worthy an answer nor the rest I will here briefly recite some undeniable Reasons which I have given pag. 100 c. of my Naked Popery to prove what we have been all this while upon 1. That the Papal Power was not held to be jure divino but humano 1. It stood by the same right as did the other Patriarchs but it was jure humano 2. The Africans Aurelius Augustine c. of the Carthage Council enquired not of Gods Word but of the Nicene Canons to be resolved of the Papal Power 3. The whole Greek Church heretofore and to this day is of that Judgment for they first equalled and after preferred Constantinople which never pretended to a Divine Right but they were not so blind as to equal or prefer a humane right before a Divine 4. The fore-cited Ca. 28. of the Council of Calcedon expresly resolves it 5. Their own Bishop Smith confesseth that it is not de fide that the Pope is St. Peters Successor jure divino II. The Roman Primacy was over but one Empire besides all the Reasons fore-going I added That the Bishop of Constantinople when he stood for to be Universal Bishop yet claimed no more therefore no more was then in contest but Power in the Empire III. That Councils then were called General in respect only to the Empire I proved by ten Arguments p. 104. 105. adding five exceptions Page 114. he had put a Verse under the name of Pope Leo with a Testimony c. I shewed that there was no such and he confesseth the Errour but he supposeth a confident Friend of his put it into his Papers and now saith the Verse was Prosper's and some words to the like purpose are Leo's de Nat. Pet. Prosper he saith is somewhat ancienter than Leo and less to be excepted against Ans. 1. He was Leo's Servant even his Secretary as Vossius and Rivet have shewed and so his Words and Leo's are as one's 2. It is in a Poem where liberty of phrase is ordinarily taken 3. No wonder if Caput Mundo be found in a Poet either as it is spoken de Mundo Romano or as Caput signifieth the most excellent great and honourable And so Rome it self is oft called by Historians Caput Mundi before and since Christianity entered it And it may well be said that this was Pastoralis Honoris though not ex Pastorali Regimine Universali For one Bishop was a Caput or chief to others Pastorali Honore that was not their Governour as the chief Earl or chief Judge among us is to the inferiours 3. And the Pope did Nihil possidere armis 4. And Tenere and Regere be not all one He may be said thus Tenere in that the Religion which he professed had possession of more than the Roman Empire and he was the Chief Bishop in honour of that profession The sense seemeth to be but this As great a honour as it is to be the Bishop of the Imperial City of a Conquering Empire it is a greater to be the Prime Bishop of that Christian Religion which extendeth further than the Roman Conquests He citeth a sentence as to the same sence out of Prosper de Vocat Gent. l. 2. c. 6. viz. That the Principality of the Apostolick Priesthood hath made Rome greater through the Tribunal of Religion than through that of the Empire Which I take to be the true sence of the Poet but to be greater by Religion than Empire is no more to be Ruler of the World than if I had said so of Melchizedeck that he was greater as he was Priest of the most high God than as he was King of Salem But there is in the cited place of Prosper none of these words nor any about any such matter at all but there is somewhat like it in cap. 16. which indeed is expository Ad cujus rei effectum credimus providentia Dei Romani regni latitudinem praeparatam ut Nationes vocandae ad Unitatem Corporis Christi prius jure unius consociarentur imperii quamvis gratia Christiana non contenta sit eosdem limites habere quos Roma multosque jam populos sceptro Crucis Christi illa subdiderit quos armis suis ista non domuit Quae tamen per Apostolici sacerdotii principatum amplior facta est arce Religionis quam solio potestatis All this we acknowledge that Prosper then said about 466 years after Christ being Pope Leo's Secretary and seeing the Church in its greatest outward Glory The Unity of the Empire prepared for the greatness of the Church and those that were United in one Empire were United after in one Religion and yet the Gospel went further than the Empire and Rome it self became more honourable in being the seat of the most honourable Christian Bishop whose Religion extended further than the Empire than in being the Imperial Seat of Power The words which he citeth of Leo I made the lightest of because he was a Pope himself and pleaded his own cause more highly than any of his Predecessors and lived so late but yet the words do not serve the Papists turn for he at large sheweth that his meaning was that Rome which was domina mundi before it waâ—… Christian and yet not the Ruler of the World was prepared to be the Seat of Peter and Paul that even the outer Nations by their Neighbourhood to the Empire might be capable of the Gospel which is a certain Truth Ut hujus inenarrabilis gratiae per totum mundum diffunderetur effectus Romanum regnum divina providentia praeparavit cujus ad eos limites incrementa perducta sunt quibus cunctarum undique gentium vicina contigua esset universitas Disposito namq divinitatis operi maxime congruebat ut multa regna uno confâ—…derarentur imperio cito pervios haberet populos praedicatio generalis quos unius teneret regimen civitatis Nec mundi dominam times Romam qui in Caiphae domo expaveras sacerdotis ancillam And mentioning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 at Rome he saith ut cos in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 caput est Christus quasi geminum constituerit lumen oculorum de quorum meritis atque viâ—…tutibus que omnem loquendi superant facultatem nihil diversum nihil debemus sentire discretum quia illos electio pares labor similes finis fecit aequales And in the next Sermon expounding super hanc petram thus saith super hanc inquit 〈◊〉 â—…ternum extruam templum ecclesiae meae caelo inserenda sublimitas in hujus fidei firmitate consurget Hanc confessionem portae Inferi non tenebunt c. And of Tibi dabo claves Transivit quidâ—…m in Apostolos alios vis illius potestatis sed non frustra uni commendatur quod omnibus intimetur Petro enim singulariter hoc creditur quia cunctis ecclesiae rectoribus Petri forma proponitur Manet
mens salvation and all the Churches peace and safety was thought to be at stake upon the controversies Whether de Christo Locutio formalis an materialis erat maximè propria An Deus à Sp. Sancto in Virgine concipi ab ipsâ generari propriè diceretur Whether Nestorius was a Heretick for saying that he would not say God was two or three months old And when poor Eutyches and Dioscorus for want of skill thought verily they had spoken but what Cyril taught them and became Hereticks by it before they were aware when the grand Question was whether the word persona had such a signification as that Christs Humane Nature might be called any part of his Person or whether the Divine Nature which is infinite can be Pars And whether if the Humane be Pars personae then that Personality which was from Eternity without the Humane could be the same with that Personality of which the Humane was a part Or if the Humane be no part of the Person but an Accident whether it be proper to denominate the Person and Essence from an Accident so as to say God was begotten of Mary God was two Moneths old God was dead and buried ascended c. And when the whole Salvation of Men seemed to lye on the curiosity How far two Natures or two wills so nearly united as to have a communication of Names and Epithets might be said to be made One No doubt but in all these the Orthodox were in the right But it 's pity that when Logick was so denyed in the Council of Nice and Apollinaris blamed for too much using it and the Council at Carthage forbad the use of the Heathens Books yet so many Men must burn in Hell for being no better Logicians or more metaphysical and all Men to the end of the World must be numbred with them that do not anathematize them And that Millions of Ignorant Men and Women in Abassia Syria Armenia c. that know nothing of these Matters nor ever heard of them to whom they are as an unknown Tongue must all be unchristened and damned as Hereticks yea for not owning a Council that most it's like never heard of Alas how few in England Ireland or any Countrey know what the Council of Chalcedon did or ever heard it But yet all these Hereticks two or three parts of the World have an easie way of Recovery It is but to believe as the Pope of Rome believes though they know not what and take him for their Sovereign and they are safe But the final Judgment is more Just. § 14. Pag. 169. He addeth The Abassines confess themselves to follow Eutyches and Dioscorus and therefore there needeth neither Tryal nor Conviction Answ. 1. Where is your Proof that they so confess We will not confess that this is no Slander 2. Alas how few of them know who Eutyches and Dioscorus were 3. And of those that Honour their Names how few know what they held 4. Your own Writers acquit them of that Heresie 5. The Truth is the Tradition of their Countrey teacheth them to Honour Dioscorus for his place sake but I cannot learn that the Name of Eutyches is known or Honoured much by them 6. O that the Papists had not more and greater Errors than either Nestorius or Eutyches and that you condemned not your selves in condemning the Abassines § 15. Let the Reader Note that this Man would first have us believe that the Abassines and others whom they call Hereticks are Subjects of the Pope and of their Church and yet that they are Hereticks and so that Hereticks are no parts of the Church and yet that they are parts of their Church His shameless calling for proof that any of their Writers acquit them from these Heresies shall not tempt me to lose my time in citing them § 16. Next we come to his charge That the Greek Church rejects us as well as they Therefore the whole Church rejecteth us Therefore we are to be rejected Hereticks or else the whole Church is deceived Answ. 1. He that never read Church-History may think that there is some signification in this Cant of The whole Church and the Universal Church But so will not he that knoweth how the Prelates have usually turned to the stronger side and that if the Majority be the whole the whole Church was Orthodox in Constantines days and the whole Church was Arrian in the days of Constantius and Valens the whole Church was Eutychian in Theodosius Junior's days and long Monothelites and Iconoclasts c. 2. If it prove Men to be Hereticks or Schismaticks because the Major part reject them then the Orthodox were Hereticks when the foresaid Arrians rejected them But you have been so long used to Usurp Christs Chair that you seem to be grown to believe your selves that a Man is out of Christs Church if other Men do but say that he is out As if you knew not that the Church is to put no Man farther from Christ but only to declare how far from him they have put themselves And if any declare more than is true it doth not separate the wronged Person from Christ. e. g. I heard but yesterday divers Persons Excommunicated some for Teaching School without License and some for other such like things Doth it follow that these are any further out of the Church than they put themselves 3. But tell us if you can when the Greek Church or Patriarch of Constantinople did presume to Excommunicate us You will not tell us How then doth their rejection signifie that we are not of the same Church The Truth is the Greek Church never declared their mind concerning us If you will call one Man or twenty Men the Greek Church you may use your Liberty but we shall little regard it In the days of one Patriarch Cyril he declareth for us and our Reformation The Papists in Charity get him Murdered Another Ieremiah declareth his dissent from us but it is one thing to dissent from some things and another thing to take Men for none of the Church If you will charge the Greeks to be such Separatists as to unchurch or unchristen all that they in controverted Points dissent from We will not believe you in so ugly a charge till you have proved it The Greeks disown us and we them in some lesser things but neither they nor we presume to unchristen one another And if they or we did it would unchristen none of us unless we first unchristened our selves 4. But if the Greeks have the supream authority as the virtual universal Church then the Papists have it not if the Papists have it the Greeks have it not If neither hath it who hath it Neither of you nor both are the real Universal Church and neither is Virtually the Universal Therefore if both did Excommunicate us we are not therefore Excommunicate by the Church Universal 5. But may the Church Universal erre in Excommunicating or not If
the Leprosie of some Christians he must know whether all the Church was not Leprous then 2. And whether men could with a safe Conscience have Communion with any Answ. 1. He that saith he hath no sin is alyar saith St. Iohn All Christians and therefore all Churches are defiled with sin 2. All are not equally defiled I have told you that the Papists are not the third part of the Christian world and for many hundred years there were none 3. We must not separate from all Churches that have sin but we must not willfully sin for their Communion and we must joyn locally with the best we can and in spirit joyn with all as far as they joyn with Christ is not this plain and sufficient to your cavills § 5. He saith p. 423. that our external profession in the particulars of our Belief or rather Disbelief against the Roman Church sheweth our general profession of Christianity to be false as the Arrian was Answ. What is easier than to say so But where 's your proof § 6. After a repetition of his talk against Christ as no visible Head he cavills at the form of my first Argument which was this The body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head hath been in it's parts visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head is the Church of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since thâ—… daies of Christ on Earth And first he saith that it 's out of form because it hath never an universal proposition Answ. This is the man that would not dispute but in meer Syllogism what need I an universal proposition If you be to prove that Cephas was Peter or Peter was an Apostle of the first place must you have an universal proposition What Universal must there be above The Body of Christians c. 2. He saith that the word Those Form requireth should have been All those when as there is never a Those at all in the argument Is not this an accurate reformer of Syllogisms that amendeth termes that were not written and talketh like a dreamer of he knoweth not what but what is the All that the man would have had is it all those bodies of Christians when we are all agreed that Christ hath but one political body if I had been to prove that the world that Protestants are parts of hath been visible since Adam or that the God the Protestants worship is Almighty must I have said All those worlds and all those Gods Nay had I said but whatsoever worlds or whatsoever God it had sounded ill among men that are agreed that there is but one sure an expository medium that was but notius was enough Next he saith that I put more in the medium of the major than in the medium of the minor and so it hath four terms Answ. Wonderful This is the man that disputed with our two great Logicians and publick professors of Cambridge Bishop Gunning and Bishop Peirson and as a triumpher printed the dispute and challenged men in London to Syllogistical combats And now see how he talketh 1. He calls that my medium that is no medium at all but the Praedicate 2. He saith it is not in my Minor where that Praedicate was not nor ought to be but another 3. He takes an expository parenthesis which is no part of the proposition for an addition that maketh â—…our termes When I prove the Church visible to prevent his cavils I put in a parenthesis as a margin in it's parts because the whole world or Church is not seen by any mortal man no not by the Pope that pretends to rule it all and this no man controverteth If he had said that there is less in the conclusion than in the premises he had spoken sence though impertinet while there is as much as was in the question 2 He saith I make the praedicate of the minor the subject of the conclusion and then saith This is a hopeful beginning Answ. O rare triumphant disputer why should I not make the praedicate of the Minor the subject of the conclusion What Law or Reason is against it when iâ—… is the subject of the question My Argument is a re definitâ ad rem denominatam as questioned the definition or res quà definita is my medium How ridiculoâ—…s hath this Aristarchus made himself in his Logick would not this disputing have been very edifying to such as the Lady that he and I were once to deal with when he would have bargained that never a word should be spoken by me nor written but in a Syllogism as bad as Popery is I hope it hath some men of more ingenuity and honesty then wilfully to delude the ignorant at these low and sordid rates § 7. But from his play he turneth in earnest to deny my Major and saith that Protestants are no parts of that Church on Earth of which Christ is Head And yet many of their Doctors say that they that have no explicite belief that Iesus is the Christ but believe only a God the rewarder of works are members of the Church but no Christians are save Papists Just the Donatists and worse than the Quakers and Anabaptists My Argument Those that profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials are members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ the Head But Protestants profess c. Here 1. he wanteth form also All is wanting as if a definition were not Universal or equipollent But if All be in he denyeth it because they may destroy the faith by an Error Answ. He that so erreth as to deny any one Essential part doth not truly profess to hold that Essential part and so not the Essence as he that denyeth Christ to be God or Man and yet will say in general that he is the Messiah his meaning is that one that is not God or not Man is the Messiah which is not a profession of all Essential to Christianity but if he truly profess all that is Essential and ignorantly think some error Consistent with those Essentials which by consequence crosseth some of them and would abhorr that error if he knew it inconsistent this man is still a Christian or else it 's doubt whether there be one in the world if those Doctors say true that say that Theology is so harmonious a frame that the least moral Error doth by consequence cross and subvert fundamental truthes Certainly abundance of such do so as are collected by Montaltus and Mr. Clarkson out of your Jesuites and school Doctors and as you find in one another But he bids me prove my Major mark Reader what I am put to prove 1. Either that Profession denominateth a professor it being only Christians as visible by profession in question 2. Or that all the Essential parts do
the Arrians yea and of Marcian Leo Zeno Anastaslus Iustine almost all the Churches of the Empire continued charging each others with Heresie and Councils charging and condemning Councils Bishops deposing and cursing Bishops and Monks as their Souldiers fighting it out to blood when the obeying or cursing the Council of Calcedon divided the Bishops for many Princes reigns and when one part called the other Nestorians and the other called them Eutychians almost every where and when after that the Monothelites cause was in many Emperors Reign uppermost one while and down another and navicula Petri that alone scaped before was thus drowned by Honorius if Councils belie him not and Popes with the rest When the very same Bishops as at Ephesus and Calcedon went one way in one Council and another way in the next and subscribed to one Edict e. g. of Basiliscus and quickly to the contrary of another and cryed 〈◊〉 we did it through fear How should we then know by Fathers Bishops and Councils what was their concordant Commentary of the Scripture 4. I ask you what exposition of the Universal Church is it that we profess to differ from for our novelties name them if you can Either by the Universal Church you mean properly all Christians or most If All alas when and where shall we find their agreement in any more than we hold with them If most do we not know that the most two parts to one are against the Popes Sovereignty which is Essential to your Church Do not the Greeks once a year excommunicate or curse you To tell us now That above two parts of the Christian world are none of the Church because they differ from the Universal Church and that the third part is that Universal which he that believeth not is no Christian are words that deserve indignation and not belief and without the medium of Swords and Flames and tormenting inquisitions on one side and great Bishopricks and Abbies Wealth Ease and Domination on the other had long ago been scorned out of the Christian world § 10. But he also denyeth that we believe with a saving divine faith any of the said mysteries and that our Profession general and particular affirmeth it Answ. It 's like the Devil the Accuser of the brethren will deny it too of our Hearts we will not enter a dispute of our Professions let our books be witnesses Reader canst thou believe that we profess not to believe any Christian verity with a Divine faith yea but the man meaneth that it is not a Divine faith if it be not from the beleif of the Pope and his Party And how then shall we believe the Popes own authority § 11. II. My ad Argument to prove that we hold all the Essentials of Christianity was Those that profess as much and much more of the Christian Faith and Religion as the Catechumens were ordinarily taught in the ancient Churches and the Competentes at Baptisme did profess do profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials but so do the Protestants c. To this he calls for Form again as if here were no Universal and then denyeth the Major but his words shew that indeed it is the Minor Because the Catechumens professed to believe implicitly all that was taught as matter of Faith by the Catholick Church in that Article I believe the Holy Church which the Protestants do not Answ. An unproved fiction on both parts 1. Shew us in Fathers Councils or any true Church-Records that Catechumens were then used to make any other exposition of those words than we do Did they ever profess that a Pope or a General Council cannot erre de fide did they not call many of those Councils General though violent and erroneous which they cursed The great doubt then was which party was the true Church and Christians then judged not of Faith by the Church-men but of the Church by the Faith else they had not so oft rejected and Hereticated many Popes Patriarches and the farre greater part of the Bishops as they did 2. And Protestants deny no article which ab omnibus ubique et semper as Lerinens speaks was accounted necessary to â—…ation yea it is one reason why they cannot be Papists because most of the Catholick Church are against the Papacy and all were against it or without it for many hundred Years after Christ. Let the Reader peruse Cyril Hieros Catech. August and all others that give us an account of the Churches Catechism and see whether he can find in it I believe that the Bishop of Rome is made by Christ the Governour of all the World and is Infallible in himself or with his Council and that we must believe all that they say is the Word of God because they say it or else we cannot be saved But it is an easie way to become the Lords of all the World if they can perswade all Men to believe that none but their Subjects can be saved 3. And what an useless thing to they make Gods Word that they may set up their own Expositions in its stead We know that the Word supposeth that the Ignorant must have Teachers Without Teaching Children cannot so much as learn to Speak And Oportet discentem credere fide humanâ that is he must suppose his Teacher wiser than himself or else how can he judge him fit to Teach him But what is Teaching but Teaching the Learner to know the same things that the Teacher doth by the same Evidence Is it only to know what the Teacher holdeth without knowing why If so must we know it by Word or Writing If by Word only when and where shall every Man and Woman come to be Catechized by the Universal Church That is by all the Christian World Or is every Priest the Universal Church Or is he Infallible And how come Words spoken to be more intelligible than words written Doth writing make them unintelligible Why then are their Councils and Commentaries written But if Writing will serve why not God's writing as well as theirs If God say Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy Heart Are not these words intelligible till a Pope Expound them When the Pope permitted his Casuists to expound them so as that Loving God once a Moneth or once a Year will serve for Salvation and that Attrition which is Repeating only out of Fear with the Sacrament of Penance will also serve Cannot a Man be saved that Believeth Repenteth and Loveth God upon the bare Commands of God and Scripture without hearing what all the Christian World or Councils say If I make to my self no Graven Image so as to bow down and Worship towards it by virtue of the second Commandment will this damn me because I receive not the Papists obliteration or contradiction of this Commandment as an Exposition If all the Docrees of Councils be as necessary as the Creed and Scripture why were not the Councils read in the
bound or how can I be said to believe Implicitely their unknown Doctrine or Articles of Faith What is my Implicite belief of Scripture-Particles but my General belief that all the Scripture is Gods Word and true And what is Implicite belief of Popish Traditions in particular but the explicite belief that all Popish Traditions in general are true If therefore these Disputers confess the sufficiency of our explicite neccessary belief and yet damn us for the insufficiency of our implicite belief they shamefully contradict themselves and give up their cause § 14. Next I thus Argued If sincere Protestants are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed or as Bellarmine speaketh Living Members then professed Protestants are Members of the true Church as extrinsecally denominated or as it is Visible consisting of Professours But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this when I had given the Reason of the Consequence undenyable and said I prove the Antecedent or Minor he saith You prove say you your Antecedent or Minor which is a Syntax in Logick and deserves a Ferula for no Minor can be an Antecedent Answ. For this Mans sake I will know a Man better than by his Hectoring before I will go to School to a boaster Reader 1. What is that Error in Logick that is called a Syntax I thought Order or Concord had been no Error I confess my self not wise enough to understand this great Logician And his Ferula is too ready which must be used for Syntaxes when it is more used for violation of Syntax 2. Risum teneatis Can no Antecedent be a Minor so did Dr. Peter Heylin tell me before him in his Certamen Epistolare I suppose I shall never hear a third say so What 's the matter that the Boys Laugh at this and say that to deny the Antecedent of an hypothetical Proposition and to deny the minor is all one Is it that Boys have made all our usual Logicks and now these two Logick Doctors have Reformed them Or hath this Man pretended to be a Champion in that Art in which he is below the Novices He had hit it if he had held to his offer to Dispute before a Lady a Girle only in Syllogism by the Pen for this with her might have past for currant and invincible Logick § 15. I proved the Minor thus All that by Faith in Christ are brought to the unfeigned Love of God above all and special Love of his Servants and unfeigned willingness to Obey him are Members of the True Church as intrinsecally informed But such are all sincere Protestants c. This Minor the Man denyeth and saith That Protestants have not these things Answ. 1. Mark how hard this Man is put to it to renounce his Charity He cannot do it without denying what he granteth A sincere Professor of any Religion is one that really is what he professeth to be He denyeth not that Protestants profess to Love God c. And yet he denyeth the Minor that sincere Protestants do love God As if he that sincerely professeth to Love God doth not Love him These are Papist's Syllogisms 2. Note That this Man seemeth to know all Protestants Hearts better than they do themselves and can prove them all Hypocrites that Love not God 3. But by this you see how he reproacheth all those Protestants that turn Papists as having all been but before but graceless ungodly Hypocrites And what wonder then if they turn 4. But it may be his word formally is a cheat A Protestant is a Christian renouncing Popery It is his Christianity which containeth his Love to God His renouncing Popery is but his freedom from their sin And perhaps the Man hath a mind to call this the Form of Protestants But I hope his Talk shall not deprive us of the Love of God or of our Neighbour In the mean time any Man that can truly say that he is not an ungodly Hypocrite without the Love of God and Man hath Argument enough to Answer any Papist in himself 5. Again Reader mark how much these Men magnifie themselves and how much they vilifie the Word and Works of God Let a Man see all Gods wonderful Goodness in his Works and in his Mercies to himself and all Mankind let him read and believe all the wonderful Love of the Father and Grace of the Son that is described in all the Scriptures Let him believe the Promises there Recorded of Everlasting Glory and All this is insufficient to cause him savingly to Love God or Man But let him but add the belief that the Pope is the Governour of all the Earth and that he and his Council must be believed in all their Traditions and Expositions and then the work will be done and he may Love God unseignedly and be Loved by him The Holy Ghost will not work by the Scripture unless we take the Pope for the Expositor Yea more if a Man never heard of Scripture or if he believe not in Christ for want of the Popes sufficient proposal he may Love God and be saved so he do but believe that the Pope with his Council is a sufficient proposer And is there any account in Reason to be given of this strange Phaenomenon why a Man can Love God if he believe in the Pope of Rome and yet cannot Love him by all his Works and Mercies with the belief of all the Scriptures Or is it as very a Miracle as Transubstantiation and Sanctification by Holy-Water or the Opus operatum and one of those Miracles that prove the Church of Rome to be all the Church on Earth § 16. But he repeateth again the thred-bare Reason Had they this they would never have disobeyed and disbelieved all the Churches in the World Answ. That is the Pope and his Priests who are against the far greatest part of the Christian World and Yearly Anathematized by the Greeks who when they had lost the Primacy of the Eastern part of one Empire have tryed to make up the loss by laying Claim to all the Earth O! of what consequence is Obedience to an Ambitious Pope or Priest in comparison of Obedience to all the written Laws of God § 17. I proved the Minor two ways 1. If this the Love of God c. be in our profession then the sincere are such indeed But this is in our profession Ergo Of this he denyeth the Minor It is not in our profession What not that we Love God and are willing to understand and obey his Word Is he not driven up to the Wall even to another denyal of all Mens Eyes and Ears Do not I profess it while I write these words And have not I professed it in sixty Volumns and more And do not Protestant Libraries contain such professions and their Pulpits ring of them every Lords Day What is a Profession but Words and Writings And are not these Audible and Visible to the World And yet the denying not of the
10. ad 11. 5. Scatus in Prolegom in sect 1. 6. Greg. Armin. in Prol. e. g. q. 1. art 2. Resp. fol. 3. 4. 7. Guil. Parisiens de Legib. c. 16. p. 46. 8. Bellarmine again de verbo Dei li. 10. c. 10. ad arg 5. c. And then I most fully proved it out of the ancient Church-Doctors But to all these he giveth such frivolous Answers that it irketh me to weary the Reader by repeating and answering them And he that will faithfully peruse the Authors words I think will either need no other confutation of him or is uncapable of understanding one when he seeth it The fore-confuted contradiction of sufficient explicite and yet not sufficient implicite is the chief and next a vain supposition that to say that Scripture is sufficient to all Theological points and conclusions is less than to say it is sufficient to necessary Articles of Faith and if any of them speak of the Churches exposition he denyeth the Scripture-sufficiency as a rule and yet their Councils need exposition too § 22. III. My 3d. Argument for our Churches perpetual visibility was If the Roman Church as Christian though not as Papal hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since the dayes of the Apostles but the Antecedent is their own Therefore they may not deny the Consequent Here he wants Form again because as Christian is in the Antecedent and not in the sequel Answ. He might have seen that it is but an Expository term in a parenthesis and so the same exposition in the consequent is supposed Next he saith that it is a fallacy a secundum quid ad simpliciter Answ. so then the Church as Christian is not the Christian Church but secundum quid but we that know no other profess to be of no other nor to prove the visibility of any other than the Church as Christian. Let them prove more that pretend to any other Next he saith that the Protestants have been visible as Christians is all that can be pretended and yet that also he denyeth for they believe not one Article with an infallible supernatural divine Faith Answ. 1. The question is whether they profess not so to do nay rather whether their objective Faith that is all the Creed and Holy Scriptures be not infallible of supernatural Revelation and Divine he that denyeth this seemeth an Infidel But if all the members of the Church must have an actual subjective Faith that is of supernatural divine infusion Then 1. No hypocrite is a Church-member 2. And no man can know who is a Church-member besides himself 3. And so the Church of Rome is invisible this is clear 2. I must not too oft write the same things if the Reader will peruse a small Tract of mine called The certainty of Christianity without Popery he shall soon see whether the Papists Faith or Ours be the more certain and divine Of which also I have said more in my Treatise called The safe Religion and Mr. Pool in his nullity of the Roman Faith § 23. I here shewed that having proved our visibility as Christian I need not prove a visibility as Papal any more than he that would prove his humane Genealogie having some leprous Ancestors need to prove that all were leprous Here he denyeth Popery to be Leprosie and again falsly tells us that if it were so all the visible Church in the world was leprous which needs no more confutation than is oft given it § 24. He tells me how an 1500 the Pope was in possession and we dispossest him without order c. Answ. An old Cant but 1. I have fully proved that he never was in possession of the Government of the Christian world 2. Nor in the Empire or any other Princes dominion but by humane donation and consent as the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury is in England 3. And that they that gave him that power may on just reason take it away And that the Bishop of another Princes Countrey cannot stand here by his authority when he hath lost the Government of England himself § 25. IV. My 4th Argument added more than my Thesis required viz. If there have been since the dayes of Christ a Christian Church that was not subject to the Roman Pope as the Vicar of Christ and universal Head and Governour of the Church then the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible both in it's Being and in it's freedom from Popery But the Antecedent is true Ergo so is the Consequent To this 1. he wants the word ever in the Antecedent And yet before abated it but he knoweth that since was put for ever since 2. He saith I suppose that the sole denyal of the Popes supremacy constitutes the Church whereof the Protestants are members Answ. In despight of my frequent professions to the contrary who still tell him that our Christianity and Relation to Christ and one another makes us Church-members and our freedom from the Papacy is our renunciation of an Usurper § 26. I proved my Antecedent 1. from the express words of the Council of Calcedon can 28 which he answers as before where he is consuted § 27. 2. My 2d proof was from the silence of the ancient writers Tertullian Cyprian Athan. Nazianzene Nissene Basil Optatus Augustine c. that used not this argument of Popes power over all the world as of Divine Right to confute the Hereticks that they had to do with when two words had expeditiously done all if this had then been Believed Here he saith Their authors have proved that the Fathers did so Answ. Soon said and as soon denyed The books are in our hands as well as yours I will now instance but in Cyprian and the African Churches in his dayes and in Augustine and the same Churches in his dayes 1. Did Cyprian and his Council believe Stephens Universal Monarchy when he opposed his judgment with so much vehemency and set the Scripture against his plea from tradition Let him that will read his Epistles of this too long to be recited believe it if he can And when he twitted his arrogance in Council with nemo nostrum se dicit Episcopum Episcoporum 2. The plea of Aurelius Augustine and the rest of the African Bishops I have formerly recited of which Harding saith that the Africans seduced by Aurelius continued twenty years in Schism from Rome and did Augustine and all the rest then believe the Popes Sovereignty even in the Empire I did plainly show that if the Donatisâ—…s Novatians and all such Sects had believed the Roman Sovereignty and Infallibility they had not so differed from them if they did not believe it the Fathers would have taken the neerest way and wrote their Volumnes to convince them that this Papal Rule was it that must end all their controversies instead of writing voluminously from Scripture and the nature of the
it was at once specially when Binnius said that at Eph. 2. Concil Only Peter's Ship escaped drowning As to his Cavil at my Translation Whether Ab aliis plerisque totius orbis Episcopis be not to be Translated if not almost all the rest at least most of the rest of the Bishops of the whole World rather than very many others I leave to the ordinary Readers Judgment And as for either Canus or his own saying that all these the Greeks and most of the Bishops of the whole World the greater number of Churches and the Armed Emperours were all Schismaticks Hereticks and no Christians but Equivocally it is no weak proof of the falseness of their Cause and Tyranny that cannot stand without unchristening most of the Bishops and Churches in the World with such Emperours Canus his confession of the Historical Truth may be pleaded by me while I hate their Robbing Christ of the greatest part of his Church because they are not the Popes § 38. My Eighth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was from Historical Testimony that the Papal sovereignty was no part of the Churches Faith nor owned by the Ancients This is done at large by Bloudel de Primatu and Pet. Moulin de Novitate Papismi usher Field of the Church lib. 5. Chaucer Whittaker Io. White and many other I instanced only in many Historians Regino Herman Contract Marian Scotus Beneventus de Rambaldis and others that say Phocas first constituted saith one or Boniface obtained of Phocas say others that the Church of Rome should be the Head of all Churches To this 1. He thinks I have forgot my first Thesis because he forgot that when I had proved by three Arguments my Thesis in the fourth to satisfie their importunity I proved it with the Addition that there hath been a Christian Church still visible that Obeyed not the Pope and so added ten more Arguments to prove this Negative or Exclusive part After he cometh to this again and would have ut Caput esset to be no more than an acknowledgment of a controverted Title But at least the Primus constituit confuteth that and it is not ut diceretur haberetur or denuò esset He citeth Platina as if it were a wonder for the Popes Houshold Servant to say that it was his Right 2. But I specially note that both what is said of Phocas and by him of Iustinian Gratian c. who constitute and command this Primacy and Subjection to it shew that it was but Imperial as to bounds and Authority I before mentioned Suarez himself in his Excellent Book De Legibus saying That God hath made no Laws of Church-policy And if so not of the Papacy § 39. I noted their Novelty out of Platina in Gregor saying What should I say more of this Holy Man whose whole Institution of the Church-Office specially the Old one was Invented and Approved by him which Order I would we did follow then Learned Men would not at this day abhor the reading of the Office Hence I Note 1. That all their Church-Office was new being Gregory's Invention though no doubt much of the Matter had been in use before that form 2. Therefore the maintainers of Tradition cannot prove that because they thus Worship God now therefore they always did so 3. Gregory's Invented Office hardly received in Spain was so altered in Platina's time that Learned Men abhorred the Reading of it 4. Why might they not corrupt Church-Government where Ambition had a thousand times greater baits as well as Church-Offices This is their Antiquity and constancy This W. I. thought meet in silence to pass by § 40. My Ninth Proof of the Novelty of the Papal Sovereignty was If the Generality of Christians in the first Ages and many if not most in the latter Ages have been free from the Essentials of the Papists Faith then their Faith hath had no Successive Visible Church professing it in all Ages but the Christians that are against it have been Visible But the Antecedent is true The Antecedent I proved in twelve Instances To this he saith It followeth not that though our Church as Papal had no Successive Visibility the Church whereof the Protestants are Members had ever since Christs time on Earth a Successive Visibility When you have proved this Consequence I Oblige my self to answer your Instances and so he durst not meddle with that matter but puts it off Answ. Reader see here what an Issue our Dispute is brought to Can you wish a plainer I proved that our Religion being nothing else but Christianity our Church hath been still Visible because it is confessed that the Christian Church hath been still Visible But the Papists must have us prove also that our Church-hath been still Visible as without Popery I now prove Popery a Novelty and doth not that then fully prove my Consequence that the Christian Church was Visible without it And I prove that this Novelty of Popery is yet received but by the third part of Christians of whom I am perswaded ten to one are either compelled to profess what they believe not or understand it not Therefore the Christian Church was once wholly and is yet mostly without Popery I know not when a Cause is given up if here he give not up his Cause § 41. Twelve new Articles of the Papal Faith I named 1. That the Pope is above aâ—… General Council Decreed at Later and Florence 2. Contrarily That the Council is above the Pope and may Iudge him c. Decreed at Basil and Constance True before as a point of Humane Order but not made ever an Article of Faith 3. That the Pope may Depose Princes and give their Dominions to others if they exterminate not all their Subjects that deny Transubstantiation Decreed at Later sub Innoc. 3. 4. That the Body and Blood together with the Soul and Divinity of our Lord Iesus Christ is truly and really and substantially in the Eucharist and that there is a change of the whole substance of Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood which they call Transubstantiation Decreed at Trent and proved new by Ed. Albertinus Bishop Cousin's History of Trans and by my self 5. That the Eucharist is rightly given and taken under one kind without the Cup Decreed at Constance and Trent 6. That we must never take and Interpret Scripture but according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers See the Trent-Oath whereas 1. We have no certainty whom to take for Fathers a great part being called both Fathers and Hereticks by the Papists 2. And they greatly disagree among themselves 3. And have not unanimously given us any sence at all of a quarter of the Bible if of the hundredth part 7. That there is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detained are holpen by the Suffrages of the Faithful 8. That the Holy Catholick Church of Rome is the Mother and Mistress of all Churches and
Orthodox Church it self 3. That St. Thomas Aquinas and other Doctors differ from the second Council of Nice in holding the Cross and Image of Christ to be Worshipped with Latreia 4. I added a large Testimony of the Theological Faculty of Paris under their Great Seal against one Ioh. de Montesono ordinis praedic recited in the end of Lombard Printed at Paris 1557. p. 426. where they shew that though Tho. Aquinas was a Canonized Saint we may believe that part of his Doctrine was Heretical And the same they say of Cyprian Ierome Augustine Lombard Gratian Anselm Hugo de St. Victore c. To all this he Answereth by silence § 45. At last in vain I importuned him to prove the perpetual Visibility of their Papacy but could not prevail citing their Authors that make the Pope to be the Church and the whole strength of Councils § 46. I added a few Miscellaneous Testimonies against their Foundations 1. The first Council of Ephes. under Cyril in Epist. ad Nestor in Pet. Crab. Tom. 1. fol. 315. Petrus Johannes aequales sunt ad alterutrum dignitatis 2. Bishop Bromhal's citation of Comment in Epist. synodal Basil. p. 31. 40. Impris Colon 1613. saying The Provinces Subject to the four great Patriarchs from the beginning did know no other Supreme but their own Patriarchs And if the Pope be a Patriarch it is by the Church c. 3. Cassander Epist. 37. D. Zimenio p. 1132. saith of Monlucius the Bishop of Valentia highly praised by Thuanus c. that he said Si sibi permittatur in his tribus capitulis uti formâ publicarum precum de ritibus Baptismi de formâ Eucharistae sivae missae Christianam formam ad normam priscae ecclesiae institutam c. confidere se quod ex quinquagint a millibus quos habet in sua Diocesi à praesenti discipliniae ecclesiae adversos quadraginta millia ad Ecclesiasticum unionem sit reducturus Here you see what their Antiquity and Tradition is 4. A closer passage I noted out of Cassander Epist. 42. p. 1138. To all this I find no Reply § 47. In the conclusion I Answered a late paper that I received from him wherein he Humbly intreateth me to declare my Opinion more fully whether any professed Hereticks properly so called are true parts of the Universal Visible Church of Christ so that they compose one Universal Church with the other Visible parts I wrote him so plain and full an Answer to this that I shall only refer the Reader to the perusal of it instead of any defence To this he concludeth with such a Discourse that would make a Man lament that such distracted stuff should be thought sufficient to deceive poor Souls He rants at me for distinguishing He must have had me directly Answer his Question with Yea or Nay and instead of Answering ad rem to have entred an Idle controversie with him which of all the sorts commonly called Hereticks are properly so called And when no Man can resolve us whether properly so called must be expounded by Etymology or by the Canou and by what Canon Or by the Fathers Catalogues and by which Fathers Epiphanius Philastrius Augustine c. or by common custom or by the Pope How should ever this idle controversie of properly so called have ever come to any Resolution unless by making himself the Judge Yet doth the Man absurdly say to me We are not agreed what the Universal Visible Church is What of that Are we not agreed there is such a thing Think you or I what we will of the definition of it 't is sufficient to give an Answer pro or con to my Question whether Hereticks be true Members of the Church And it will be time enough to explicate what you mean by the Universal Church when your Answer is impugned See you not again that whatsoever you or I understand by Heretick properly so called we both agree that there are Hereticks properly so called and that 's enough to Answer my Question c. Answ. It would be irksom to Answer such a Man if I knew whether this came from Ignorance or Dishonesty were it not for the necessity of the simple Is it not a wearisome thing to talk with a Man that must have a Disputation upon terms whose sence we are disagreed of and that abhorreth explication of doubtful words As if when the Question is Whether Canis properly so called do generate or do give suck And I distinguish of Canis Coelestis Terrestris and of Canis Mas foemina and say that only Canis Terrestris Generateth and only Canis foemina giveth suck He should have ranted at me for distinguishing and said We are agreed that Canis there is properly so called and therefore you should Answer without distinguishing Let him that studyeth deceit dwell in darkness and choose Confusion but he shall not so draw me from the Light and cheat me into a foolish Game at Words § 48. But seeing he will not endure a distinction of Heresies nor tell us how we may know which are properly so called I must suppose that he would have me Judge by the Ancient Catalogues or Rolls or else by the Popes or by the Council's nominations Reader I will give thee but a little touch out of the Ancient Catalogue of St. Philastrius and Judge whether all his Hereticks are damned or unchristened I. Of the Hereticks since the Apostles The eleventh were those that kept not Easter at the right time for which Victor would have the Asian Churches Excommunicate but Irenaeus as well as Socrates and Zozomene c. thought much otherwise of the case Our Old Britains and Scots then were all out of the Church II. His twelfth Heresie is that of the Millenaries and so a great part of the Holy Fathers before the Council of Nice were Hereticks III. His twenty seventh Heresie is of those called Artotyritae for Offering Bread and Cheese at the Oblation IV. His 28 Heresie is of the Ascodrogitae that in the Church set New Vessels and put New Wine into them V. The 29th sort of Hereticks are called Passalorinchitae that put their Fingers on their Mouths and imposed silence on themselves it's like with limitation else they could not converse with Men. VI. 30. Some thought that all Prophets ended not with Christ. VII The 33d is the Excalceatorum that were for going without shooes like some Fryars VIII The 34th was that of Novatus who erroneously thought that those that denyed Christ or Sacrificed or Offered to the Heathens Idols after Baptism might be pardoned indeed by God but not received again into the Church Differing but one step from many Church-Canons that deny Communion to many Sinners for many Years yea till they are dying and to some at Death IX The 41. Hereticks thought the Epistle to the Hebrews was not Written by Paul but by Barnabas or Clement and the Epistle to Laodicea by St. Luke X. The
coram Ecclesia That the true Church of Christ hath no other Head than Christ himself no Vicarious Universal Head Pope nor Council That the Protestants profess themselves Members of no other Universal Church but that of which Christ only is the Head and all Christians at least not cast out are Members that this Christian Church hath been visible to God by real consent and visible to man by professed consent from the first being of it to this day And when they ask us Where was your Church before Luther we say where there were Christians before Luther Our Religion is nothing but simple Christianity We are oâ—… no Catholick Church but the Universality of Christians We know no other but lament that the pride of the Clergy growing up from Parochial to Diocesan and from Diocesan to Metropolitical and Patriarchal and thence to Papal hath invented any other and that the Serpent that tempted Eve hath drawn them from the Christian simplicity They deny not the successive visibility of Christianity and the Christian Church We desire no more we own we know no other Religion and no other Church But the Roman Artifice here comes in and when their HUMANE UNIVERSAL HEAD hath made the grand Schism of the Christian World hence they have learnt to make Christians of no Christians and no Christians of Christians as Pride and Ignorance serving this usurping interest please Their Doctors are not agreed whether any more be necessary explicitely to be believed to Salvation than that there is a God and that our works shall be rewarded without believing a word of Christ or the Gospel and whether they that believe not in Christ are Christians or whether being no Christians yet they are Members of the Christian Church And the greater part are here on the wider Latitudinarian side as you may see in Fr. S. Clara's Problemes Deus Nat. Grat. and in the words of this W. I. before answered And yet these charitable men conclude that two or three parts of the true Christian world Abassines Copties Syrians Iacobites Georgians Armenians Greeks Moscovites Protestants are all out of the Church of Christ though their own Fryars that have lived among some of them in the East profess that they are no Hereticks and are better Men than the Papists are and none worse of Life than the Roman Party And whence is this strange difference Why it is because that these are none of them subject to the Pope which it is supposed that those are that believe only that there is a God and a Reward But how is this their only explicite Faith if they must also believe that the Pope is the Vice-Christ And some of them tell you further that he that should so far believe his Ghostly Father the Priest as to hold that he is not bound to love God because the Priest tells him so is not only excusable but he meriteth by it So much more necessary to Salvation is it to love the Priest than to love God And yet after all this their own Leaders confess that it is no Article of their Faith that the Pope is Peter's Successour and that it is not by Revelation that the Church-Governours must be known as I have shewed out of Ri. Smyth Bishop of Calcedon and of England and in the fore-confuted Writings of W. I The things that I maintain are I. That the Protestants Religion and Church being only the Christian as such had an uninterrupted succession as such which the Papists deny not II. That the Papal Church as such cannot prove its constant visibility and succession Nay though it be their part to prove it we are ready to prove 1. That it is a Novelty 2. That it hath been often and notoriously interrupted and their Papacy hath not had any continued succession of Men truly Popes by their own Laws and Rules and in their own Account CHAP. I. The Confutation of W. J's Reply THE first regardable Passage in W. I's Reply is p. 53 54. Where he maintaineth that whatsoever hath been ever in the Church by Christ's institution is essential to the Church and nothing meerly Integral or Accidents Because I had omitted the word ever in the Confutation he taketh that as the Insufficiency of all that I said against him and challengeth me still to give an Instance of any Institution not essential to the Church of Christ that hath been ever in it But Reader is Perpetuity any proof of an Essential He was forced to confess that as other Societies so the Church hath Accidents but he faith no Accidents instituted have been ever in it It may be we shall have a Quibble here upon the sense of the word ever whether it was from Everlasting or from the Creation or before Christ's Incarnation or before his Resurrection or the forming of his Church by the Spirit in the Apostles But in Consistency with his own Cause which is That the Papacie hath been ever in the Church he must take up with this last sense Well Let us see what work these Men make and how they are taken in the Traps that they lay for others But first he shall have some confuting Instances 1. Every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel hath been ever in the Church and instituted by Christ but every word of Christ's own Doctrine and Speeches recorded in the Gospel is not essential to the Church Therefore every thing instituted by Christ that hath been ever in the Church is not essential to it If you say that it was not all written till after some years it was yet all in the Church even in the Minds of them that wrote it and the other Apostles and in their Preachings as is like If you say that all this is essential alas then if false Copies have lost us a word the Church is lost and those Churches that received not some words were Unchurched That Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate hath been ever in the Church's Creed and yet the Name of Pontius Pilate is not essential to Christianity 2. The Administring the Lord's Supper in both kinds Bread and Wine hath been ever in the Church and of Christ's own Institution Is this essential to the Church Perhaps some will have the impudence to say that it is not now in it because the Pope hath cast it out but it is now in all the rest of the Church And we might as well say the Papacie is not now in because other Churches do reject it 3. Prayer in a known Tongue was ever in the Church and of Christ's Institution and yet you think it not essential to it 4. The use of the second Commandment as such Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image c. was ever in the Church and yet you have left it out of the Decalogue 5. The Office of Deacons hath been ever in the Church since their Institution Act. 6. yet few think them essential to the