or fallible and then againe Reason and Scripture may finde reception and be agreed on the umpire betwixt us and we shall promise sincerely that whatever that shall sententiâ latâ award to you we will most gladly yeild and never breake with you till you breake from that umpirage Ibid. C. The words are applicable against our belief of Christianity as well as against our belief of our Churches doctrine Answ The words are applied by me onely against your infallibility and if that be as infallible as Christianity it self I beseech you either shew as plaine testimonies from the consent of all Ages that the Church of Rome is infallible as there are for the Canon of the Scripture or as plaine places out of the Scripture for it as we can for the severall parts of Christianity and then I will give you leave so to apply the words In the meane you may spare your labour of applying my words or else prove demonstratively that they are so applicable Ibid. D. A possibility perhaps of more errours but a probability of fewer for if she were fallible yet she would not be fallible as a private man so that with these fewer errours we should have quiet and unity you with more errours should have disturbances and dissentions Answ In this place whereto your Annotation was affixt the discourse was upon a supposition that your Infallibility were an errour which I in that case affirm'd would be the most dangerous because most prolificall complicated errour imaginable and will you say that upon that supposition there would be a probability of fewer errours Will the thinking I cannot fall make me stand the longer is there no advantage to be made of care and caution and feare or is there a disadvantage in them This is brave fiduciary doctrine I must thinke infallibly I shall be saved and that I cannot fall away and the thinking that will make it more probable that I shall be saved and shall not fall I confesse I had thought that humility were a readier way both to truth and Heaven then either of these presumptions What you meane by adding by way of proofe of that saying that if your Church were fallible she would not be fallible as a private man I confesse I cannot guesse If she would not I conceive this would be but little advantage on her side for her fallibility would be a greater snare and scandall and more apt to draw into errour those that conceived her infallible than any private mans fallibility would doe For that which you adde of quiet and unity if it were supposed to be joyn'd with fewer errours I grant it would be an advantage but at a time when that infallibility was supposed to be one errour and that prov'd most apt to produce a multitude surely this ought not to have been supposed any more than that we should have more errours still though 't were not at the same time supposed that we have Ibid. E. It was never put into more hands than two but what those hands might doe I know not and to those on purpose to make triall what exceptions might be made against it that so upon a review I might know better what to alter in it what to adde and what to take away Answ I conceive one man hath two hands and therefore 't is possible you may meane it was never communicated to above one man If you doe 't is certainly false But if you meane two men by two hands you acknowledged what I said for I said no more As for your affirmation that 't was put into those hands only for triall c. This cannot be said of one of them for to him it was delivered by one of your friends as an unanswerable piece but yet if it were as you pretend that you might know better what to alter in it I am then glad I have given you occasion to doe so but must tell you that now you have altered it and delivered it from some infirmities which appear'd to be in it there be yet enough behind to be reformed by any body else and when that is done there will remaine somewhat else perhaps but I am sure no answer to my Lord of Falkland Ibid. F. Sir your noble courtesie is gratefully acknowledged and I desire with all due respects and services to correspond Answ This I conceive to be a civility and I shall never go about to confute that or answer it but by the returne of the like and my prayers also that the Lord give you a right judgement in all things HEre it seemes was once an end of those annotations and it had been for the readers ease and mine that you had continued in that minde But upon better thoughts either that which had beene here noted was thought not quite sufficient or else ex abundanti this superfoetation is bestowed on us The closing sheet which I mentioned in the Preface and promised to annex also Which here in justice to the Apologist I shall give you though I conceive I had beene as kind to him if I had forgotten it Section 1 THis small treatise Apologeticall is no finisht worke but only a first draught or inchoation and was ventured abroad to explore the judgements or censures of one or two intelligent Adversaries that so the Author by his second thoughts might be the better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added and what taken away either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall an approbation and licence given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Author Section 2 The drift is not to prove the Church which we call Catholique and the Enquirer cals Roman to be infallible but to defend it against the Enquirers arguments for he Sect. 28. undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible So that our drift is to make it good that this same Church may still be infallible notwithstanding any thing that he hath said unto the contrary Section 3 The pillars that support all his discourse be 1. Sect. videl that with us both Reason Scripture and Antiquity be fallible his proofe of this assertion is a supposed maxime of ours namely that nothing is infallible but the Church The assertion is first denyed and afterward the proofe and against these denialls no reply can be made because we know best our owne inward acts and judgements and no man is able to tell us what we thinke but we must tell them Section 4 These three pillars of fallibility being broken and relinquisht as desperate you are pleased to come with new ones in their places Section 5 Reason say you cannot prove the infallibility of your Church because it is not an evident verity Scripture cannot because not certainly expounded to that probation Fathers doe not because it was not a doctrine held in their time Section 6 It seems then
petitio principii againe Section 5 As for your Conclusion of this dispute wherein you set the comparison betwixt two Arguments and say yours is much the better I shall not need debate that with you because they are not the two Arguments betwixt which his Lordship makes the comparison The first I confesse you have rightly set downe This Guide to my understanding teaches things contrary to Gods goodnesse therefore it is not the Guide and this will be as good an argument as this other 'T is to my understanding contrary to the goodnesse of God that the Roman Church should not be an infallible Guide or that there should be no infallible Guide where there is none but the Roman Church therefore the Roman Church is so In this comparison the consequences are equally true and built upon the same ground that that which is against Gods goodnesse cannot be and the Antecedents equally affirmed according to severall understandings and then whether the other Argument which you bring be comparable to either it matters not Section 6 But when at last you give us a note that the argument from God's goodnesse doth not conclude that your Church is infallible but onely that it may be so I confesse you make me repent of all this unprofitable attendance I have paid you in following your argument thus farre when your selfe have given me directions to a shorter cut of answering viz by granting that it may be infallible that is that nothing in nature resists but that if God's pleasure were so it might be infallible but say we we have no evidence from God that it is his pleasure it should and therefore we conclude it may be deceived or may be fallible betwixt which two though there may be some difference as there is betwixt falli and fallibilem esse yet unlesse some evidence can be brought against one which cannot against the other they will be both equally true as farre as respects our knowledge or debate of them Section 7 And when you adde that 't is from other reasons that you conclude she is infallible and not from this of Gods goodnesse I answer that 't is cleare that his Lordship was now disputing onely against that reason taken from Gods goodnesse which it seemes you confesse was no reason and for your other reasons they are either confuted in other paragraphs of his Lordships Treatise or when you produce them shall be To the 31. Sect. Chap. 19. This Section is spent in the enquiring whether a man shall be damned for making a diligent and impartiall enquiry after the true religion of which he finds the infallibility of the Church to be a part supposing that his reason when all is done will not assent This is his Quaere and the same may be made concerning any other verity or point of doctrine as namely of the holy Scripture whether or no it be the word of God and what shall become of that man whose reason after an impartiall search made will not assent or againe about the truth of Christian Religion unto which after such a search made his reason will not condescend I answer first that it is a mockery to aske whether or no any Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe and in effect it is the same as to enquire whether a Man shall be damned for doing a deed that 's commendable and good For this Question supposes that either the Enquirer or we were very simple Creatures and did not understand our selves or else that the Gentleman-demander was not in earnest but propounded it only for his recreation though at a time ill chosen and unseasonable and also in a matter about which there ought to be no jeasting I answer secondly that in a place where instruction and information may be had the case he puts is morally impossible to happen out for we deny that where the search is diligent impartiall and without prejudice and where againe information sufficient is to be had that there the reason shall not be able to assent and that wheresoever it cannot that same happens either through weaknesse or inhability of judgment and capacity or else by reason of some disordinate passion of the will by which the understanding is misled and darkened as in those who are refractary it for the most part falls out Which passion and prejudices arise sometimes from custome and education sometimes from vitious inclinations sometimes from a crookednesse and perversity of nature which doth refuse instruction Wherefore as it is no sufficient excuse for an Infidel to say I have searched diligently whether or no Christ be the true Messias or whether the Scripture be the word of God or no and after all endeavours used my reason will not assent so in like manner it is as little sufficient to alleage that after enquiry made about the true Church and her Infallibility your reason would not assent for in these cases we cannot grant any ignorance invincible or free that errour which possesses them from guilt Now what shall become of others who want instruction sufficient and have no crookednesse or backwardnesse in their will and die in ignorance is another point and different from this of ours and is to be resolved in the Question about the efficacy of Implicite faith to which I referre my Reader Chap. 19. Answ to Ch. 19. Section 1 In this Paragraph his Lordship askes a Question Whether supposing that he that never heard of the Church of Rome shall not be damned for not believing it infallible it can be thought that he that hath made diligent search and used honestly all meanes afforded him and yet doth not believe the Church infallible shall be damned for that not-believing this is the Question and to weigh it downe on one side that that latter shall not be damning when tother is not this reason is put in that in this matter all that that Man hath done in the second case more than in the former is onely the having diligently enquired which is presumed to be no damning sinne Section 2 In stead of the Question thus put you set another somewhat distant but I will suppose tending to the same effect whether a Man shall be damned for making a good enquiry without successe which you say is a mockery and so as I conceive ridiculous to affirme it and so Sir after all your descanting on his Lordship for asking this question it is apparent by our explication of it that upon the denying of that which you say 't is ridiculous not to deny it inevitably followes that that Man shal not be damned for denying the infallibility of your Church Section 3 And though you take paines to perswade that this case is morally impossible yet you must give us leave from your stating of the case wherein you say it is so viz when information sufficient is to be had to conclude your proofe a petitio principii againe for when wee deny your Church to
A view of some EXCEPTIONS Which have been made BY A ROMANIST TO The L D Viscount FALKLAND'S DISCOURSE Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHVRCH of ROME Submitted to the Censure of all sober Christians Together with The Discourse it self of Infallibility prefixt to it The second Edition newly corrected LONDON Printed by J. G. for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane M.DC.L To the READER THE Length and quality of this insuing trouble will seem to have been given the Reader somewhat impertinently if a brief account be not first rendred of the occasion thereof The sad effects of the present differences and divisions of this broken Kingdome having made peace and unity and infallibility such pretious desireable things that if there were but one wish offered to each man among us it would certainly with a full consent be laid out on this one treasure the setting up some Catholick Umpire or Daies-man some visible infallible Definer of Controversies the Pretenders to that Infallibility having the luck to be alone in that pretension have been lookt on with some reverence and by those who knew nothing of their grounds or arguments acknowledged to speake if not true yet seasonably and having so great an advantage upon their Auditors their inclinations and their wishes to finde themselves overcome going along with every argument that should be brought them and so a faire probable entrance by that inlet of their affections to their minds they began to redouble their industry and their hopes and instead of the many particulars of the Romish doctrine which they were wont to offer proofe for in the retaile now to set all their strength upon this one in grosse and by the compendiousnesse of that course to expect a more easie reception then formerly they had met with the very gaines and conveniences that attend this doctrine of theirs if it were true being to flesh and blood which all men have not the skill of putting off mighty Topicks of probability that it is so To discover the danger of this sweet potion or rather to shew how farre it is from being what it it pretends and so to exchange the specious for the sound the made-dish for the substantiall food allowing the Universall Church the authority of an irrefragable testimony and the present age of the Romish Church as much of our beliefe as it hath of conformity with the universall of all ages but not a priviledge of not being able to say false whatsoever it saith and so to set us in the safer though longer way thereby to whet our industry in the chase of truth in stead of assuring our selves that we cannot erre which is not a vertue but an excellency not a grace to be crown'd but a great part of the crowne it selfe reserv'd for another world a felicity but not a duty this Discourse of the Lord Viscount Falkland's was long since designed as also to remove the great scandals and obstacles which have obstructed all way of hope to that universall aime of all true Christians that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catholick harmony which Iamblicus talkes of in the spheares above but would found better in this vault this arch to beare up those spheares the Church below the Universall peace of Christendome for to this nothing is more unreconcileably contrary than pretensions to Infallibility in any part of it all such making it unlawfull either for themselves to mend or others to be endured shutting out all possibility either of compliance or charity or reformation in their owne or mercy to other mens errours What was thus by his Lordship designed in all justice was by an intire lover of peace and truth published in all charity to resist and check a threatning tempest which rising from out present evils was apt if it did not begin to shake some The Printing of this Tract presently provoked an Assertor of that Infallibility to take upon him the answering of it and to complaine that an Answer which had been by the same hand given it formerly was not permitted to attend it into publick This then being a second Care was probably to have arrived to a higher degree of perfection and indeed among the Favourers of that peâ—swasion was cried up for so satisfactory a piece that it was delivered to a Member of the Church of England as unanswerable From him it came to those hands which returned it to the Authour with this ensuing Rejoynder withall intimating that since in his he seemed to wish the same freedome of the Presse which his Lordship had found both the Answer and the Reply should be recommended thither if he pleased After he had detained the Reply some weeks he was pleased to returne it with a protestation That he neither intended nor would permit his to become publicke pretending that I may give you his owne words his Treatise to have been no finish'd worke but onely a first draught or inchoation ventured abroad to explore the judgements op one of two intelligent Adversaries that so the Authour by his second he might have said third thoughts might be better able to understand what was to be altered in it what added or what taken a way either as superfluous or offensive and till that act was done and withall till an approbation and license given by those to whom it belonged neither the worke nor any line of it is to be acknowledged or vouched by the Authour And so both were returned with some few alterations and additions in his Answer and marginall Notes on the Reply and one sheet at the end of them containing a new Scheme of probation of the pretended Infallibility and a preloquium to it wherein the passage just now mentioned is interminis recited This the Replicant to avoid all appearance of severity was content to accept for sad earnest and therefore freely exprest his willignesse to give the Authour leave to provide a new Answer to his Lordships-Treatise which he might be willing to owne in publicke which when he should doe promise was made to prepare a speedy Answer thereunto and on those termes to be content to lay aside the former That this should be done was affirmed on one part and on the other expected some months with patience till at length the Answerers pleasure was made knowne that that resolution was put off and that in stead of so meane a combat either with his Lordship or this Replicant he was pleased now to designe a full discourse on that Subject without taking notice of either any farther than he should thinke fit to take in his way any thing by them objected against his position and that this should be printed beyond the Seas When this will be performed I cannot tell Onely this is now discerned somewhat contrary to expectation that what hath been disclaimed by him is extolled by others and the weaknesse of the Replicant sufficiently despised Wherein though he hath not much temptation to thinke himself injured being ready to acknowledge the
emptynesse of these Papers and more then so to render a reason of it viz the fate which they were under by a necessity of attending this Apologist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which yeilded them occasion of little variety unlesse they would extravagate Yet could he not resist the Reasons which charged it on him as a duty thus confidently to importune the Reader with the view of the whole matter as farre as it hath past between them setting downe that Answer to and this Vindication of his Lordships Arguments by Chapters and then not doe him the least injustice adding in the end of all the Answerers marginall Replyes and that concluding Sheet that even now was mentioned with a Rejoynder to that also By all this endeavouring to lay grounds for all men to judge how little truth there is in that so Epidemicall perswasion that there is no middle betwixt asserting an Infallible Judge and the falling headlong into all the Schismes and Haeresies of this present age My Conscience assuring me that the grounds on which the establish'd Church of England is founded are of so rare an excellent mixture that as none but intelligent truely Christian minds can sufficiently value the composition so there is no other in Europe so likely to preserve Peace and Unity if what prudent Lawes had so long agoe designed they now were able to uphold For want of which and which onely it is that at present the whole Fabricke lyes polluted in confusion and in blood and hopes not for any binding up of wounds for restauration of any thing that lookes like Christian till the faith of the reformed English have the happinesse to be weighed prudently and the military Sword being timely sheathed the Power and Lawes of Peace be returned into those hands which are ordained by GOD the Defenders of it H. H. Of the INFALLIBILITY of the CHURCH of ROME A Discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND Section 1 TO him that doubts whether the Church of Rome have any errors they answer that She hath none for She never can have any This being so much harder to believe than the first had need be proved by some certaine arguments if they expect that the belief of this one should draw on whatsoever else they please to propose Yet this is offered to be proved by no better wayes than those by which we offer to prove she hath erred Which are arguments from Scripture Reason and Antient Writers all which they say themselves are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proof they say may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to believe them Section 2 If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine faith why are they so offended with the Protestants for believing every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once and if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isidorus Pelusiota sayes are the causes of all Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pride and prejudication why should God be more offended with the one than the other though they chance to erre Section 3 They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a Ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this Ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it had never been set Section 4 If they say we may know it for that generall and constant Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her for if She hath erred certainly She may but though She hath not erred hitherto it followes not that She cannot erre I seeke whether She have erred and conceiving She hath contradicted her selfe conclude necessarily She hath erred I suppose it not damnable though I erre in my judgement because I trie the Church by one of those touch-stones her self appoints me which is Conformity with the Antient. For to say I am to believe the present Church that it differs not from the former though it seem to me to doe so is to send me to a Witnesse and bid me not believe it Section 5 Now to say the Church is provided for a Guide of faith but must be known by such marks as the ignorant cannot seek it by and the learned may chance not to find it by though seeking it with all diligence and without all prejudice can no way satisfie me Section 6 If they say God will reveal the truth to whosoever seeks it in these wayes sincerely this saying both sides will without meanes of being confuted make use of therefore it would be as good that neither did Section 7 When they have proved the Church to be infallible yet to my understanding they have proceeded nothing farther unlesse we can be sure which is it for it signifies onely that God will alwaies have a Church which shall not erre but not that such or such a Succession shall be alwaies in the right not that the Bishop of such a place and the Clergy that adheres to him shall alwaies continue in the true faith So that if they say the Greek Church is not the Church because by its owne confession it is not infallible I answer that it may be now the Church and may hereafter erre and so not be now infallible and yet the Church never erre because before their fall from truth others may arise to maintain it who then will be the Church and so the Church may still be infallible though not in respect of any set persons whom we may know at all times for our Guide Section 8 Then if they prove the Church of Rome to be the true Church and not the Greeke because their opinions are consonant either to Scripture or Antiquity they run into a circle proving their tenets to be true first because the Church holds them and then theirs to be the true Church because it holds the truth which last though it appeare to me the onely way yet it takes away it's being a Guide which we may follow without examination without which all they say besides is nothing Section
of an infirme not a malicious mistaker And the first thing we have to view is that which is entituled A note upon the title of the Adversarie's C. 1. We against whom this enquirer writes or rather to whom he propounds his difficulties with a pretending desire of procuring a satisfaction are defenders of the Catholique Churches Infabillity which Churches chief Pastour or Metropolitan though he be particular Bishop of Rome as of some one place or other he must be yet neverthelesse from that one portion of it is not the whole and universall Church aptly to be stiled the Church of Rome as in the Enquirers title it is called no more then the Church of England can be rightly termed the Church of Canterbury or the Protestants of England the Canterburians as the Scotch Puritans have called them onely because the chief Bishop and Primate of the whole Kingdome hath his seat at Canterbury By the self same reason then cannot we justly be called Romanists as it hath pleased some Protestants to entitle us The reason of this assertion is That Rome and Canterbury are but small and onely materiall portions of either Church and therefore no way sufficient to give a denomination to the whole As then the Church of England is wrongfully called the Church of Canterbury so in like manner is the Church Catholique wrongfully stiled the Church of Rome or as such controverted to be fallible or infallible forasmuch as this perfection of being infallible is not claimed by her as she is Church of Rome but as she is the Catholique and according to the appointment of Christ governed by S. Peter and his successours For this cause we have altered the title and stated the question in tearmes more proper and formall enquiring not Whether the Roman Church but whether the Catholique be infallible and this ought to be the title But before we enter upon the examination of particular difficulties the Reader may please to know that this same Enquiry was written by the Author diverse yeares agoe in his Catholique Mothers life time and was by her mediation forthwith answered at large and the answer sent unto the Enquirer fairly bound up in whose hands though it rested long yet had it never any reply made unto it though it was sometime threatned it should At that very time Chillingworths Booke began to be in moulding and it may be that same new labour diverted the Enquirer and altered his designe Now at length in a time most unseasonable by the frivolous officiousnesse of I know not whom these old papers are forced to see the light and to leave their answer behind them After so meane and creeping a fashion doe they appeare now unto the world But although no notice hath been taken of any answer made already or of giving licence for any other to be made hereafter or if made to be published in print and have the advantage to be dispersed abroad in many copies yet are we not by this discouraged from composing one for though for want of the Printers helpe it shall lye concealed and in much restraint yea and be in danger to perish as the other did before it yet may this small labour fall at least into some few hands and remove out of their way such dangerous stumbling blockes as have beene cast into it by this Enquirer who by his casting of doubts about the method of resolving faith hath thereby amongst all those who are not much versed therein endangered the stability and safety of the whole fabrique not of Catholique Religion onely but of Christian in Generall As for the Papers themselves and their particular contents they in a word are Chillingworths Booke in little and an Embryo of his large volume growne up after made bigge and bolstered out with many new materials borrowed from Baron the Scotch Minister and that impious author Volkelius the veines of whose poisonous doctrines and discourses are observed to runne branching throughout all Chillingworths worke Wherefore this small collection containing the substance of the other larger booke the confutation of this Enquirers allegations cannot but in substance conteine a confutation of all Chillingworths delated errors and sophistications wherewith so many soules have beene perverted or brought into great troubles and perplexities C. 1. Answer to C. 1. To the exceptions made against the title of the Lord Viscount Falklands discourse I answer by saying these few things Section 1 First that it is no news to heare of the Catholique Roman Church it hath frequently beene used and avowed by your owne writers and as I conceive is by your selfe acknowledged when you say the perfection of being infallible it not claimed by her i. e. the Church Catholique as she is the Church of Rome but as she is the Catholique which words by the rules of discourse must suppose you to thinke the Catholique Church to be capable of a double appellation Roman and Catholique though the perfection there spoken of belong to it onely under the second notion And beside you say in another place that the Roman Church is the Catholique whence it will follow that the Catholique is the Roman And if this be not propriety of speech his Lordship is not to be blamed for it but you whose dialect he is faine to use Section 2 This then being presumed to be granted by your writers and as I conceive also by you that the Roman Church is the Catholique Church or that the Roman and Catholique are two names for the same Church it will certainly follow that he that affirmes the Catholique Church to be infallible must affirme the Roman Church to be so too though not quatenus Roman For any particular man being affirmed to be a Christian whatsoever will be true to be said of this Christian will be true to be said of this man by the rule of quicquid praedicatur de praedicato praedicatur de subjecto if this Christian have a promise made a priviledge instated on him this man hath so also and if any that yeilded the former shall deny the latter it will never be sufficient ground or authority for such denying to affirme that it was made to him as a Christian and not as a man for the whole man being a Christian and not onely some part of him even that which belongs to him onely for Christianities sake doth as truly belong to him as that which his humanity gives him title to Section 3 Or 2â—y. If you have sprang a subtlety and by helpe of that meane to disclaime the expression of other your friends and therefore will not allow the Roman Church to be in propriety of speech the Catholique Church and yet will agree with them in all but in the expression truly you have revealed no great mystery to the world And as long as you define as you do the Catholique Church as it is the subject of the pretended Infallibility to be that which is governed by Saint Peter and his Successours we
that meane no more by the Roman Church then that which is so governed shall assoone beleive the Roman Church to be infallible as the Catholique under your notion of it Section 4 The short of it is we shall never agree upon any thing till the equivocall tearmes be explicated and one single sence of this as of all other phrases agreed on betwixt both parties Tell us then plainly that by the Catholique Church you meane the Vniversall all the world over without any kind of restriction and not that onely which is governed by the Pope of Rome which is a great restriction of the word Catholique and must be not onely affirmed but proved by you to be none And then I shall thus farre consent with you Section 5 First that the Vniversall Church is in fundamentals infallible not from any thing inherent in it selfe but by a prerogative acquired i. e. by the promise of Christ that his spirit shall leade them into all truth and that he will be with them to the end of the world and the like but then this Infallibility must signifie no more or be no farther extended then that Christ doth and will so defend his Church that there shall be for ever till the end of the world a Church Christian on the Earth i. e. that the whole Church shall not at once make an universall defection erre from the foundation or doe any thing by which there shall cease to be a Church on earth Section 6 But then 2dly I say that this very Vniversall Church though it be in the sense infallible in fundamentals is not yet a rule or Canon or guide or Judge infallible even in fundamentals visible it is infallible it is but 't is not a visible judge or rule infallible And the reason of this assertion is this that its Infallibility explained as we have explain'd it is all that can be certainly inferred from Christ's words and that belongs not at all to judicature and so any other Infallibility that shall be pretended to belong to judicature must be inferred from some other tenure or else it will not be inferred Section 7 If you cannot be thus liberall to us and tell us that by Catholique in this question you meane that Catholique without restriction Tell us then Secondly that you meane a representation of that Catholique i. e. a Councell Generall Oecumenicall and then I shall acknowledge many priviledges to belong to that An humble though not an absolute obedience and in a word that nothing is to be preferred before it but the Word of God or the Church truly Vniversall Yet after all this that it is not infallible or inerrable I have the judgement of Panormitan and shall adde his reason also to back it Because saith he the Generall Councell is not truly but onely by representation the Vniversall Church and supposing such a Councell to erre it would not yet follow that the Vniversall Church or multitude of all Christians doe erre because 't is possible that some out of the Councell doe not erre yea and in the Councell too though a major part overcome the better In this I have the concurrence of Occam dial p. 3. tr 1. l. 3. c. 5. Cardin. Cameracensis c. 1. Waldensis Doctrin fid l. 2. artic 3. c. 26. quest vesp arg 3. ad lit O. Antoninus to 1. de sacram l. 2. c. 19. Card. Cusanus in summarum par 3. tit 23. de concil general c. 2. sect 6. l. 2. Concord Cathol c. 4. Et Nic. de Clemangis Collat. 2. p. 64 73. with this farther confirmation of it from the opinion of the Ancient Fathers evidenced by their practice In that saith he it was solemnly accustomed by them at the beginning of such a Councell by fasting and praying to implore the assistance of the spirit which had beene a piece of uselesse diligence if they had been before assured that they could not be deceived or faile in those things for which they were assembled Which argument if it doe not infallibly induce the conclusion to those that pray for those things which they are sure of yet is it an evidence that they that use it are of the opinion which they inferre by it and will be of force to those that from the mention of some of the Ancients praying for the dead conclude them to be in a mutable state as I conceive some of your freinds are wont to doe To this assertion of ours I might also cite the Concordance of the Jesuits generally who that they may fasten all Infallibility in the Pope alone attribute nothing at all to a Councell but this that the errour of a Councell cannot be confirmed by the Pope which is in effect no more then that Councells begin to be infallible when the Pope confirmes them i. e. when the Councell is at an end which kind of Infallibility they will afford I presume to every Heretique and to me while I thus write that my errour cannot be confirmed by the Pope unlesse they will be so bountifull to adde also that such a Councell cannot erre if it follow the instructions of the Pope which will also be acknowledged true of any the meanest Lutheran or Calvinist as well as of that Councell Section 8 If neither of these two be it you meane then be ingenuous and tell us you either mean the Pope of Rome as the Jesuits doe or else that you meane those parts of the Catholique that are governed by him and then as we shall tell you that it is the very thing which we learn't from you to meane by the Roman Church so you that affirme that to be the notion of the Catholique Church must acknowledge to affirme the same thing to be Infallible which we say you doe affirme when we propose the Question of the Roman Churches Infallibility and in this there is no matter of deceit or difficulty but that that Church under the government of the Pope which we affirme to be fallible even in the highest degree fallible in fundamentals you undertake and contest to be infallible 'T is true this we call the Roman Church conceiving it to be your Dialect and if you say it is not we will consent to you and in obedience to your example call it so no more on condition you will be but as reasonable and give it some other title whether that of the Westerne Church which were a good large Province and yet of that Saint Basil complaines in no lower stile then this That they neither know nor endure the unity of Faith or any other title besides that of the Catholique Church which we are sure cannot properly be allow'd it unlesse it appear First that all Christians ought to be govern'd by the Bishop of Rome and Secondly that all they which are not so governed are no longer members of the Catholique Church and if you affirme both these we professe to deny them and then that must be the
matter of debate and till that be agreed there will be no other question seasonable to be proposed in this matter and wen it is there will be no other needfull Section 9 And for the parallel of the Canterburians which you use to prove the unfitnesse of the question under these termes it is but a thin fallacy easily seene through if it be thought to conclude any thing To the clearing of which be pleased to observe that the Bishop of Canterbury may be considered in a three-fold relation First to his particular Diocesse of Canterbury of which he is Bishop Secondly to the whole Province of Canterbury of which he is Metropolitan Thirdly to the whole Nationall Church of England of which he is Primate his two former relations are terminated in Canterbury under the two significations of the word but the third is terminated not in Canterbury in any notion of that word but in all England and thence it followes that the Church of Canterbury whether as a Province or a Diocesse which are the onely two Notions we in England have of it being not of the same latitude with the Church of England it will be improper to call the Protestants of England Canterburians But then on supposition that there were a third notion of it whereby the Church of Canterbury and the Church of England were of the same latitude or to him that were confidently perswaded that they are so it were no impropriety at all to call all English Protestants by that denomination and if to prove it were improper it should be affirmed that 't is but an accident that he that is Primate of all England should be Bishop of the particular See of Canterbury there would be no force in that proof First because that which is true per accidens is neverthelesse true and denominations being ad placitum are many times accidentall yet for all that denominations as much as if they had been by nature or per se and Secondly because we are now upon a supposition though it be but a supposition that there is a Nationall Church of Canterbury as well as a Province and Diocesse And therefore I say on this supposition if it had so happened or been agreed on that all that are under the Primate of Canterbury should be called the Church of Canterbury as it hath been agreed on that all that are under the Metropolitan of Canterbury should be called the Province of Canterbury we should never challenge any man of improper speaking that should call us Canterburians As for the Scotch Puritan you speak of that calls us so by way of reproach you cannot be ignorant of his meaning or think it pertinent to the purpose to which you apply it It was used by him onely in relation to the present doctrines of the then Bishop of Canterbury and onely some men scoffed at under that title as followers of his as they erroneously conceived particular or personall doctrines which is quite another notion of the word then that which you have occasion to speak of Section 10 From all this it will consequently appear to be as unreasonable for you who acknowledge a notion of the Roman Church equipollent with Catholicke and affirme the whole Catholicke Church to be govern'd by the Primate or Pope of Rome and urge the necessity of Christ's precept that the Church which you pronounce infallible must be so governed or else that it is no longer Catholicke to make any difference between the stile of Catholicke and of Roman Church or of Catholicks and Romanists no man among us fetching the denomination of Roman or Romanist when he thus speaks from the relative Diocesse of Rome as the Pope is a Bishop or from the relative Province of Rome as he is a Metropolitan but from the relative Church of Rome the whole number of those Christians who acknowledge the Pope their Primate or Partriarch which you that affirme him to be Primate of all Christians by full right and succession from Saint Peter must acknowledge him to be of the whole Catholike Church In which acknowledgement because we agree not with you but contend that his Patriarchate is limited as well as his Diocesse or Province as we cannot therefore speak throughout in your language and call that the Catholicke Church which is but a part of the Catholicke or debate the Infallibility of the Catholicke Church with them that meane by that phrase onely that are under the Roman Communion or government of the Pope of Rome whil'st we mean Catholicke without any restriction or if we should so speak shall be guilty of leaving a maine equivocation in the words of the question which ought of all things to be avoided by distinguishing before we goe about to debate any thing and after distinction made and agreed on that by Catholick is to be meant onely those which are in Obedience to the Pope we will then debate it under that title also so may we very reasonably use your dialect when we agree in the meaning of it as in the phrase Roman Church we doe meaning both of us all those who are govern'd by the Pope of which Church in that notion we now enquire whether that be infallible or no And so much for the phrase of the Question or Title of that Treatise Section 11 And then I shall adde no more to the second part of the first Chapter then by acknowledging the treatise of that excellent Lord to have beene written many yeares since and now not unseasonably publish't at a time when some arts were used though blessed be God improsperously to pervert unstable minds and this pretended Infallibility a maine auxiliary call'd in for that purpose As for any answer long since framed to it I am perswaded that that Lord thought it not such as that his reputation should be concerned in providing an answer for it And for the Publisher 't is very possible that he might never heare of any such which I guesse also by my selfe who had long since a copy of the one but till I read it here never heard of the other or if he did had reasons which he can justifie to any ingenuous man why he did not publish it also Which being now said to you and which you had before no ground of thinking to be otherwise you will hardly give a civill account why you should charge and now not aske pardon for charging on the Publisher a frivolous officiousnesse by which that answer is forced to stay behind though it were also sufficient to tell you that when you set out all your Bookes at Rome or Doway with our answers annext to them we will then publish this of yours at Oxford or on the Edition the stile of a mâ—ane anâ— creeping fashion of appearing to the world which words being so contrary to truth which is punctually this the Booke was licensed by the Vice-chancellour Printed by the Printer to the Vniversity the Authour's name put in the Title page
and all this proclaimed on every wall and corner of the City on purpose that every one that had kindnesse to the Romane Church might read it if they signifie any thing have onely this interpretation of which they are capable that he that wrote them cared not how absolutely groundlesse his accusation was but onely was willing to accuse Section 12 What you mean by the next words that no notice hath been taken of giving licence for any other answer to be made hereafter or if made to be published in print and have the advantage to be dispersed abroad in many copies I professe I cannot tell and yet was insolent enough to thinke that I could have constituted a piece of plaine English of which I understood every word single but now finde I had overvalued my owne abilities and should be more modest hereafter but that by finding in the sixth line of the Book the nominative Metropolitan without any verb after it I am inclined to thinke that it is part of your stile to neglect those vulgar rules in which I had beene instructed Section 13 As for the sad newes that you acquaint us with that this other answer of yours shall lye constrained and in much restraint yea and be in danger to perish Though that be a heavy aggravation of the misery of these wicked times yet sure this paper is not the onely sufferer in that kinde and may both be thought to have deserved it aswell and be as able to beare it with some patience as many other good sonnes of the Church Catholique have been and yet if it will but sue out its habeas Corpus I doubt not but the law will be open for its plea and in the meane I have designed this present paper to offer it baile and obtaine its enlargement through this City so it will promise faithfully not to goe farther then its surety is ready to attend it By this meanes if it be accepted it shall have leave to visite all its Catholique freinds and others to whom it desires to performe any civility or from whom to receive any kindnesse Section 14 In the meane how his Lordship's treatise hath cast dangerous stumbling blockes which may endanger the stability and safety not onely of Catholique Religion but of Christian in generall I shall promise to consider with you when you proceed to any proofe of it and till then onely advise you and all my fellow Christians to conclude no more against any creature then you produce premises to justify For by so doing you will appeare not onely injurious to him with whom you deale in rash causelesse anger and censure and secretly reproachfull and contumelious to the Reader by conceiving him so tame so unworthy of the reasonable soule which God hath given him on purpose to distinguish betwixt reason and no reason betwixt proofe and libell betwixt argument and confidence but withall you will teach others an evill lesson against your selves If you please I shall give you an Example of each of these Section 15 That which you adde in the bottome of the Chapter concerning Master Chillingworth's Booke besides that it is utterly impertinent to the confuting of this which is the present businesse nay it is an argument on this side both for the seasonablenesse of publishing it as an Epitome usefull and gainfull to supersede the trouble of reading the larger Booke and for the leaving the former answer behind if the Publisher had knowne there had beene any because as you before intimated the publishing of Master Chillingworth's Booke then was conceived to have taken away all force and considerablenesse from that answer is first very unjust to Master Chillingworth in saying without any proofe that he borrowed his new materials from Baron and Volkelius Secondly it is contumelious to the Reader 's judgement who is supposed to be so easy as to conclude that to be an ill Booke which is affirmed to borrow materials from a Scotch Minister and an impious Author from which contumely I conceive he is able to vindicate himselfe by telling you First that what is supposed to be borrowed from the Scotch Minister is very authentique English Divinity and indeed that Baron is content to professe himselfe to have borrowed and that in this particular from our Writers especially if my memory faile me not from Bishop White and the first edition of the Bishop of Canterburies Booke under his Chaplaine's name from whom also Master Chillingworth might borrow if he were in any want and not from him and yet I believe would not if he were alive be ashamed to have profited by so worthy a Scotchman as Baron was Secondly that Volkelius his being an impious Author cannot extend to every part of his worke nor conclude that that which is supposed to be borrowed from him is therefore impious or poisonous if it be let it be produced and proved to be so by some other proofe then that of the impiety of the Author but rather that Master Chillingworth had the skill of discerning and tooke nothing but balsome and antidote where if he had been apt to mistake he might have faln on poyson Thirdly this will teach others if they be apt to learn an evill lesson against your selves I meane not that of repaying evill with evill God forbid that any injustice in others should so provoke us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be like them but onely this particular lesson which hath cost us little paines to peirce or construe that if this Tract of yours be a satisfactory answer to all Master Chillingworths Booke then a satisfactory answer to this your Treatise will be sufficient answer also to the three great Latine Volumnes which they say you have written against Master Chillingworth And this I shall be more glad to have obtained by your owne rule of concluding then patient to try by reading them over whether it be truly so or no especially if those that have tasted them passe a right judgement upon them Section 16 Thus farre I have given my selfe scope to take up almost every word you say in your first chapter but am unwilling to thinke that thereby I am engaged to doe the like in all that followes Truely upon reading on I see the subtilty of composure and the particulars incident are not of such weight as that I can promise my selfe patience to examine it so strictly I meane not patience as it is opposed to anger or passion for by Gods helpe I shall not yeild to any temptation that shall bring me into that but as it is opposed to wearinesse and lassitude and I must be pardon'd if I thinke I could spend my time better to my selfe and the benefit of others then in following the exceptions line by line and giving them a large answer for that any man may be patient to doe so or to reade it when 't is done it is necessary that the Text which must beare that Comment must have somewhat either of
beleive whatever we conceive to be truth is a great uncharitablenesse and a cause or occasion of more the adding to the necessary truths ordinarily being a forerunner of the abatement of the inventory of the necessary performances I meane of those which are indispensably required of us under Christ These last few lines I confesse to be a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which I hoped might not be unwelcome to you If they be I am sorry you were troubled with it the seeing that there was nothing more in your Chapter which wanted answer gave me temptation and liberty for it To the third Section Chap. 4. The third Section is all true but concerns us nothing because amongst ours there is care enough taken for shewing which Church it is that is the true and infallible and on the other side much negligence and partiality in the enquirers after it in many of them at least though not in every one C. 4. Answ To the fourth Chap. Section 1 In your fourth Chapter though you are just in acknowledging the perfect truth of his Lordships third paragraph yet must you not be beleived on your bare word that you are not concern'd in it For I conceive it cleare that you are because that argument from Reason for such is that which is mentioned there as in the second paragraph the argument from Scripture and in the fourth the argument from Fathers or tradition which you use to prove the Infallibility of your Church viz. that it is therefore so made by God or that it is reasonable to thinke that God therefore so made it that all men may have some certaine Guide can never be able to conclude any thing unlesse it be made knowne by God as certainly or so offered by God to our knowledge that 't is our fault if we know it not both that there is such an infallible Church and which it is Now that God hath so made knowne these two it being impossible for reason to assure us any otherwise then by shewing us some sure word of prophecy I meane some revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is revelation and this being not by you pretended to be shewed it availes little that you tell us that among yours there is care enough taken to shew which Church it is that is the true and infallible for if by shewing you meane demonstrating any way that it is so this you know we deny and saying it againe without proofe is petitio principii but if by shewing you meane the pointing us out that for the true and infallible of which you are a member we have little obligation or encouragement to beleive you say true being a witnesse in your owne cause I am sure no evidence that if you speake according to your judgement you are Infallible in that shewing or telling For if we had we must be supposed to have that evidence of your infallibility without because before your shewing and so to stand in little need of it To the fourth Section Chap. 5. The answer is that people illiterate may have evidence sufficient whereby to resolve and satisfie themselves without making any search into Histories Fathers or Scripture and therefore this Enquirers supposition is false and indeed it were a hard case if no man might be able to understand what he was to beleive without looking into all these and yet as hard as it is doth this Enquirer impose it upon all if not in expresse tearmes yet by the consequence of his doctrine As for our selves alone what need can we have for seeking out the true sence of Scripture and a conformity of doctrine with the Ancient more then other Christians have Surely according to this method of his all true religion whether in our Church or any other would be impossible to be learned by the illiterate and very hardly by any other men But what evidence can the illiterate have or rather from whence Out of the present face condition and visible practice of religion in the Church out of the antient monuments yet remaining that give in their depositions out of common fame and unsuspected testimonies out of the manifest perfections and excellencies both of the Church and Religion out of all which as from so many cleare signatures and characterismes of truth ariseth an evidence of credibility that this Church and this Religion are the true and whatsoever is once so creditable cannot possibly be false because for the verity of that the veracity of God doth stand engaged as Ric. Victorinus hath long since declared For it is a cleare case that all such things be true which God makes evidently credible and worthy of acceptance by the publique acts of his owne providence for otherwise that providence should publiquely entangle and deceive us by obliging us or at least publiquely and potently inducing and perswading us to believe that which were false and so by following that way which God hath signed out for us we should goe astray which thing can neither be done nor yet permitted to be done without imposture as all the antient Schoolemen doe observe By this meanes then are prudent publique motives able to make a certainty though not by their owne vertue yet at least by the vertue of the Supreame veracity which goes annexed with them Moreover this measure of evidence perceptible by the illiterate and weake though it be not so ample as others have or stand in need to have yet is it sufficient to sway their understanding and to call in the divine assistance for the supplying of whatsoever by reason of ignorance or incapacity is wanting in them Cum simplicibus est sermocinatio mea saith the Wiseman Therefore it is false and injurious to say as this Enquirer seemes to doe namely That such men as these doe assent to truth upon no better grounds then others doe to falshood The Enquirer's inference against the Church is this We thinke she hath erred therefore she may The Inference is good but the Antecedent is infirme and ought not to have beene made because he cannot have so great reason to judge she hath erred as on the contrary that she hath not in regard that it is farre more likely he himselfe erred in making that judgement of the Church then that the Church erred in making that judgement of the truth or that she hath contradicted her selfe it being farre more probable that a private man should be deceived then a whole Church Wherefore it is a great act of presumption and temerity in any single man though never so intelligent to judge the whole Church hath erred rather then himselfe The Enquirer saith that he tries the Church by her conformity with the Antients as she her selfe appoints But what then Doubtlesse she is not that way to be câ—nvinced forasmuch as every intelligent man will suppose that no particular man is able to examine that so well at she her selfe hath done before him and therefore may be pleased
of Ric Victorinus if applied to your purpose that whatsoever is once so creditable as you have there made the Infallibility of your Church can never be false Which beside other falsities must inferre other things to be infallible beside that onely infallible for 't is sure that other things may by you be made so creditable and as sure that what ever else cannot be false God's veracity standing engaged for it is infallible also and not to mention your proofes of that Divinity such is your assertion that the Enquirer's inference against the Church is we thinke she hath erred therefore she may erre for his inference is onely this if she hath erred certainly she may which I should say is another great injustice by changing his Lordship's words but that it is repaired and expiated with another act of more kindnesse to us though of as little force of reason that the iâ—ference is good but the antecedent is infirme whereas in tâ—uth the Inference had beene nought but the Antecedent either tâ—ue or onely in the power of the Searcher of thoughts to disprove in him so againe that the discovering the non-conformity of your Church with the Antients may justly be thought impossible when if we had not actually done it yet hereafter we might and when in the present businesse we affirme and you goe not about to disprove that your pretending to the Infallibility of your Church is inconformable to the Antients because they did not so pretend and surely such is your affirmation that to send one to a witnesse and yet bid him not believe himselfe in what he conceives that witnesse tels him is not as bad as to send him in like manner and bid him not believe the witnesse there being no possibility of believing what the Witnesse saith but by believing himselfe affirming that that Witnesse said it For if you say it be by believing of you i. e. another Witnesse that that Witnesse said it I answer that that will include a believing himselfe also viz himselfe affirming that you testified that the other Witnesse said it Section 12 I shall trouble you with no more at once lest you count me uncivill one thing onely more I shall let you know I take notice of that in the compasse of very few words you cast off much of the respect due to Antiquity by saying that it is sufficient if we can by any sure way come to the knowledge of truth mentioning at that time onely the conspicuous body of the present Church for such without taking care whether it be conforme to the Antients or no c. By which as you acknowledge your preferring the conspicuous body of the present Church for the finding out of truth before Antiquity which is the strangest speech I could have look'd for from a defender of Tradition so I confesse I see the reason why a Section that undertooke to prove that Antiquity was no infallible proofe of your Churches Infallibility had in a long Chapter of answer to it never a word said in confutation of it and so I very friendly take leave of it To the fifth Section Chap. 6. Out of that which hitherto hath beene said it appeares plainly how the conclusion which the Enquirer would inferre in this fifth Section is no way applicable to our manner of probation of the Churches Infallibility for we doe not as he surmiseth maintaine that our Church the Guide of Faith is to be knowne by such markes by which the ignorant cannot seeke it and the Learned may chance to misse although with all diligence and without prejudice they enquire after it for we affirme that our first principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them we with certainty though not with evidence evict the Church By which manner of proceeding it is cleare that our probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules prescribed for the hunting out of truth by Aristotle in his Analytiques and the Philosophers in generall Some peradventure will deny our Churches verity to be evidently credible If any doe it the matter must be remitted to an equall triall betweene us But say you who must be the Judge I am no Socinian nor inclining to that sort of mis-believers yet neverthelesse I say right reason must be he and every man 's owne conscience and of these Judges I hope all men will allow and it is reasonable sure they ought to doe so because reason is in all questions the last and the interior Judge without whose assent and approbation no exterior is sufficient and compleat For exterior Judges be as spectacles to the eies and as spectacles be they never so good cannot see without eies so cannot revelation be it never so manifest give the last sentence about any doctrine nor be sufficient without reason It may be further replied that these principles of ours are also question'd Admit they be yet neverthelesse may they be certaine and evident otherwise we should grant nothing to be certaine for there is no one thing so evident which is not question'd by some or other C. 6. Answer to the 6. Chap. Section 1 That which you say to the fifth Section is in effect the denying the conclusion when the premises are either not deny'd or not confuted for that which his Lordship saith in that Section you acknowledge to be a conclusion and is so indeed of all that went before all directly tending to this That the Church provided for the guide of faith it offered by you to be knowne by such markes as the ignorant cannot seeke it by and the Learned though never so honest in his search may chance not to finde it by This then being the conclusion of all the discourse you professe to deny upon no other proofe but by affirming that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest i. e. by saying the direct contrary to his conclusion but not thinking needfull to prove it And so beside that other absurdity in Logick there is petitio principii againe Section 2 In doing this you were I conceive very much resisted by your owne spirit for the satisfying of which you are faine to say this strange thing that your principles of probation are certaine and manifest and out of them you evict the Church with certainty though not with evidence where either you must affirme to thinke that evident and manifest are not all one or else that the conclusion is not evident when the premises are either of which you shall have free liberty to take the choyce of and maintaine in your reply And when you have shewed your skill in so doing you then shall have leave to boast that your probations are Logicall and conformable to the rules of Aristotle in his Analitiques and the Philosophers in generall but till then 't was to no more purpose to say that of your selfe then 't will be to the edification of any that I have repeated it to you Section 3 Having thus confim'd the
hath influence on mens opinions but then still what ever their case be for believing the verity of your Church they can no way from thence be obliged to believe your infallibility Section 8 You confesse there may farther reply be made to you that these principles of yours are also question'd but take no notice upon what grounds of reason or Scripture they are question'd and so thinke you can deale with so unarm'd an adversary as you please by telling him they may be certaine and evident though they be question'd and perhaps I shall confesse to you that if they were onely question'd and no reason that were not by you easily answered brought to justifie such questioning it were sufficient which you say that questioning doth not disprove certainty and yet if every man's conscience be the Judge as you acknowledge then unlesse you can make it evident that that man's questioning is against conscience you will have no way to keepe it from being certaine and evident to him but when there be arguments produc'd to backe that questioning which you have no way to answer but by saying they may be certaine and evident for all that he that disputes with you will be excus'd to thinke he hath more reason to say and that you say must be judge that it may be otherwise To the 6. 7. Sections Chap. 7. No doubt there can be but God will reveale his truth to all such as seeke it with sincerity of heart and though both sides as the Enquirer objecteth may make use of this for an exterior allegation yet not as of interior helpe and preparation and therefore this sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious and thus much we grant willingly neither doe we challenge it as an argument of truth We grant him also that before such time as we can believe the Church we are to acquire sufficient principles for informing us which is she and also before we can believe upon her determinations we must have principles of knowing she is infallible and all this we make profession we doe de facto know Neither doe we take this Church to be a Proteus that is to say sometimes of one shape sometimes of another but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with the robes of truth and annexed to a Succession of Pastours legitimate from one age to another C. 7. Ans to Chap. 7. Section 1 Your answer to the sixth Section is by giving a distinction to tell us now both sides make use of the pretence of seeking truth sincerely and concludes that sincerity is not a disposition unprofitable though it be a proofe inefficacious which because you are willing to grant I will containe my selfe from springing any game or recreation for the Reader at this time of which he that were playsomely disposed would finde aboundant matter in the review of your distinction here applied and give you present payment for your favour by acknowledging that that which you grant is all that is begg'd from you viz. that God's promise of revealing of truth to those who seeke it sincerely is not at all an argument that they that pretend to the benefit of that promise must have reall title to it or consequently that they that have no other arguments to prove their Churches Infallibility but that they seeke truth sincerely and yet after that sincere search are of that opinion are to be heeded in their pretensions This justifies his Lordships sixth paragraph as fully as if you had subscribed it without your distinction Section 2 His Lordships seventh Paragraph consists of two things First a resuming of a part of his former argument which had beene onely mentioned but not inforc'd before that supposing the Church were proved to be infallible yet were not that sufficient to give any man certaine knowledge which were it Secondly a solid proofe of this affirmation by plaine reason because the granting the Infallibility of the Church did onely conclude that God would alwaies have a Church that should not erre but not that this was appropriated to any particular Church to such a Succession to the Bishop and Clergy of such a place c. Thirdly by a lively instance of the Greeke Church which though it were now in the right might hereafter erre and so the Greeke Church be now fallible and yet at the time that that erred another Church might arise the Champion of truth and so still the Church be infallible Section 3 To these two parts of the Paragraph your dispatch is short and annext to the nothing that was replied to the former Section to the first a liberall Grant of that which no man thankes you for that it is as necessary to know which that infallible Church is as that the Church is so but then saying and professing that you doe de facto know which is the Church and that she is infallible which beside that it is your old beloved petitio principii to say you know it offer no proof for it but your profession and a Latine word when the very thing that his Lordship was just a proving was that you neither did nor could know it comes not at all home to his Lordship's matter of shewing that the acknowledgement of the Infallibility of the Church doth not evict which is she For if 't were acknowledged that you did know it yet might it be by some other meanes and not by proving or confessing the Church to be infallible Section 4 As for his Lordship's proofe and instance added to his proposition 't was so despicable a thing that 't was not worth taking notice of but instead of any such thing you give us a declaration of your owne opinion that the Infallible Church was not a Proteus but a conspicuous body constantly adorned with truth c. which is againe the meanest begging of that which was just then denied and disprov'd and must so stand till you can annex reasons to your opinion and answers to his Lordships reasons To the 8. Section Chap. 8. We never goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because it holdeth with the truth or teacheth true doctrine as this Enquirer seemeth to suppose we doe but rather contrariwise because it is the true Church of Christ therefore we inferre it teacheth true doctrine but that it is the true Church we prove first of all and originally by reall revelations called in the Scripture Verba Signorum that is by signes ostensions or motives of credibility which motives for a great and sufficient part of them are the same by which we prove to Infidels the truth of Christianity it selfe For these same motives though when they are considered but in generall and as it were afarre off doe perswade Christianity but in generall without designing out in particular this or that Individuall Christianity yet neverthelesse the selfe-same being understood distinctly doe designe out a distinct and individuall Christianity and are applicable
to none else as for example the same species which shew me a man in generall afarre off the selfe-same afterwards when he comes nearer being distinctly perceived doe shew me that man is this individuall as Plato for example and no other For reall species doe not represent unto us Entia rationis or Individua vaga but determinate Individuals namely as often as those species are distinctly and compleatly understood As for the Circles into which both this Enquirer and Chillingworth would cast us and make us dance within them whether we will or no they are but Chymaericall conceptions of fidling and trifling dispositions which love to have toyes wherewith to entertaine themselves and in this point of resolution as we have declared it already have no semblance of reality C. 8. Ans to the 8. Chap. Section 1 His Lordship supposing in charity that you had attempted to prove the Roman Church to be the true Church by its agreement with Scripture and Antiquity which is in effect by holding the truth You plainely tell him he is mistaken in you It seemes you defie such meane waies of proving yours to be the Church as accordance with Scripture or Truth you must have it by some more noble way of demonstration and if you would stand to this peice of gallantry and never urge Scripture or Fathers to prove your opinions but content your selfe with your being the true Church to prove all after it As I confesse I should not charge on you that Circle which his Lordship doth in this particular supposing as he thought favourably to you that you had proved the truth of the Church by the truth and consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your doctrines so I should have two quarrels more against you in stead of that one composed First that you would disclaime Scriptures and fly to miracles for such are your reall revelations as you interpret them by the verba signorum in the Psalme the signes being there interpreted by the wonders that follow that you would fly to Gods extraordinary providence when I presume you conceive his ordinary would have served your turne for sure if at another time a man should have asked you is not your accordance with the Scriptures and Fathers a prime proofe that you are the true Church I doubt not but you would be so well natured as to confesse it and why now should the Devils infirmity the feare of a Circle make you so cowardly as not to dare to owne so popular an argument especially when your fire comes downe slowly or your bath Col the voice from Heaven which is the onely proper notion that I know of a reall revelation is not very audible to us that are afarre off nor if we were to be put upon the racke doe we know or can confesse at this day that we or any of our Fathers ever heard that 't was so ever revealed that the Roman Church is the true or the infallible Church And besides when you know we Protestants are a little hard of beliefe and dare not credit your owne report that you have such ostensions and revelations and signes when you neither produce witnesse nor tell us when or what they were but give us farther ground of jealousie by an odde phrase let fall by you that those reall revelations of yours are motives no more then of credibility when as true miracles acknowledged to be such are grounds of Faith and he is an Infidell that believes them not and to be but a motive of credibility is but a petty thing that every topicall argument will take place of probable being more then credible in the ordinary notion of the words Section 2 The second quarrell that your words have brought upon you is your telling us without proofe that it is so but onely by giving a similitude to shew it may be so and so in your phrase to be a motive of no more then credibility which in him that concludes it is so is petitio principii againe that the same motives you use to prove the truth of Christianity against Infidels will prove yours to be the true Church which being confidently said we are so vile in your eies as not to be vouchsafed so much as the mention what they are unlesse by your former words we conclude you meane miracles much lesse any evidence concerning them And yet by the way the miracles by which we prove the truth of Christianity to Infidels must be those which we meet with in Scripture and not those other in your Legends and upon a strict survey and recollecting of all them and so comming as neare to them as can be I must professe I cannot see your Churches being the true Church in those miracles neare so clearly and distinctly as I can see the man afarre off to be one of my acquaintance when he comes neare me which you undertooke I should and made me try and therefore I hope will recompence me for the losse of my labour by giving me your reasons next time for your assertion that I may try againe whether your proofes are more lucky then your experiments Section 3 But then I cannot see why you should be scurrilous upon both his Lordship and Master Chillingworth for thinking you were in danger of the Circle in which sure Baron had deprehended your Friend Turnbull and in which you had beene engaged infallibly if you had but gone about to prove your Church the true Church by the truth or consonancy to Scriptures and Fathers of your opinions which way of proving me thinkes 't is possible you may stand in need of before you come to the end of your answer In the meane as the calling downe Hercules upon the Stage was wont to be a Character of a Tragicke Poet i. e. of a fabulous wonderfull undertaker Cum fabulae exitum explicare non potuerit so to fetch us in miracles and ostensions to prove that divine truth that you confesse must not be proved by the Scripture will passe for a peice of Poetry I feare instead of a motive of credibility and those that are chearfully disposed will be apt to tell you that you were faine to conjure hard and doe or pretend miracles or else you had beene enclosed in that Circle To the 9. and 10. Sections Chap. 9. To these I answer in a word that neither the Greeke nor any other Church can pretend the Primacy or Principall succession of Pastours that is to say from the President of the Apostle Saint Peter none I say besides Rome can pretend this and without this one noâ—e can be authenticall or sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and so the Enquirers starting-hole in the Greeke Church into which he alwaies makes his retreat is prevented and shut up against him By this also is the 10. Section answered for whatsoever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome as hath before beene shewed
Ch. 9. Answ to Chap. 9. Section 1 Your answer to the 9. and 10. Sections signifies a great deale viz that you were so put to it by the conviction of his Lordships argument that to dis-intangle your selfe you have ventured to vent a peice of very severe divinity which my charity to you makes me hope you will not justifie and if you will yet your no argument produced gives me nothing to answer nor otherwise to reply then by denying as mercifully and obligingly to the world as you doe cruelly affirme viz that without succession sufficient from Saint Peter there is no succession sufficient to prove a Church or a succession of Pastours Ecclesiasticall and this is so strange a newes to our eares who were confident that what ever you deeme of the other two parts of three of the Christian world at this present you had allowed liberty to Apostles to ordaine Churches as well as and without succession from Saint Peter and indeed that that which in the second and eighth line of your Chapter you call the Greeke Church might have beene acknowledged to be a Church in the seventh that had you not said it in the most evident tearmes None beside Rome can pretend this and without this one none can be sufficient to prove a Church c. had there been any way imaginable but this to answer his Lordship's argument I should never have thought this had beene your meaning till I see you againe owne this severe doctrine I shall not take paines to confute it and when I see that I must say that his Lordship presumed you had not been so bloudily minded when he proposed to you the argument in those two Sections Section 2 And yet after all this I doubt not but with a little change his Lordships argument will still hold against you even after you have ventured on such strange practices to secure your self from it Thus suppose you had evinced that the succession from S. Peter were infallible and so proved the Roman Church to be so because none else pretended to succeed S. Peter yet this can be no sufficient ground of belief to the ignorant who cannot have any infallible foundation of belief that the Greek Church doth not pretend from S. Peter whether by S. Mark at Alexandria who might be ordained by S. Peter whose right hand they say he was in the penning of the Gospell or by Evodius at Antioch where S. Peter was Bishop seven yeares as your owne Baronius or by any other or to the ignorant it matters not by no other known way and even to the learned it is but an accidentall argument because if any other company had likewise claimed Succession from Saint Peter as they of Antioch do it had overthrown all that probation nay it is but an arbitrary argument which the adversary can confute by but denying for if any society of Christians so called would pretend to be from Saint Peter some other way then by succeeding him at Rome or submitting to his government your Church could make use of it no longer Section 3 As for that which you adde in a word of answer to the 10 Sect. that what ever Churches claime unto succession shall be alleadged it can no way evacuate that of Rome if it be applied to his Lordship's argument it is absolutely false for if Rome's claime to Infallibility together and to succession to Saint Peter be to be proved by this because none else pretends to it which is the argument which his Lordship here confutes then sure any other Churches claime or pretending to it will evacuate that claime or title that by that argument is pretended and contrary to this there is yet nothing shewed To the 11. Section Chap. 10. What mercy God will use in pardoning the errorurs of those men who doe seeke sincerely and yet misse makes nothing at all against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings be cases extraordinary Besides I would know why any pardon should need for such innocent errours which be defects involuntary and so can be no crimes wherefore me thinks the discourse of our Enquirer in this Section is not coherent C. 10. Answ To the Chap. 10. Section 1 His Lordship's argument Sect. 11. is very strong against the collecting a necessity of an Infallible guide for the interpreting of Scripture from the topick of God's goodnesse by proposing another way of reconciling God's providence with his goodnesse in this matter which if it may be done concludes that other unnecessary viz. by mentioning a doctrine of more Evangelicall oeconomy in which errours may be reconcileable with mercy when God doth give grace to the diligent seeker to finde out truth or by this dilemma that without such an infallible guide upon the use of Reason in the interpretation of Scripture and search for tradition God will either give grace to finde what is so sought or pardon if he misse and so though it stand not with Gods goodnesse to damne him for every errour to whom he hath assigned no infallible way to finde out all truth yet to him that is confident that God will not damne any man upon such tearmes as the servant laid to his charge when he told him he was an austere man c. to him that teaches not such legall bloudy doctrine against God this argument of the Romanists will not be pressing at all this expedient of the Gospell-grace or Gospell-mercy being as fit for the turne of infirme soules as an infallible guide would be as indeed the state of imperfection wherein we are placed is as fit for our turnes when the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Gospell is revealed and proportioned to it as Adam's Paradise of Supernaturall all-sufficient strength and innocence would be Section 2 To all which all that you returne is only this that all this is nothing against the ordinary provision and necessity of a guide because those misses or mistakings are cases extraordinary To which I answer First that if it were supposed that against the ordinary provision of a guide the argument were not of force yet sure it might against the necessity of it and then that is all that is pretended to by his Lordship and that which alone is destructive to you and therefore 't is strange you should couple them together as so sociall things which are so distant and separable for sure though Evangelicall grace and mercy doe not exclude an ordinary provision of an infallible way but leave it in medio that God may if he will make that ordinary provision yet notwithstanding this it followes not that such a provision is required or nenessary There is a wide distance betwixt possible if God please and necessary to the vindicating of God's goodnesse now against the latter onely it is that his Lordship argues and is not at all concern'd in th' other and therefore I shall not need to examine whether the first be
is a weaker ground then Catechismes as much as errours are more likely to get into the practice of the many then into the Bookes of the Learned or Authentique Writings of the Church and accordingly 't is observable in the particular of images that the common practice of men is much more grosse then the Writings of the Learned 't is impossible that that should ever be a guide quâ cundum which way we are to goe till it be some other way proved that we ought to goe that way Section 4 For the improbability of missing the See Apostolique and which be the Churches that live in communion with it we have no obligation lying on us to deny it his Lordship's words gave you no occasion to assert it nor can we see what at this time you can get by it when you acknowledge the Infallibility of Pope or Councell unnecessary to be knowne before any resolution of faith can be made Section 5 You adde and as for doctrine of beliefe c. This I should conceive you had spoken of before in those words what is to be believed and then your memory was short to put it in againe within five lines as if it had beene a new matter Section 6 I told you 't was not necessary after you had confessed the cause to insist on the matter of Simony which was an argument of his Lordships to defend it Yet that you may not complaine that any word of yours is neglected or lost upon us I have considered that also and aske you whether it be not true what his Lordship saith that a Pope chosen by Simony is ipso facto no Pope you durst not I conceive because you did not before deny it and if now you will take more courage let your minde be knowne and we shall not doubt to bring as Classicke Authors as your selfe against you If it be true then is your answer of no validity because of no truth for either that infallibility or whatever other power must be annex'd to him as a man which he may be indeed though he be not Pope or under some other relation which infallibly belongs to him neither of which I conceive you will affirme for then ten thousand to one some other will communicate with him in that claime or else he must be Pope when he is ipso facto no Pope or else that power must be annext to him by some body that may thinke him Pope when he is not and then either God must runne the errour or that power be given him from some other for that God should know him to be no Pope and yet give that power of Infallibility for if you speake of any other power it is not pertinent to him as long as he is peaceably received must First conclude that a no-pope may be infallible And Secondly that whosoever is so received by the Church is so which unlesse there be some promise of Gods to assure me that he hath promised it to the Churches blind reception will for ought I yet see conclude againe that either the chaire or the peoples errour gives him that prerogative Section 7 To the 15 and 16 Sections you reply no one word but referre it to your former answer whether if I knew which part of your answer it were for that immediately precedent I conceive 't is not for I hope the Simoniacall election hath nothing to doe with the decrees of Councels I should attend it but the scent being cold I am at a losse and so must be content to give over the game Section 8 Yet seeing I am on this matter of the Popes Infallibility because you have wholly avoided that question and by a kinde of stratagem diverted it and so not given me any occasion to defend his Lordship in that matter I shall a little consider the reader to whom I am much obliged if he shall have had patience to read thus farre i. e. to endure the penance of so much Nothing and give him a few collections of my owne to this purpose of the Popes infallibility not that I conceive they will from me finde any better entertainment then his Lordship's reasonings had done but because they are for the most part the concessions of your owne men from whence I here transcribe them Section 9 That the Pope is not onely fallible but even judicially subject to errour deviation defection and in Ocham's phrase haereticabilis to heresy apostacy Atheisme and in his practice to sinne of any the most hain us kinde and consequently to damnation irreversible I shall assert no farther then these honourable Names will avow and authorize me Among your owne Writers I meane Pontificians Lyra in Matth. 16. Waldensis l. 2. doctrin fidei antiq Gerson de exam doct consid 1 2 3. Adrianus Sextus the Pope in 4. sent de confirm qu. ult Driedo de libert Christ l. 2. c. 2. Cardin. de Turrecrem l. 2. c. 16. Almainus de author Eccles c. 8. ad 6. c. 10. de dom civ nat Eccl. concl 3. Archidiaconus Bononiensis in Grat. gloss in dist 19. contra Auxentium Catharinus in Gal. 2. Yea and the Councels of Constance and Basil and the Fathers generally there assembled which I hope tooke not up this doctrine from Luthers or Calvins dictates Section 10 To this purpose is it that we reade of Childebert King of France that he sent Ruffinus his Legate to Rome to enquire of Pelagius the Pope whether he had violated the Faith as Baronius testifies the same was suspected of him by the Bishop of Tuscia and other Bishops of Italy to whom he sent his Apologie saith the same Baronius So Gregory the first being under the like suspicion wrote his Apologie to Theodolinda Queene of the Longâ—bards So the Popes generally laboured to approve themselves to the Emperours and purged themselves before them Sixtus before Valentinian concerning the crime laid to his charge by Baessus Symmachus upon an accusation of forgery saith an Author in Goldastus all which are arguments that the Popes infallibility was in those daies unknowne to the world and the Popes themselves were not very perfect in it if they had they would have beene more confident then to have made Apologies Section 11 Farther yet the Bishops of Germany met at Brixia the Bishops of France at Mentz condemned the Pope for a disciple of Berengarius Or if the condemnations of such will not be of value against the Pope you gave reason even now leave to be the Judge and that and common sense may be so in this matter if you will but read the Epistle of Pope Zachary to Boniface è Cathedra a Papall and definitive rescript wherein he condemnes one Vergilius for an Hereticke for affirming that there were Antipodes which whether it were an errour in him I leave you to judge and professe my self to be of opinion that though it were 't was yet more tolerably discreet and pious then that of
Gregory the seventh that there is but one name under Heaven that of the Pope to whose Seate whosoever paid not obedience became presently an Idolater and a Pagan and if you will undertake to defend this I will reward you by adventuring to justifie the other That speech of Gilbert Bishop of Rhemes that after was Pope shall with me be sufficient to expiate for either Audaciter dicam c. I shall boldly say that the Bishop of Rome himselfe if he have offended any Brother and will not heare the admonitions of the Church ought to passe for an Heathen and a Publican Section 12 But all these are but trifles if they be compared with other knowne passages of story how Stephanus was reprehended by Cyprian Liberius by Athanasius Honorius almost by all Christians of no lesse crimes then Heresy it selfe Or because that is but one piece of carnality and there be many others beside that as probable and considerable errours and carnalities I beseech you review either in your memory or in Onufrius and Platina the lifes and manners of the Popes the incests and sorceries and cruelties of Alexander the 6. the Idolatrous sacrifices of Marcellinus Calestin's using the helpe of Magitians and Devils to come to the Papacy and then tell me your opinion whether Popes may not erre and when you have replyed by way of distinction of manners from Doctrines be then pleased to answer Nilus by some more satisfactory way then by calling him pratling Greeke this question 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 how it fals out that the Pope can deny God in his workes but cannot by any meanes in his words what charme or amulet kept his tongue inerrable when his whole body was subject to those darts of Satan and when you have done that I beseech you to phansy to your selfe what kinde of crimes you conceive those Popes would have committed if they had beene fallible Section 13 I shall not enlarge this supernumerary trouble any farther or expect your answer to every of these passages in Bookes if I have wronged any by misciting I shall be glad to heare of it and if they make not all together one probable argument or proofe of the fallibility of the Pope I beseech you pardon me for this unneedfull importunity To the 17 18 Sections Chap. 11. I noted before that the knowledge of all these particulars recited by the Enquirer are no way necessary to the Believer and therefore both this Author and Baron the Scotch Minister struggle in vaine when as with such care and vehemency they presse them against us I conclude then that in the Church of God Councels doe not multiply doubts but diminish them C. 11. Answ to Chap. 11. Section 1 To the 17 18 Sections the answer is a reference againe to a note dropt from you before which truly I should not have been likely to apply to this businesse in hand if you had not given me that seasonable admonition Your note I conceive referres to your discourse in the precedent Chapter how Catechismes and the common practice of the Church teach all what is to be believed And as then the Popes infallibility so now that of Councels is unnecessary to be knowne and by that meanes all these particulars also for if the infallibility of Councels were necessary to be knowne as it must be if they were deciders of questions then all these particulars mentioned by his Lordship would be necessary to be knowne also because they are incident to every Councell and the knowledge of its infallibility because of its decisions and even being it selfe depends on these Section 2 And the fitnesse of Councels to decide Controversies being the thing his Lordship had now in hand and which Baron treats on when he uses the like arguments sure neither of them struggle in vaine but you rather who 't was thought in reason would have beene no wiser then your fellowes and so would have asserted that fitnesse of Councels have become a very slippery Wrestler gliding out of their hands when their arguments began to lay hold on you and after such an escape as this I confesse 't is matter of wonder to me how you could thinke fit to end with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 triumph presupposing victory and victory resistance and none of these here are to be heard of but onely a conclusion that what his Lordship had said and proved he had said falsely a petitio principii againe that Councels doe not diminish doubts but multiply them Which proposition and proofe of his Lordships having no need of defending any farther I shall onely interpose one caution which I desire may be observed in his Lordships discourse that it being supposed that Councels are dot deciders of controversies meaning thereby infallible ones they be yet of good authority and use in the Church to helpe to decide them and notwithstanding all the doubts that his Lordship saith they doe multiply be onely denied by us the priviledge of infallibility not that other of being very usefull and venerable in a lower degree and such the Councell may be even next to the Word of God it selfe To the 19. Section Chap. 13. He maintaines here a strange paradox and one very improbable namely that to define any thing of new is to bestow upon the Devill one path more for us to walke in towards him If you aske why he tells you because before the definition made it was lawfull to hold either side but after it is damnable Belike then with this Author the manifestation of divine truths is the high way to damnation but I suppose few men are of his minde Certainly most are of opinion that every such verity we learne had rather beene a new steppe towards Heaven because knowledge of things divine doe enable men for the attaining of salvation and therefore the Apostles by their instructing our understandings in them shewed the world so many more paths to Heaven It may be indeed that by accident minds blowne up with selfe-conceit may by their resisting such revealed truths take an occasion to transgresse but that is their owne faults not the fault of them that teach or of the verities that are declared and therefore this cavill of the Enquirers against the definitions of Councels was very frivolous It should seems he had a great minde to be quarrelling with Councels that was content to take such a frivolous exception as this against them C. 13. Answ to Chap. 13. Section 1 Your great quarrell to his Lordships 19. Sect. comes now to be considered wherein the paradox in and improbability of his Lordships conclusion will not be so great if you observe but one thing that the matter of definitions of Councels which he speaks of is not divine truths as the following words suppose them and upon that presse them with absurdity but as I conceive such things as have beene defined by Councels being not before defined by Scripture and so though affirmed to
and undoubted Monuments by an intelligent Author Philoponus l. 2. de Operib Creat c. 21. l. 3. c. 9. 13. The like may be said of the pretended tradition of the Quartodecimanes touching the celebration of Easter after the manner of the Jewes which was wholly rejected and forbidden in the first Nicene Councell and before that time opposed by many and principally by Pope Victor who as Ciacconius conceives did not cut Polycrates and his Associates from the body of the whole Church but only threatned it or as Eusebius seemes to say did doe it but yet at the instance of Saint Ireneus and some others if he had once past it did not prosecute the censure against them but let it fall and that it was so is very probable because there is no memory made how the sentence was received whether with obedience or otherwise which particular doubtlesse would never have beene omitted by Historians no more then the sentence it selfe or the intention of it was if there had beene any thing to register and besides because we finde not by any record but that all proceeded with those Asian Churches as formerly it had done without any note or alteration And by this is solved all that Chillingworth with so much animosity objecteth against the learned Cardinall Perone Salvian lib. 5. de Gubern Dei where he speakes in excuse of some Arian Gothes speakes not at all in excuse of their Heresy but supposing that sundry of them might have beene innocently mis led conceiveth more hope of such mens salvation then of such Catholiques who lived carelesly and lewdly Now what can this make against the tradition or definition of the Church Onely this Inquirer must say something to his Mother and be making difficulties where none is Ch. 15. Answ to the Chap. 15. Section 1 To the three next Paragraphs 23 24 25. you professe it needlesse for you to give any answer and doe it so willingly because as you say the discourses are intricate i. e. such as you cannot easily accommodate answer to but especially because it is sufficient for private men to learne the common doctrine of the present Church and therefore there will lye no obligation on me to reply any thing save onely this that his Lordships arguments doe still prove sufficient to the end to which he designed them to shew that Tradition is no infallible guide which that you acknowledge your diversion seemes to intimate and your many proofes that 't is not needfull it should be Section 2 But then it is in you a great injustice not to take notice of his Lordships designe to which his arguments are concluding but to impose another on him to which he never thought himselfe engaged nor could have foreseene your pleasure without the spirit of divination and yet to chide him for impertinence and pretermit and despise all that he hath said upon this onely ground of displeasure because he hath not proved what you now thinke fit to set him for his taske Section 3 This onely you must please to note that the appointing the ignorant to learne their beliefe from the common doctrine of the Church as before you did from the Catechismes doth intimate your opinion that your present Church is infallible but is no shew of proofe that it is so and so Petitio principii nay if your words signifie as they sound that your doctrine thus taught is credible and perswasive enough I may conclude that your Church is not infallible for whatever is taught by such an one is more then credible and perswasible Section 4 Your subtilty about the way of knowing the River Thames will as little come home to the businesse of Infallibility though to Credibility it may unlesse every Water-man on the River be as infallible as your Church for of him it is that I learne it and though his credit be great enough for a matter of this moment and in it I would as willingly be ignorant or uncertaine as be at the trouble to seeke out a better security In matters of greater moment I may be excused if I am not so credulous if I choose not to believe them whose interests are concerned at least if I thinke every Catechisme on the stall to be somewhat lesse then infallible Section 5 Having now sufficiently disclaimed Tradition at least shewne your opinion of it that you have little need of it to sustaine your Churches infallibility and so granted as much as his Lordship attempts to prove yet for some former profession of kindnesse to it you will now take its part a little rather then his Lordship shall be permitted to say any thing true and vindicate it from the argument about the Chiliasts In which I must tell you that what you here affirme of his Lordship and M. Chillingworth is not true of his Lordship whether it be of M. Chillingworth is not tanti as that not having the booke by me I should take the pains to examine it Section 6 As First this that he seekes to father on Saint Justin that all orthodoxall beleivers of his time received the doctrine of the Chiliasts whereas all that his Lordship saith is but the repeating of Justin's owne words wherein he cannot be deceived in your opinion for you before recite the same and translating them wherein he is not deceived for he doth it ad literam and in a word affirming that Justin saith he holds it and so doe all that are in all parts orthodoxe Christians which phrase all that are i. e. which he saith are in all parts orthodox that it differs from this other of yours all orthodoxall beleivers I shall appeale to no other judgement then that of your owne conscience who in the former page affirme that Justin spake of three sorts of men First Those that did as he conceived in all points hold aright the second which though they did not so in all things yet were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a pure and pious judgement and those which are such I shall suppose to be orthodoxall beleivers though as it appears by your acknowledgment they did not hold right in all things Or if your analysing of the place doe not sufficiently convince you of this difference and the injury that consequently you have done his Lordship I shall then having long agoe seriously weighed that place First give you an account of it such as I doubt not will satisfie you and when I have done so Secondly confesse the weakenesse of that place to conclude any thing against Catholique tradition and yet Thirdly make it cleare that you have wronged his Lordship in your report of his citation Section 7 First For the doctrine of the millennium I professe to beleive that it appears not to be Justin's affirmation that it was not opposed by his contemporaries but rather the contrary which I conclude from these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have signified to you that many doe not acknowledge this doctrine of
religion it destructive of all others and that amongst us it is a maine principle or maxime that all other are to be invaded and destroyed by us and this it affirmed confidently though against all probability and experience It cannot indeed be denyed but truth is destructive of falshood by the owne power as light is of darknesse and one contrary of another but for externall coaction or violence we leave that to the Accusers and doe not owne it By this it is not hard to make a judgement who have been the encroachers and who have propogated and maintained themselves by violence you or we And who are the destructive party and live by the spoiles and oppression of others let not those who possesse other mens goods cry out of wrongs or make any brags of just dealing for neither of these can come well out of their mouthes This Enquirer confesseth both sides are in fault but we in more and for this assertion of his brings in some light sophistry because forsooth Protestants hold that they may erre but we maintaine we cannot and so will be sure never to mend That Protestants may erre is granted him and needs no other probation then experience whereby we finde thy have filled all this Kingdome with dissentions and these dissentions with civill warres so that by this that you have erred we know you may But so frequent possibility of erring doth not extenuate but aggravate your crime For if you may erre so foulely how dare you undertake to tutour others how prescribe Lawes with what face Persecute If your rule be so weak as it cannot containe you all in one body but lets you disperse into multitude of Sects and fall in pieces as now you doe why doe you not forsake it and seeke a better for it or else have none at all if you can finde out a surer why doe you not learne wit by experience but wallow on still in the same mire If this Enquirer speake so ill for his Clients we will not entertaine him for our Advocate The Protestants side sets downe for a rule of religion every ones private judgment in the interpretation of Scripture and so doth Master Chillingworth the disciple of Volkelius We doe all that yet we doe not please them nay more we must be punished by them for the result what is this but to bid us doe a thing and then punish us for doing it Is not this extreame perversity certainly if the rule they give be a sufficient warrant for their receding from the faith of their Ancestours and for their breaking off from the Church and standing in defiance of her then doubtlesse much more may it warrant us to continue on and to keep off from any new doctrines either of the Protestants or any other Innovatours whatsoever and sure this is great reason and cannot be gainsayed Besides if we were to yeild to whom were it to be done There is a world of distracted Sectaries now in this Kingdome all sprung from the same roll or from the rule of faith which it common to you all of which one sort imagines there is no Papacy and these were the first ring-leaders of all the rout another that there is no Episcopacy a third that there is no Clergy but that Lay-Elders is all in all and must rule the roast a fourth that there is no Church nor Church-government at all but that the Church is like a Schoole of Philosophers where every man may believe and doe what he pleases without being accountable to another or any obligation of conformity and peradventure the Inquirer was one of this number together with his confederate M. Chillingworth a fifth sort that there is no Trinity a sixth that there is no Sacrament or at least none necessary or effectuall Is it not fit thinke you that these divided Christians should come and write Lawes to others or punish any man for non-conformity nothing more improbable It is a Comedy to see D. Featly a Protestant and Page a Puritan make Catâ—logues of Heretiques and when they have done can finde no way whereby to exempt themselves nor give a reason why they themselves should not be of the number as much Sectaries as any other of the Catalogue The Inquirer charges us that because we pretend to be infallible we have lesse reason to prescribe to others but on the contrary me thinkes we should have more for as he who is really infallible is fittest to guide and governe others so he that thinkes himselfe to be is at least in his own judgement more fit than he that does not He addes that this pretence of infallibility makes us sure never to mend or as his Schollar Chillingworth speaketh makes us incorrigible True if it were a meere pretended one but that is not yet proved either by him or any although he say here in this 28. Section he undertakes to give reasons why the Church of Rome is fallible But if on the other side it be a reality and that the Inquirers reasons are but pretended then surely will not this infallibility keep us from mending but contrariwise from erring or having any thing to mend or which is all one from any errours to correct And thus we see that our Religion is maintained by the selfe same arts that bred it that is to say not by force or violence but by reason and revelation and spirituall industries contrary to the surmises of this Inquirer C. 16. Answ to Chap 16. Your doctrine of damning all that are out of the Church of Rome you have enlarged much above the occasion that invited you to it for all that his Lordship had said on that theme was onely this that your certaine and undoubted damning of all out of the Church of Rome averseth him from it Which if it be true you cannot blame him for sure they that heare the punishment of judging Mat. 7. being judged of the Lord will have little love to that piece of sensuality or consequently to the religion that requires them to runne upon this danger And that the charge is true of you you doe at first acknowledge by labouring to prove that there is no uncharitablenesse in it Secondly that it is necessary for you to maintaine or that otherwise you must fall into some great absurdity particularly this that there is any Church but that which is governed by the See Apostolique which is a rare petitio principii againe and saves us the paines of saying one word more in defence of the truth and justice of those true words of his Lordship For indeed that enclosure of the Church Christianity and Salvation to those that are under the Roman submission is the uncharitablenesse that you are charged of The envy of which it seemes after all your confidence you are willing to remove from you and therefore adde an handsome lenitive to keepe any from thinking that your doctrine is rigorous or harsh And truly if you might be taken at your
in stead of temporall advantages to be their portion they may be disciplin'd to better and more honest thoughts nay if the doctrines tend to liberty I meane either as Mahomets did to all kinde of voluptuous living or that other liberty that some of your friends and some others that call themselves reformed but in my opinion are very farre from it have beene guilty of the shaking off the yoake of civill obedience to the Magistrate set over them by God it is then lawfull to coerce such innovators if the prudence of the State shall thinke fit But difference in opinion though it be in a Kingdome never so peaceably possest of the Catholique Religion if it tend not to any of these dangers nor be convincible of those impieties and designes will by no reason or consequence be involved in that number Section 18 This you seem to be content with when you adde that this severity must not be extended to all that any where teach or professe erroneous doctrines but upon better consideration of your following words 't is cleare that your restraint or exception lookes another way viz. that against those that are not the first invaders but another generation succeeding them whose errour is contracted by the vice of education c. the Church doth not execute the severity of the lawes In which words though we of this and all other Protestant Kingdomes at this day have so farre our parts as that if it were never so much in your power you ought upon these grounds not to hurt us because we are the progeny and not the first invaders yet seeing all the restraint is for the execution onely of the severity of the lawes and those lawes are supposed by you to be in force against Heretiques and so against us whom you call by that name we have great reason to thinke there is little kindnesse in this present restraint of yours Section 19 For to the utmost of my understanding of your words it remaines still free to you after this concession to be as severe to any as your power will enable you And if by us at any time any claime of favour should be put into your Consistory your answer probably would be by this dilemma either you are invaders and seeing beginnings are alwaies weakest all that are not able to resist or defend themselves shall goe for invaders and then you have no title to mercy by this tenure or else you are a numerous off-spring and progeny of them and so possibly able to resist and then you shall have mercy If we stand on these tearmes with you and your order for restraint of severity hold no longer then our strength to resist you then we shall scarce acknowledge the obligation but thinke our enemies on the other extreame as kind as you for both of you are good at being mercifull when you are on the weaker party but both very tyrannicall when you begin to be strong Section 20 If you were so constant to your articles of restraint as that all the prosperities of warre advantages of place and auxiliaries could not tempt you to a massacre of any save onely some one single corrupter and invader or two in an age I might then have reason to thinke I might have mistaken your meaning but certainly you have beene as cruell on the cubs as ever you were on the old foxes and made as little scruple to put many thousands to death in one night whom you could not thinke to be all leaders in factions or invaders as the stories of France will testifie and the very words of the bull of Vrban the eighth to encourage the King of France to root out the quadrupedes in Galliâ stabulantes c. as any one John Husse alone by himselfe at another time And that you will have this latitude to let loose your restraint again when time serves it may seeme probable by what you adde of Austria Stiria and Carinthia whose priviledges it seemes lasted no longer then you thought fit For assoone as you thought it seasonable they were presently pronounced seditious and conspiratours and so put to the sword and for France and Poland I wish the names of Massacres had never beene heard in either of them or at least that the Pictures of them with words of papall approbation were not to be seen at Rome to testifie what is the cause of your present kindnesse viz. the difficulty of the worke that the Protestants there at this time are not molested Section 21 As for your recrimination against Protestants seeing it is very universall suffer Catholiques in no place and very sharpe that they persecute Catholiques wheresoever they are stronger after a very violent mercylesse desperate manner slay imprison robbe banish defame c. I must beseech you either to prove it against this your Country or else to make it reparations and remember when time serves that when Protestants are thought to persecute you then presently 't is a proceeding much worse and more unreasonable then the Turkish Section 22 As for the truth of your suggestion certainly the number and strength of Protestants hath for many yeares surmounted that of Papists in this Kingdome and yet I shall be confident you will be posed to produce the example of any one since Queene Maries daies that in this Kingdome was put to death meerly for religion without being guilty of something else which by the knowne lawes of the Realme is lyable to the punishment of treason And for the other penall lawes in this Kingdome which are not Capitall but pecuniary mulcts c. I shall say that 't is somewhat hard that we must be thought worthy of all those bitter invectives which you yet farther adde because I conceive there was never any Kingdome that own'd any religion but there was some difference made betwixt that and all other in respect of temporall priviledges and favours and immunities and any such difference reaches neare as high and goes as deepe as pecuniary mulcts And beside it is not irrationall to say that the inflicting such mulcts may very probably tend to the quiet and so to the advantage rather then to the oppression of such sufferers it being not without example that the suspicions of the people and jealousies that the established religion shall be discountenanced having no deeper ground then an imagination that the Prince may have inclined to give toleration to the other party or but immunity from these punishments hath brought such odium upon the present government and sharpenesse on those thus thought to be favour'd that in comparison with these ill accidents a few pecuniary mulcts might passe for a priviledge as the letting of bloud is to be esteem'd by those who are entring into a plurisie for want of it Section 23 If upon these considerations such mulcts as these may not be conceived supportable I must confesse 't is an hard lot to be placed in a throne betwixt two contrary pretenders and as
unhappy for any ingenuous man to make any confession to you who from his Lordship's acknowledgment that the Church of England is a little too blame in this point conclude that in confessing this he insinuates all This 't is to deale with men who cannot imagine it possible that a man's words and thoughts should be of the same latitude Should I by the same Logicke conclude that you by confessing that all invaders for Religion must be put to death doe intimate that all kinde of Protestants must be executed I hope you would say you had wrong done you And yet to tell you truth the subtlety of your next distinction would give any man that observed it great temptation so to conclude of you For after your citation of S. Th. of Aquine and the Schoolemen you are pleased to communicate to us a notable Mystery that you doe use reasons to perswade and plant your faith and truly the telling us you cannot erre and upon that bottome building all your most irrationall conclusions is no speciall exercise of the reasonable faculty and onely fence it exteriourly and afarre off with statutes of temporall severity against invaders which say you is another thing from defending it interiourly by that meanes i. e. from justifying the right and truth of religion by them Section 24 I should never have beene so uncivill as to have affixt such a sence to your distinction had you not beene your owne interpreter It is as if you had said you are not to be accused for planting religion by armes because your swords doe onely force men to be of your minds doe not give them any reasons why they should And truly I have not heard any man say that your armes did fence religion interiourly being the unaptest thing in the world to justifie the right and truth of religion and therefore you need not disavow that so providently the great Turke could send a letter to your Pope and answer and confute his bull of inciting the Princes of Christendome to take up armes against him for crucifying their god and tell him that as 't was a great falsity to charge on him what was proper to the Jewes the crucifying of Christ the Turke being descended from the Trojans and therefore desiring the Popes aide against the Grecians to avenge their murther of the Trojan Hector a kinde of god of theirs so if the Pope were truly a worshipper of Christ he would never invade any nation upon quarrell of religion so farre is this kinde of fighting in the knowledge of all even of Turkes themselves from justifying of the truth that if is a very great argument of the falsenesse of any sect of Christian religion a plaine demonstration that they doe not obey the Christ whom they worship Section 25 The using the sword as an exteriour meanes of propagating your religion is all that is laid to your charge and that it seemes you are content to yeild us Though within a page or two more you have forgotten your selfe againe and say that for publique coaction or violence you doe not owne it I wish you did not Section 26 And that you may for the time to come deale clearely and never have minde to sucke in your words and owne it againe I shall in passing mention to you a narration concerning an honest Philosopher in Valens his time It was Themistius who before his death turn'd from Aristotelian to Christian but I conceive was not yet converted when this story is related of him Valens in Antioch saith the Historian had vehemently persecuted the Christians that were not of his opinion had not a booke of Themistius the Philosopher recall'd him in which he perswaded him that he ought not to be cruell to any for a difference of Ecclesiasticall opinions seeing among the Pagans themselves there were more than 300 sects differing all from one another And perhaps this might be wore acceptable at least more pardonable before God because God is not easily knowne and is glorified in different manners on purpose that every man may feare the more the more he wants of the integrity and perfection of that knowledge of him either how he is or how qualified or how great he is By the reasons of Themistius saith he mitior factus est Imperator the Emperour became more mild It may not be unfit for your friends to consider the example and doe so too Section 27 As for your challenge to us that if we will restore all we have taken from Papists in Europe you will restore what you have taken from us it is a good safe boast you know that it is not in any replyers power to strike the bargaine Yet if all the pecuniary mulcts under the reigne of the three last Princes in this Kingdome be price enough to ransome and fetch backe the bloud shed by you in Queene Maries daies I doubt not but I shall be as forward as you to accept that challenge Section 28 Meane while for the justification of our severest lawes in this point you cannot but confesse that in most Kingdomes strong presumptions have beene thought sufficient to make lyable to punishment In the Canon law the proving of nudus cum nudâ that such a man and woman were taken naked together is presumption enough to bring the punishment of adultery on any And when our Queene had run so many dangers by Priests and thereupon Capitall lawes were made that no such should come into the Kingdome or if they did they should be presumed traiterously disposed and punished accordingly and this Statute thus legally made conveyed to the knowledge of all such it hath been a very rationall presumption against any that should be so found Though as 't is possible that nudus cum nudâ may be no adulterer so such a Priest may have no traiterous purpose And yet if you marke it unlesse since these times of troubles very few of you have suffered among us by this Statute Section 29 Sir you had great leasure when you could enlarge so to triumph over us for acknowledging our Church fallible and professe to discharge his Lordship from being your Advocate if he speake so ill for his Client This you might have done long since and unlesse your favour may be had upon some other tearmes then undertaking the Infallibility of meere creatures we must all be content to be discarded by you Section 30 Yet after all your turning away and slighting we shall never be so provoked as to punish you for the result of what we prescribe you If your best use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture and not any prejudice or passion or fault of yours have sincerely brought you to your opinions and no light that is offer'd hath beene neglected and yet all prove unsufficient to convince you I shall never severely pronounce against you and if you will say and make good as much to me our affections may meet though not our braines
and both of us have charity enough to cover in each other a multitude of errours Section 31 Your catalogue of Sects in this Kingdome I shall not goe about to examine but onely tell you that your infallibility hath beene lyable to such misadventures also and had not the charme or skill of keeping all within its circle if it had there would then at this time have beene no body to dispute against you Section 32 In the close of your long Chapter I wonder you should be so covetous or ambitious of lengthning it one page farther by charging on his Lordship that he charges you that because you pretend to be infallible you have lesse reason to prescribe to others whereas his Lordship charges no such thing upon you but onely saith that she that confesses she may erre is not so chargeable with any fault as they that pretend they cannot which is quite another matter Section 33 To conclude when the businesse is thus laid by you that your infallibility is not yet proved to be onely pretended and yet you have no other ground of saying so but because you say 't is not though all his Lordship's arguments for so may Sections have driven all to that conclusion and never an one of them is yet answered by you it will be a most unreasonable thing and a sound petitio principii againe to affirme without any one word of proofe that that infallibility is a reality and so will not keepe you from mending whereas nothing can keepe you from mending if this doe not this contemning of arguments against you and affirming magisterially without any To the 29 Section Chap. 17. This opinion saith he of damning so many and this custome of burning so many this breeding up of those who know nothing else in any point of religion yet to be in readinesse to cry To the fire with him To hell with him All these be empty words as we have shewed before As for our breeding up of men I thinke we doe it as well as any of our neighbours doe and by the way must tell you that we doe not take children from their parents onely to breed them up in our religion we doe not offer that hard measure either to Turkes or Jewes but hold it an act flatly against the law of nature an impious violation of Parents right which ought to be held sacred and lastly away of propagation of religions wholy violent and Vn-Christian so farre are we from propagating our religion by force and if all others with whom we have to doe had beene of that mind it had beene better with them for God hath not blessed that way forasmuch as by sad experience we have found that none have proved greater scourges to their King and Country then such as have had that sort of breeding given them and contrary to their parents will beene violently seduced in their youth and this is no secret but knowne to all the three Kingdomes to their cost But enough of this for it is a distastfull businesse C. 17. Answ to C. 17. Section 1 To his Lordship's 29 paragraph you have no returne but that these are empty words as you have formerly shewed and I feare we have shewed they are not but should be very glad to be mistaken and can truly say that I wish vehemently that your judgment were right in this matter But upon occasion of his Lordship's mention of your breeding up those that know nothing else in religion To cry to the fire to hell with him you are pleased to take occasion of some liberty in shewing what good breeding you bestow upon men in your Church and so divert to a complaint against those that take children from their parents c. and are somewhat passionate and tragicall on that subject but this being nothing to his Lordship's words or argument I desire to see that better answered by you before I will enter any new combat about so extrinsecall an impertinency And so enough of this also for what ever 't is 't is nothing to the matter of present handling To the 30 Section Chap 18. If it were granted saith the Enquirer that because it agrees not with the goodnesse of God to let me want a guide infallible and that the Church of Rome were that one yet if that teach any thing contrary to God's goodnesse I am not to receive her doctrine for the same cause they would have me receive it it being as good an argument This guide teaches things contrary to God's goodnesse therefore it is not appointed by God as to say it is agreeable to God's goodnesse there should be a guide therefore there is one So he The Enquirer seekes to delude us with a fallacy by altering his tearmes for in the first place he speakes of a thing contrary to God's goodnesse not absolutely but according to his understanding In the second place he speakes of it not as it is in his understanding but as it is simply in it selfe which is a thing quite different from the former for many things may be in his understanding thus or thus or as he saith contrary to God's goodnesse which in themselves are not so but rather quite otherwise for indeed it is no good consequence to argue on this sort This in my understanding is contrary to God's goodnesse therefore it is so because your understanding is subject to errour and therefore some things may seeme to it to be which are not Chillingworth who followeth this Author's footsteps argues after the selfe same manner and hath beene answered elsewhere by himselfe I grant then the consequence when as he saith this guide teaches somewhat contrary to God's goodnesse therefore it is not appointed for a guide But I deny the Antecedent and afterwards when he proves it saying it seemes so to my understanding therefore it is so I deny the consequence and admit the Antecedent At least saith he if it seeme so to my understanding whether in the meane time it be so or not I am not to receive it because I am to be guided by my owne reason and understanding If it seeme so to your understanding after such time as you have weighed all things as rightly as you can I grant it But if it seeme so onely before you have done that then I deny it for then it is not to be followed but forsaken or reformed if it be found erroneous as in this case of yours it is For in this case your understanding is to consult other understandings wiser then your owne if you can finde any such and according to that is to determine of the matter and not to rely wholly upon your owne single understanding But if you doe so you will finde your owne single understanding was deceived and that the guide of which we treate teacheth nothing that is against the goodnesse of God For it is to be supposed her understanding is brighter and more capacious then yours and therefore is to be
deny with obstinacy the infallibility of the Church of Christ or any other Article we are willing to beleive yet neverthelesse how safe he was we know not For a man may be obstinate and yet not thinke so though he may peradventure have just reason to suspect it It is not likely that Arius for example or any other Arch-heretique did thinke themselves to be obstinate although it is not to be doubted but they were for in the heart of Man there be many darke corners in which obstinacy may lurke and be unseen many passions that doe corrupt the intention which without great diligence are not espied especially in Men that are Lovers of the world or be possessed with prejudices hefore hand For which the wise Man wisely said Verebar omnia opera mea I distrusted all my workes And so hath every Man reason to doe in this universall corruption of nature and manners The 34 Sect. hath no difficulty in it which may require an Answer Chap. 21. Answ to Chap. 21. Section 1 Your Answer to the 33 Sect. is very strange you first grant very freely that you beleive that his Lordship did not deny with obstinacy the infallibility of your Church and yet in your next words you interpose against him that a man may be obstinate and yet not thinke so and on that ground your Answer to that Section But sure Sir whosoever else maybe obstinate or what grounds soever he may have to suspect he is yet this cannot by you be said of him at the same time when you acknowledge he is not obstinate Section 2 I beseech you compare your Answer with that Paragraph of his Lordships again and tell me whether this would not be very strange dealing Suppose a Friend should make this Syllogisme for you an honest Catholique ought not to be denied the liberty of this Towne but this Gentleman is an honest Catholique ergo and to the major I should answer by silence i. e. consent and to the minor that you are an honest Catholique I am willing to believe Neverthelesse whether you ought to have the liberty of this Towne I know not for you may be a dishonest Catholique and yet not thinke so Section 3 I pray how would you like this way of discourse would you not first tell me that I did in effect deny the conclusion i. e. make scruple how you should be dealt with after I had acknowledged both that all honest Catholiques ought to be used as you desire and that you are an honest Catholique And Secondly that I did suck in my concession of your being an honest Catholique assoone as I had made it for if that Reply belong to me then is it doubted whether I am such or no. Be pleased to compare the cases and this is directly your answer Section 4 What you meane by the no-difficulty in the 34 Sect. which you confesse and which therefore requires no Answer I doe not perfectly know but shall suppose you meane that there is nothing of doubt or question in it and then I am sure I have nothing to reply but that by the same reason the 33 Section must be granted also for the medium is the same to inferre both those conclusions To the 35 36 Sections Chap. 22. To beleive saith he implicitly what God would have believed is also to beleive implicitly what the Church teacheth if this doctrine be one of those which God commands to be believed My Answer to this is negative and my reason of deniall is because one implicite faith doth not containe another but it is an explicite assent and no other that containes within it an implicite To the point then I answer that if that same generall beliefe which he falsly calls Implicite be sincere and cordiall we then grant that it may as he saith implicitly containe the other But what will he deduce from thence what that all who pretend to believe on that manner doe it sincerely It is improbable for if it were sincere it would in knowing Men not stay within the narrow compasse of an implicite assent but quickly dilate it selfe and become explicite Indeed this great profession of believing in a preparation of minde all which God would have believed and goes no farther seemes in most Men to be but feigned and delusory and so no great trust can be reposed in it Chap. 22. Answ to Chap. 22. Section 1 The force of the argument Sect. 35. you deny upon a shew of some subtlety because say you one implicite faith doth not containe another This you affirme but afford us not the least offer of proof for the affirmation I must therefore beseech you to looke over your principle againe Suppose me to believe by an implicite faith that you are an honest Man may not that beliefe containe in it an implicite beliefe to every proposition by you asserted Nay what need this circumlocution is not his Lordships argument most cleare being put into a Syllogisme Section 2 If God commands the Church to be believed then he that implicitly believes all the commands of God implicitly believes that the Church is to be believed but God commands the Church to be believed ergo See now which Proposition you will deny the major is evident the minor I presume you will not deny whosoever else doth and then I beseech you be good to the conclusion Section 3 But that it seemes you will grant too but suspect that that generall beliefe is not sincere and cordiall But that I am sure is not for us to dispute of or discerne and I am as sure 't is nothing to the case where 't is supposed to be sincere and if it be not no Man ever thinkes it can be relyed on To the 37 38 39. Sections Chap. 23. Admitting the formost of these Sections as probable To the 38 I answer that as some are made obstinate by pride so againe othersome lazinesse detaines in ignorance But what of that I grant you that it is not pride in you or any Man never to assent till you find good reason for it but rather wisdome Neverthelesse it may be pride which blinds a Man and hinders him from the seeing a just reason of assenting yea even then when it is not onely perceptible but also easie to be perceived for the eye of the proud sees not the truth but overlooks it The 39 Paragraph containeth in it no businesse considerable in the matter of controversie between us Chap. 23. Answ to Chap. 23. Section 1 The 38 Sect. you admit as probable and now methinks I understand your Dialect somewhat better then before I did Doth not admitting as probable signifie not understanding Truly it had been more ingenuously done to have used that other phrase for the truth is it might have been done at this time without any disparagement to your understanding for in the beginning of this Section there was at the first Edition clearly an errour in the print It should be thus as
Paragraphs than convincing Reasons against your Infallibility is so easily rejected or forgotten by you that now you cannot acknowledge ever to have heard any such on that Theme And then I shall not attempt to hope to have so much either Logicke or Rhetorick as to make that impression on you Section 3 Onely let me desire you to consider the ground of your last period but one that certainly it is better to be perswaded though falsely of an Infallibility then to be sure to have none Section 4 Where first you must if you speake intelligibly intimate that your errour is better not onely than another errour but than truth for the Infallibility you suppose to be an errour when you so speake but the no-infallibility you doe not suppose to be no-truth Section 5 But then Secondly I am so farre from this opinion of yours that I conceive it hard to imagine any errour that could doe so much harme as this of the pretended Infallibility supposing it as now you doe to be an errour for that which brings a certaine possibility if no more of all errours after it and leaves no one falsity out of the Creed that 't is possible for all temptations to perswade your Church is certainly a complicated errour and may well be called Legion for nothing else can be so numerous as this I 'me sure not the believing you fallible though you were not so For that would be but one errour and no other necessarily consequent to it it being very possible for him that hath that opinion of you to thinke every thing else that you thinke to thinke you actually in the truth although it be possible you may be in the wrong Not to mention the great injury that that Infallibility if it did belong to you would in one respect be apt to doe you I meane to deprive your Church of all reward for any truths you preach there being no matter of reward where there is no possibility of doing otherwise nor capacity of a crown where for want of a pâ—ssibility of being overcome there is also an impossibility of obtaining victory Section 6 Thus have I given you an impartiall account how much or rather how little your Papers have wrought upon my understanding and truly as the end of my writing any thing was that I might satisfie your judgment so the maine end of my enlarging to so many particulars and as you may see by the expressions of my then-present-intentions at the end of the first Chapter to a length which I had resolved against by examining almost every period in your seven shâ—ets was to satisfie your desire signifiâ—d in putting your Papers into so many hands that to tell you truâ— after I had read them over and declined the having any thing to doe with them once then within few daies after found another way to come to my hands againe so that it had not beene civility toward you to have put you to any more trouble or farther to have tempted you to thinke your selfe victorious To fortifie you the better against that temptation I have beene perhaps more plaine and punctuall sometimes then would otherwise have beene necessary and if when you have read it over you finde any such plainnesse to have beene without cause upon your signification of your seâ—ce of any such my offence I will promise to aske your pardon meane while I shall not trouble you with any farther thoughts of continuing this Controversie peace and unity and amiâ—y of pennes and hearts being much a more lovely thing but desire that if any thing in your Paper as farre as it presses his Lordship be in your opinion unsatisfied it may in few words without such a large trouble as this be mentioned by you and then friendly debated betwixt us at any time of meeting of which whensoever by the meanes that this came to my hands you shall signifie to me your pleasure I shall not faile to serve you being indeed resolved never to be thus injurious to my Reader againe in civility to any man From my Study Sept. 23. 1645. An Appendix or Answer to what was returned by the Apologist TO this Reply of mine what was by the Apologist returned in the Margent of my Paper shall be now distinctly set downe as the Preface promised with a direction by some Letter of the Alphabet to that part of any Chapter of the discourse to which each of his Annotations were applied and affixed And for Answer to them I shall not need enlarging In the Introduction at the letter A this Annotation was set in the Margent I know of neither Scoffes nor Triumphs Answ That there are such the Reader will give credit to his owne eyes if he review the latter part of your first Chapter as also the close of the 8 and of the 15 Chapter And that you ought to know them i. e. acknowledge and reform them as being contrary the former to that Charity the latter to that Meeknesse which our Saviour left in charge with those that would be called by his name I hope you will discerne and confesse with me C. 2. B. the Annotation is I doe not treat here what is done by some but what in propriety of speech ought to have beene done To this I answer first That it being true as this Reply confesses that some Romanists used that stile of Catholique Roman Church though this Apologist did not This is fully sufficient to justifie his Lordships title because he was not bound to foresee that this Apologist would reforme the stile of others And secondly though it be not propriety of speech yet was that no argument neither because his Lordship that holds that Church fallible in greater matters might conceive it possible for them to be so in matter of propriety of speech nay was confident that so they were being not able to disbelieve his eyes and eares that of this they were guilty as improper as it is But then thirdly the matter is yet more cleare against the Apologist for though his Lordships title did not presage yet I which had read that Answer could see that he himselfe said that the Church Catholique was the Roman and the Roman the Catholique and that is the thing which I affirm'd from his owne words in that place to which that Annotation is prefixt And therefore for him to say that in propriety of speech this ought not to be done as it is an accusation of himselfe who was guilty of that impropriety so is it not a confutation of me who onely said he was so Ib. C. We speak here according to the rules of formall predication not for reprehension of the Enquirer but for rectifying the manner of speaking and stating the Question rightly Answ 'T is not imaginable how this note could advantage the Writers cause In the very place to which this note is affixt I am a proving by rules of formall predication that by what is said by the Romanists and
that the cause why none of these three can prove our Churches infallibility is not any want of infallibility in them as the Enquirer contended it was but some other different such namely as you here assigne and so the Enquirers argument is at an end even at the very beginning of it and my taske is done yet in my respects to you I will goe on farther Section 7 To your first I answer that though reason cannot it selfe alone prove our Churches infallibility yet as you acutely note Sest 3. reason can assure us by shewing us some words of prophecie or revelation from God with sufficient evidence that it is a revelation and thus reason can prove a verity be it never so inevident After this manner it is that we say reason proves our Church against which proof the inevidence of it as we see can be no impediment Section 8 To your second I answer by denying that scripture hath not beene so certainly expounded to that purpose for we say it hath been shewed by our authors at large as for example by Bellarmine Valentia Petavius Veron and others Section 9 To your 3. I answer first that 1. Irenaeus 2. Augustinus 3. Lactantius and 4 Facundus Hermanensis doe absolutely teach the Church to be infallible Secondly I deny that the Fathers teach not the Romane Church to be the true Church and contrary to your tenet I affirme that they hold that Church to be the true Christian Church as the forenamed authors have declared out of them as also Card. Perone and Coâ—ffeteau have exâ—ellently shewed Also I my selfe have endeavoured it elsewhere out of the severall Testimonies of Antiquity not to be in this place repeated Section 10 The businesse touching the motives of Faith which I with Irenaeus called Ostensions their place use and efficacity needs only explanation and ought to be admitted by every Christian and therefore begging your patience I will tarry longer upon it Section 11 We doe not goe about to prove our Church to be the true therefore because she holdeth with the truth but because we conceive we have good solid reasons to perswade us that she hath the truth These reasons have been often rendred by our Authors to whom if the Inquirer had replyed we also had endeavoured to defend them Concordance with the Scriptures and fathers we doe marshall amongst them not in the first place indeed in order of Doctrine but yet in the first in order of dignity Neither doe we aime to prove our Church by the gallantry of Demonstration or any other way then Christianity sooner or later is to be perswaded unto Infidels for we are now dealing not about a parcell but the whole frame of Christianity from the top to the foundation and the laying of the first stone which first stone we hold to be those actes of God which Psal 104.27 are called verba signotum and fitly may be tearmed signa realia that is to say sings and ostensions which be the acts of Gods omnipotence and soveraigne Government and by a morall certainty and rationall way are shewed for humane institution and instruction This sort of signes is by order of nature to have the precedence before all artificiall signes or vocall expressions of the divine will and therefore as Raymund Sebund observeth liber factorum is to be perused before liber dictorum By these signes as by the apparentiae or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Astronomy we are to get the first notions of these celestiall revolutions or resolutions of faith and though these be sure yet are they not demonstrative because no way intrinsecall neither to the revelations which they assure nor to the objects revealed which are assured by the revelations as being no causes nor effects of either nor signes inherent of those objects Section 12 Seeing then the true Catholique Religion is but the true Christianity they both of them are to be learned by the same Apparences or Ostensions more or lesse expresly understood Now while we draw nearer unto these signes and learne them more and more expresly amongst other things we may discover as good characterismes and signatures of revealed truth the Concordance of our Faith with holy Writ and venerable Antiquity which two signes without the preceding could have little force to perswade beliefe For say I were to convert an Indian I would not seeke to doe it by telling him first of all of these two Concordances mentioned which 't is like would move him but a little for though I could shew him the Bible was antient and Godly and the Fathers wise yet this would not be enough to perswade him and therefore I should hold it fit First to represent unto him some other motives as namely Propheticall predictions authorized by event miracles and miraculous operations and effects creditably recorded from age to age both in the Evangelists and other sequent Histories of whose faith a man rationally cannot doubt at least in the summe of them or the chiefe bulke I speake not here of fabulous Narrations or suspected Histories but Authours of credit and esteeme Secondly the excellency of our Faith it selfe and manner of propagation of it Thirdly the perfection of life and heroicke actions of such as doe professe it and all this after a manner not interrupted but continued from age to age and conveyed downe to us by the prime Ecclesiasticall succession not of persons onely but of Pastours in the chiefe seate and other inferiour prized so highly by Irenaeus and held a most sure note of truth and a way to confound all that doe gainsay it Lastly a consonance with Reason Scripture and Antiquity These and such like be our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 these our Ostensions these be the received notices and signatures of revealed truth by these God invites us and induces us to believe and by these engages his owne veracity to warrant the act of our assent it being repugnant to the high perfection of his truth to lay upon man a rationall obligation and then desert him and to permit that the publique acts of his providence should be a snare not a direction not an introduction to truth but a seduction from it Though therefore these motives make our faith but credible in an eminent and a high degree yet the veracity of God is at hand to supply seale and confirme all and with the authority thereof to make the assurance absolute This method of resolving and reducing faith was signified by Irenaeus when as he said Post tot Ostensiones factas non oportet adhuc quaerere apud alios veritatem quam facile est ab Ecclesia sumere This way designed by Saint Augustin this is conformable to the Analytique principles delivered by Aristotle in his Organon this the beaten path of all Divines and no new invention or exotique stuffe This method we are ready to maintaine as strong and solid not permitting the believer to sit downe with a slender Socinian certainty
from you or if it should prove lesse splendid yet more tolerable to have beene ravisht from you then prostituted To the second Sect. I answer that you had said that before in annot to the concl A. And the answer there belongs to this Sect. and if you had made good what you say was your drift you should be pronounced conquerour To the third Sect. You have taken a good course to defend infallibility by setting up for it your selfe and affirming that no reply can be made to you in that matter because it depends onely upon your judgement which none can know but whom you tell it But good Sir your Authors do tell us that there is nothing infallible but the Church and when they have done so we may know your outward acts for such are your writings though your inward we pretend not to pry into To Sect. 4. I answer that one argument of his Lordships taken from your affirmed fallibility of Reason Scripture and Antiquity is most prodigiously by you call'd three pillars And how Sampson-like you have broken them downe the Reader must judge if you are so confident I have here exprest my selfe your servant by helping you to a publique tryall To Sect. 5. I acknowledge that from your owne confession I make those three arguments that neither Reason Scripture nor Antiquity can infallibly prove your Church to be infallible And To the Sect. 6. I say that the want of infallibility in those three mentioned Sect. 6. and by you confest is sufficient to prove his Lordships conclusion that they cannot infallibly prove your infallibility and this is the same that was meant by his Lordship though more explicated by me and brought home against you by way of retortion and Argument ad hominem upon your own confession And so your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was sung much too early and you must to your taske again if you will make an end of it To Sect. 7. I answer that if you had shewed the revelation on which reason inferres your infallibility your section had stood good but the totall want of that is your maine impediment To Sect. 8. Be you also pleased to produce your consent of Antiquity certainly expounding Scripture to inferre your infallibility and that shall be yielded you also but I conceive those writers of yours have not done it and whensoever you please I shall be ready to examine their testimonies with you To Sect. 9. I answer That we have allowed a sence wherein the Church universall may be stiled infallible and that to save my selfe the paines of examining your testimonies though some without examining I know to be ill cited I shall grant it in that sence to be so But then to your second proposition be it either I deny that they teach not or I affirme that it holds it matter 's little that the Roman Church is the true Church I answ That if there be emphasis in the particle the in the praedicate so that it signifie the Catholick Church in the former proposition 't is then absolutely false that the Fathers say any such thing And you are prudent to cite none to that ridiculous purpose But if you meane that the Roman Church is a true Church so you doe not meane that all it saith is true as we grant that so we challenge you to prove that ever the ancient Church thought any such particular Church of one denomination to be infallible When you please to produce your testimonies you shall receive answer to them To Sect. 10. Concerning the motives of Faith You might have spared that paines it being not at all concluded by you here or before that that infallibility is built on the same grounds with Christanity To Sect. 11. If you had never such solid reasons to perswade you that your Church had the truth as I should not need to deny were it not for your denying the cup to the Laity against Scripture and your keeping the Scripture in an unknowne tongue and some other such defects in faciendis but rather charge you that you have more then the truth viz. many errours mixt with the truth this would prove but a very weake probation that your Church is the true Church in the exclusive notion i. e. that no other is the Church but that for having the truth doth not signifie a Monopoly or inclosure of it or that no body else can have it And if by the true Church you meane no more but a true part you know we doe not question it nor affirme that your errors though many have turn'd you in non Ecclesiam into a no Church As for your Concordance with the Fathers which you say you have I answere that in those things wherein you and we consent we shall not be unwilling to grant it to you but yet must remember you that you would not allow that to be a proofe of your being infallible but in those other which we call errors in you we challenge you to produce an universall Concordance You goe on that you proue your Church by no other way then Christianity is perswaded unto Infidels I hope your meaning is that you prove your Church to be a true Church and that shall be granted you without your proofe but that it is the only true one or the infallible one I hope you have not miracles for that if you have you have trifled away a great deale of time in not telling us of them nor revelation from Heaven nor universall tradition to assure you what you affirme so confidently that the Infallibility of your Church is the whole frame of Christianity And therefore what you learnedly adde about the verba signorum or signa realia signes and ostensions c. by which you go about to prove Christianity I must professe to edifie me but little in point of the infallibility of your Church because that is so distant a thing from it To Sect. 12. Your affirmation that the true Catholique Religion is the true Christianity if that be the onely thing you aime at shall be willingly granted you all the question will be whether all your doctrines that of denying the cup to the Laity c. be that Catholique Religion And sure to him that questions that all the characterismes c. all your Propheticall predidictions will give but little satisfaction and no more will the excellency of Faith perfection of heroick actions of professors nor the conveyance from age to age by the Prime Ecclesiasticall succession of Pastors in the Sea of Rome because that of the sub unicâ specie c. which we quarrell at in you might as well be pretended to have testimonies out of the present Articles of our Church as out of these If there be any of these evidences or moreover of Reason Scripture Antiquity on your side for such controverted particulars I beseech you let them be produced or else you may be Christians but yet corrupt in these particulars your being