propagated it But the Church having in it the property of heat which as Philosophers say is to gather together things that are of the same nature and separate things that are of different natures includes all that are of the same faith and admitteth no other § 3. I therefore conceived according to the judgement of the most learned the Church to be a society of those that God hath called to salvation by the profession of the true faith the sincere adminstration of the Sacraments and the adherence to lawfull Pastors Which description of the Church is so fitted and proportioned to her that it resembles the nest of the Halcion which as Plutarch saith is of such a just and exact size for the measure of her body that it can serve for no other bird either greater or lesse Then for the meaning of the word Catholique the Protestants say that that Church is Catholique which holdeth the true faith which though it be not spread universally over the world yet it ought to be so say they and therefore it is Catholique By which they leave men in a labyrinth of finding out the true faith in all the particulars thereof which as they say must guide a man to the Church that is truely Catholique which being the object of the understanding is much more difficult to find out than that which is the object of the sense as is its being Catholique And therefore it seemed to me as proposterous as to set the cart before the horse to prove a Church Catholique because it is true whereas it should be proved true because it is Catholique Beside the name Catholique is not a name of belief only but of communion also else antiquity would not have refused that title to those which were not separated from the belief but only from the communion of the Church S. Aug. Ep. 50. nor would they have affirmed that out of the Catholique Church the faith and Sacraments may he had but not salvation So that Catholique imports thus much both the vast extension of doctrine to persons and places different and the union of all those places and persons in Communion Therefore allbeit the Protestants should hold the same belief that the ancient Church did yet if they did not communicate with the same ancient Church which by succession of Pastors and People is derived down to this present time I could not see how they could with justice assume to themselves the title of Catholiques CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of the Church § 1. NOw that the Catholique Church which society of Christians soever it be of which we shall deliberate hereafter is the only faithfull and true witnesse of the matter of Gods Word to tell us what it is and what is not it the only true interpreter of the meaning of Gods word and the last and finall judge of all controversies that may arise in matters of Religion and that shee is not onely true but that shee cannot be otherwise seeing shee is infallible I was perswaded to believe by many reasons In the alleadging of which I will avoid the accusation of Protestants of the circular disputation of Catholiques saying they believe the Scripture because the Church saies it is so and the Church because the Scripture bids them do so First then without dependence on the Scripture I conceived the Catholique Church to be infallible in her Traditions in that which she declareth to us concerning the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles and that even in the very nature of her testimony and tradition For Tradition being a full report of what was evident to sense namely what doctrines the Apostles taught what Scripture they wrote it is impossible it should be false Worlds of men cannot be universally deceived in matters evident to sense as are the things men heare and see and not being so it is impossible they should either negligently suffer it or maliciously agree to deceive others being so many in number so distant in place so different in affections conditions and interests Wherefore it is impossible that what is delivered by full Catholique Tradition from the Apostles should be by the deliverers first devised as Tertullian saith Tert. de praesc cap. 28. That which is found one and the same amongst many is not an error but a Tradition Yet supposing universall Tradition as it is meerly humane be in its nature fallible yet the Tradition of the Catholique Church is by God himselfe preserved from error which is thus demonstrated God being infinitely good and ardently desiring the salvation of mankind cannot permit the meanes which should convey the Apostles doctrine to posterity by the belief whereof men must be saved to be poisoned with damnable error to the destruction of their salvation now the onely meanes to convey this doctrine is the Tradition of the Catholique Church Tert. de Praes cap. 21. as Tertullian saith what the Apostles taught I will prescribe ought no other wayes to be proved than by those Churches which the Apostles founded All other means as I have shewed you before are insufficient and if this Tradition of the Church should be insufficient also by reason of its liablenesse unto error then were there no certainty at all of the truth of Christian Religion no not so much as that there was such a man as Jesus Christ but all men would be left to grope in the wandring uncertainty of their owne imaginations which for God to suffer cannot fall under any prudent mans belief § 2. Secondly that which bindeth men to believe a thing to be Gods Word God cannot suffer to delude men into error whereby for their devotion unto his truth they may fall into damnation now Catholique Tradition from the Apostles is that which bindes men to believe the same to be the Word of God and that because it is thereby sufficiently proposed the World affording no higher nor surer proposall so that either this must be infallible or else God hath left us to the guidance of our own weak understandings the weaknesse of which conceit I shewed even now and all Christians to that confusion which all different opinions yet reputed the Word of God by them that hold them may produce § 3. Thirdly God being the Prime Verity he cannot so much as connive at falshood whereby he becomes accessory of deceiving them who simply readily and religiously believe what they have just reason to think to be his Word but there is most just and sufficient reason to believe that the doctrine delivered by full and perpetuall Tradition from hand to hand even from the Apostles is undoubtedly their doctrine and the Word of God therefore he cannot suffer Catholique Tradition to be falsified Nor can as I conceive any prudent man imagine that God having sent his Son into the world to teach men the way to heaven every moment of whose life was made notable by doing or suffering somthing to that end should suffer the efficacy and
delivered the Scripture that is first instructed by Tradition Otherwise they may easily erre in some chiefe articles of Faith any of which to erre in is damnable And I would faine know whether any understanding Protestant doth believe that if a Bible were given to a heathen or to one borne amongst themselves supposing he had not been trained up by Catechisme and other traditionall instruction whether I say he could out of that extract as points cleerly expressed therein the thirty nine Articles of the Church of England or the book called the Harmony of Confessions which is the profession of the faith of most of the Protestants of the world Lastly we cannot with modesty say that we are more able to understand Scripture than were our fore-fathers the ancient Doctors of the Church but they thought themselves unable to interpret Scripture by conference of places or such like humane means without the light of Christian Doctrine before-hand knowne and firmly believed upon the Tradition of the Church witnesse * Ruf. Eccl. hist l. 2. c 9. S. Basil S. Gregory Nazianzene and * Orig. tract in Mat. 29. c. 23. Origen who thus writeth In our understanding of Scriptures we must not depart from the first Ecclesiasticall Tradition nor believe otherwise but as the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us therefore no man is able to interpret Scripture without the light and assistance of Christian faith afore-hand received by the voice of the Church delivering what shee received from her ancestors Dangerously and high boldnesse then it is for men of this age so to presume on their owne interpretations of Scripture gotten by humane meanes as to make them over-ballance a thousand * Luther de capt Babil Tom. 2. VVittenberg p. 344. Cyprians Augustines Churches and Traditions § 3. From all which I observed that the Protestants do not well understand that place of Scripture so frequently urged by them against Tradition where S. Paul saith to Timothy Thou hast known the holy Scriptures from thy childhood which are able to instruct thee or make thee wise unto salvation Inferring from hence that the Scriptures are able to make all men wise unto salvation whereas this was spoken with relation to Timothy only and to such as agree with him in the cause for which this saying is true in him that is such as were aforehand instructed by Tradition and did firmly believe all substantiall Doctrines of faith and know the necessary practises of Christian Discipline even as what God said to Abraham I am thy protector and thy exceeding great reward Gen. 15.1 is not appliable to all men absolutely but only to all men that were of the same qualification that is faithfull and devout as he was Moreover the Apostle in that place speaketh only of the Scriptures of the Old Testament for the New was not written in the infancy of Timothy nor some of it at this very time that these words were written and these Scriptures he affirmes also to instruct Timothy not by themselves alone but by faith which is in Christ Jesus that is joyned with the doctrine of the Christian faith which Timothy had heard and believed on the voice of Tradition And the following words of the Apostle are with equall confidence insisted on All Scripture inspired of God is profitable to teach c. is very unprofitable for their purpose seeing that profitable can by no means be stretcht to signifie sufficient as they would have it and that for every man but particularly for him that is HOMO DEI a man of God that is one already instructed by Tradition in all the main points of Christian faith and godly life such an one as Timothy was Thus indeed the Scriptures may be granted sufficient joyned with Tradition but not alone And whereas there are some places of the Fathers alledged by Protestants to prove the Scriptures to be clear in all substantiall points they are to be understood as the Apostles words are with reference to such men who have been before instructed by Tradition even as they that hear Aristotle explicate himself by word of mouth may easily understand his books of nature which are very hard to be understood of them that never heard his explication either from his own mouth or by Tradition from his Schollers § 4. Whereas some Protestants say that the difficult places of Scripture are unfolded a VVootton triall of the Romish c. p. 88. l. â—9 by Scripture and the rules of Logick b Field p. 281. lin 20. and by other things beside Scripture evident in the light of nature it seems to me very incongruous First because the rule of faith must be for the capacity of the unlearned as well as the learned and unlearned men cannot be sure of the infolded sense of the Scripture by Logicall deductions Secondly the Scripture it self sends us to supply her wants not to the rules of Logick but unto Tradition saying Hold the Traditions which ye have received by word or our Epistle 2 Thes 2.15 It sendeth us to the Church the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 which whosoever doth not heare is as a Heathen and a Publican Matth. 18.17 It did the same to the Jewes who had the Scriptures also saying Remember the old dayes think upon every generation ask thy father and he will declare unto thee the elders and they will tell thee Deut. 32.7 The same do the Fathers as I shall shew hereafter § 5. And whereas it is further objected that the Fathers disputed negatively from the Scripture against Heretiques thus Doctrine is not cleerly delivered in Scripture therefore it is not to be received as a matter of Faith we must know that the Fathers proceeded upon this supposition that was known to all and granted by the Heretiques themselves namely that the Doctrines they disputed against were not the Traditions of the Church and in this case they required the testimony of Scripture Yea more the Fathers did not onely require places of Scripture from the Heretiques by way of deduction and Logicall inference for to such all ancient Heretiques and Protestants now pretend wherewith they delude ignorant people but they required of them to shew their Doctrine in Scripture saith Irenaeus expresly and in termes and to prove it not by texts * Aug. de unitat Eccles cap. 5. which require sharpnesse of wit in the Auditors to judge who doth more probably interpret them not by places which require an interpreter one to make Logicall inferences upon the text but by places plaine manifest cleere which leave no place to contrary exposition and that no Sophistry can wrest them to other sense to the end that controversies which concern the salvation of soules be defined by Gods formall Word and not by deductions from it by rules of Logicke And even by this way of the Fathers arguing negatively from the Scripture the Protestant Religion is quite overthrowne for seeing nothing is
have been eye-witnesses of the severall Countreys thereof wherein though the publike profession thereof be Hereticall Mahometicall or Heathenish yet even there hath the Romane Catholique Church both Fathers and children Pastors and people And like the Sea what she loseth in one place she wins in another what she hath lost by the falling away of the Protestants in Europe she hath gained with increase by the propagation of her faith in the East and West Indies where whole Kingdomes are converted thereunto as a Protestant Author confesseth saying Simon Lythus in respons altera ad alteram Gretseri Apologiam p. 333. The Jesuites within the compasse of a few years not content with the bounds of Europe have filled Asia Africa and America with their Idols And thus shee was Catholique by Napier a Protestant Writers confession forementioned and others for 12. or 1300. yeares ago and ever since And whereas Protestants say that this universality is no true mark of the Church because it is appliable to Turkes and Pagans it is doubtlesse a very poor objection for the markes of the Church are not given her by God to distinguish her from all sorts of Religions but only from those that are contained equivocally under the same next kind and may be supposed and taken for Churches that is to say from other Christian societies to wit from Hereticall and Shismaticall Sects which challenge by false markes the title of the true Church To which purpose S. Augustine saith disputing with the Donatists Thou askest of a stranger whether he be a Pagan or a Christian he answers thee a Christian thou askest him whether he be a catechumene Aug de Pastor c. 13. or one of the faithfull he answers thee one of the faithfull thou askest him of what communion he is he answers thee a Christian Catholique Besides the Roman Church hath this forme of universality beyond all Religions of the world even Turkes or Heathens That there is no place of the known world where there are not Roman Catholiques propagating their Religion by converting the people of the land whosoever they are which is manifestly wanting to all other Religions and is therefore in this regard also more universally spread over the face of the earth than any other Others say that this universall spreading of the Church is antidated by Roman Catholiques with application to themselves for that it was not to take beginning but from the time of Luther because some places of Scripture which speak of the largenesse of the Church say it shall be in the later daies But it is manifest that by later daies is meant all the space of time from Chirst to the end of the world as S. Peter interpreting a prophecie of Joel which saith that it shall come to passe in the last daies that God will powre his Spirit upon all flesh Acts 2.17 by which is intended the amplitude of the Church applies it to that present time when the holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles Nor can any reasonable man imagine that it can sort with the goodnesse of God and his tender love to mankind to suffer the light of his truth in the not spreading of his Church to be eclipsed for 14. or 1500. years seeing that according to the opinion of some learned men grounded upon fair probabilities the world is likely to last but 2000. yeares after Christ. Howsoever this universality of the Protestant Religion is but begun it is not perfected for the Roman Church is yet actually exceeding larger and Protestants that allow this for a mark of the true Church now begin hopefully to apply it to themselves are bound to be of the Roman till they see their expectation satisfied in the Protestant Churches exceeding her in latitude which I dare boldly say will not be as long as they live and therefore they ought to die in the Roman Faith § 3. But if we examine the matter a little more strictly we shall find that the Protestants plea for universality wil be cut very short when we consider that though they make themselves all of one Church when they would vie for multitude with the Roman Church yet compared with one another we shall find that they are very many Churches not distinguished by nation only but by doctrine and points of faith and that there are many Churches in one Nation as in England for example and will be many more if the desired Independency be advanced Now it is not sufficient that the Protestant Religion in generall be enlarged but it must be the true Protestant Religion which every particular Sect thinking it self to be of and denying it the most of them to the rest the universality of the Religion wil be mightily abated Indeed when they muster their strengths together and make boast of their greatnesse then they rake all into the title of Protestantisme who have revolted from the Roman Church count them on their side as if the definition of a Protestant were one that is opposite to the Church of Rome So that if there were a thousand sorts of Heretiques in the world they would in this case account them but one Church But the word Catholique being a note of Communion as I have shewed already as the Roman Church calls none a Catholique that doth not communicate with her so cannot the Protestant Church of Engl. count any to be of her Religion thereby by inlarging of her bounds to prove her selfe Catholique unlesse they will communicate with her which the Grecian Churches wil not the Lutheran Churhes will not many of the Sects within the Kingdom will not as Presbyterians Antinomians Anabaptists Brownists Familists Erastians Socinians Arminians Seekers Adamites Shakers Independents with many others These I say will not communicate with the Protestant Church of England nor will they communicate each with other but have at least most frequently their Congregations as they call them separate and apart so that these are all to be accounted severall Churches and Religions and no one is further universall than the communion thereof doth spread which is so litle a way that none of them is nay though they were al united together would they be able to stand in competition with the Roman Church under whose Communion are many entire Kingdoms and in all known parts of the world an infinity of people even in Asia Africa and America where the name of Protestant much more any particular Sect thereof is altogether unknowne Besides all the Christian Churches which are now separated from the Roman were once united to her both in faith and communion and then either she was the Catholique Church or there was none in the world which is impossible therefore they that departed from her departing from the Catholique Church became Schismatiques and departing from the faith they received from her become Heretiques § 4 Lastly the very possession of the name Catholique is a proof that it doth belong to her seeing no sort of Christians
else can usurp it from her For howsoever some when being so hard pressed that they cannot claime the title of true Chritian unlesse they assume the name of Catholique do then arrogate it to themselves and say that they are Catholikes yet in ordinary speech if you speak of a Catholike every one understands thereby a Romane Catholike all other Sects voluntarily taking to themselves the name of some men for their founder as of Luther Calvin whom they call their Reformers or of some place as the Albigenses or from some accident of their pretended reformation as Protestants by which the legall Protestants delight to stile themselves with this addition of the Church of England renouncing therein as they suppose Luther and Calvin as ashamed or seeming to scorne to derive themselves from any one man as though the Church of England in this matter namely in opposition to the whole Church both present and precedent were of more consideration then one single man Moreover certain enough it is that the Reformation of the Church of England began by one man and he no God neither except it were such an one as Jupiter was who transform'd himself into a beast for the love of women before it filled the whole Kingdome and arrived at that high pitch of perfection that some suppose And who that man was is well enough knowne and what godly motives he had which they must confesse or else that their Church is like Melchizedek without Father or Mother or like a Mushrump started up in a night no man knowes how On the contrary the true believer will own no name but that of the Catholique Faith which was first devised by the Apostles in the Creed and which the successors of the Apostles in that Faith have alwaies worne As the Antient Father a Pacianus ad Symp. Ep. 1. S. Pacianus saith in an Epistle to Sympronianus a Novatian Heretique Christian is my name Catholique is my Sir-name that names me this marks me out by that I am manifested by this I am distinguished And Saint b Cyrill Hieros Catech 15. Cyrill of Jerusalem expounding the Creed For this cause saith he thy faith hath given thee this Article to hold undoubtedly and in the holy Catholique Church to the end thou shouldest fly the polluted Conventicles of Heretiques And a little after when thou comest into a Town inquire not simply where the Temple of our Lord is for the Heresies of impious persons do likewise call their dens the Temples of the Lord neither ask simply where the Church is but where is the Catholique Church For that name is the proper name of this holy Church And on the contrary c Hieron cont Lucifer c. 9. S. Hierome saith If in any part thou hearest of men denominated from any but from Christ as Marcionites Valentinians c. know that it is not the Church of Christ but the Synagogve of Antichrist And d Lib. deutilitat cred cap. 7. S. Augustine fully Although there be many heresies of Christians and that all would be called Catholikes yet there is alwaies one Church if you cast your eyes upon the extent of the whole world more abundant in multitude and also as those that know themselves to be of it more sincere in truth than all the rest but of the truth that is another dispute That which sufficeth for the question is that there is one Church to which different Heresies impose different names whereas they are all called by their particular names that they dare not disavow from whence it appears in the judgement of any not pre-occupate with favour to whom the name of Catholike whereof they are all ambitious ought to be attributed And again e De vera relig cap. 6. We must hold the Christian Religion and the communion of that Church which is called Catholique both by her own and by strangers for whether Heretiques and Schismatiques will or will not when they speak not with their own but with strangers they call the Catholiques no otherwise than Catholiques As for the Protestants it is certain that neither by others nor yet by themselves in ordinary speaking are they called Catholiques No nor yet in their most solemne and serious speaking as appears by the severall Acts both of the King of England and of the Houses of Parliament wherein both sides publish to the world and yet in a sense different from one another that they will maintain the Protestant Religion But the Roman Church hath alwayes possessed the name of Catholique and therefore she is such CHAP. XII Of the second Mark of the Church viz. Antiquity both of persons and doctrines § 1. THe second mark of the Church is Antiquity as God saith by the Prophet Jeremy Stand in the waies see inquire of the old paths which is the good way and walk therein Ier. 6.16 And our Saviour saith Mat. 13. that the good seed was sown first and afterwards the tares And even in nature truth is before falshood And this Antiquity I found applyable in the highest degree to the Roman Religion for though some heresies are very antient as is intimated in that the tares were sowen soon after the good seed yet the truth is more antient and so is the Church of Rome This antiquity of hers for the greatest part of time is confessed by Protestants Perkins whom I alledged before grants it for 900. yeares Napier goes higher and saith it raigned universally and without any debateable contradiction 12. hundred and 60. yeares And seeing this raign of the Catholique Religion which Protestants call Popery was then universall it is apparent that it did not then begin for such an universall possession could not be got on the suddain as they may perceive by the Protestant Religion which is not improved to neere that universality in above a hundred yeares so that in all probability even according to the opinion of Protestants the beginning thereof must be in or neere the Apostles times Now whether we take the Roman Church for the society of Christians that acknowledge the Bishop of Rome for their head or whether we take it for Fathers and Doctors holding the doctrines of the present Church of Rome in both respects it will appear that the Church of Rome is most antient and Apostolicall The former is proved by the testimony of S. * Iren. cont Val. lib. 3. c. 3. Irenaeus who calls the Roman Church the greatest and antientest Church founded at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul And of S. Augustine * Aug. Epist 162. who saith In the Roman Church hath alwaies flourished the Principality of the Apostolique Seat This word alwaies including all the time upward from that present to S. Peter So that by this it is manifest that there was a Roman Church even from S. Peters time who was the first Bishop and Pope thereof Which S. Augustine confirmes in another place saying Number the Priests even from
the Sea of Peter De Baptis cont Don. lib. 2. c. 1. c. that is the rock which the gates of hell do not overcome Nor do the Protestants deny the antiquity of the Church of Rome but only some of them deny S. Peter to have been Bishop there or indeed ever to have been there in person which I count a fancy not worth the confuting and they may with as much truth and more reason deny King William the Conquerour to have been King of England or so much as to have been in England seeing there is much more and more noble testimony of that than of this The main thing that they deny is the Antiquity of the doctrine of the Church of Rome for they say the Primitive Fathers taught the Protestant Doctrine and not that which the Church of Rome now teacheth Which I found to be false by the examination of particulars all which if I should here set down I should swell this intended little Treatise into a huge Volume It shall suffice me therefore to give a scant map of the Churches doctrine in the Primitive times and the testimony of some Fathers of the first five hundred yeares of every severall age some in the proof of some of the present Catholique doctrines most strongly opposed by Protestants referring him that is desirous of larger proof to the painefull volumes of Coccius and Gualterus Noting first two things by the way The former that it is not necessary that Catholiques should give this proof For it is sufficient that they are in possession of this faith and that they all say they received it from their Ancestors and they from theirs and so upward to the first beginning of Christian Religion and that the Protestant cannot by any sufficient testimony of Fathers or histories prove the contrary a thing which the Protestants no doubt would highly boast of if they were able to performe it in their owne behalf The latter is that many Protestants do confesse that the antient Fathers did hold many points of belief of the present Roman Church Whitguift Archbishop of Canterbury saith and that without exception of the very first times * Defence against Cartwright p. 472. 473. almost all the Bishops and Writers of the Greek Church and Latine also for the most part were spotted with the doctrines of free will of merit of invocation of Saints and such like And the like is affirmed by many others in many other points as is largely shewed by the book entituled The Protestants Apologie for the Roman Church Against which the Protestants have nothing to say but that which is worse than nothing to wit that they were the spots and blemishes of the Fathers And who I pray are they that undertake to correct Magnificat as we say and like Goliah to defie the whole hoast of Israel But they say that a dwarf standing upon a Giants shoulders may see further than the Giant can and so they by perusing the Fathers may see further than the Fathers could Further perhaps they may in some cases but never contrary they cannot by their help see that to be black which they saw to be white that to be false which they saw to be true § 2. Let us then take a view of the Roman Doctrines as they were held in the dayes of S. Augustine and the foure first generall Councells which were held between the yeares 315. and 457. to which first foure Councells some Protestants seem to give much honour and to subscribe to their Decrees but they do but seeme In those times the Church believed the true and reall presence and the eating with the mouth of the Body of Christ in the Sacrament as Zuinglius the Prince of the Sacramentarians acknowledges in these words a lib. de vera falsa relig cap. de Eucharist From the time of S. Augustine the opinion of corporall flesh had already get the mastery And in this quality she b Chrys in 1. Cor. HoÌ„ 24 adored the Eucharist with outward gestures and adoration as the true and proper body of Christ. The Church then believed the Body of Christ to be in the Sacrament c Cyril Alex ep ad Caesar Pat. even besides the time that it was in use and for this cause kept it after Consecration for d Cypr. de laps domestical Communions e Euseb hist l. 7. to give to sick f Amb. de obit Sayr to carry upon the Sea g Euseb hist l. 5. to send into far Provinces She then believed h Paulin. in vita Ambr. Tertul. ad uxâ—c 55. Basil Ep. ad Caes Pat. that Communion under both kinds was not necessary for the sufficiency of participation but that all the body and all the blood was taken in either kind And for this cause in domesticall Communions in Communions for children for sick persons by Sea and at the houre of death it was distributed under one kind onely In those times the Church believed i Cyp. ad Coecil ep 63 that the Eucharist was a true full and entire Sacrifice not onely Eucharisticall but k Euseb de vita Const l. 4. propitiatory and offered it as well for the living l Chrys in 1 Cor. hom 41. as the dead The faithfull and devout people of the Church in those times made pilgrimages to m Basil in 40. Martyr the bodies of the Martyrs n Ambr. de vid. prayed to the Martyrs to pray to God for them o Aug. in Psa 63. 88. celebrated their Feasts p Hier. ad Marcell Ep. 17. reverenced their Reliques in all honourable formes And when they had received help from God by the intercession of the said Martyrs q Theod. de Grac. aff l. 8. they hung up in the Temples and upon the Altars erected to their memory Images of those parts of their bodies that had been healed The Church of those times held r Basil de sanct Spir. the Apostolicall Traditions to be equall to the Apostolicall Writings and held for Apostolicall Traditions all that the Church of Rome now imbraceth under that title She also offered prayers for the a Tertul. de Mon. Aug. de verb. Ap. dead both publike and private to the end to procure for them ease and rest and held this custome as a thing b Aug. de cura pro mort necessary for the refreshing of their soules The Church then held the c Hier. ad Marcel Ep. 54. fast of the forty daies of Lent for a custome not free but necessary and of Apostolicall Tradition And out of the time of Pentecost fasted all the Fridaies of the years in memory of the death of Christ except Christmasse day fell on a Friday d Epiph. in compend which she excepted as an Apostolicall Tradition That Church held e Epiph. cont Apostol Haeres 51. marriage after the vow of Virginity to be a sinne and reputed f Chrys ad Theod.
Disciplines you shall find none Tradition is shewed thee for the Author custome the confirmer and faith the observer And in the first age S. Clement speaking of S. Peter reports thus of him g Clem. Ro. Ep. 1. de S. Petre prope fin His daily preaching amongst other divine commandements was this c. every one as farre as he understands and is able to love God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself to relieve the poor to cloath the naked to visit the sick to give drink to the thirsty to bury the dead and diligently to perform their funeralls and to pray and give alms for them § 8. Concerning Traditions in the fift age S. Augustine saith h Lib. 4. de bapt con Donat c. 24. That which the whole Church doth hold and is not instituted by Councells but is alwaies retained is rightly believed not to be delivered but by Apostolique authority And S. Chrysostome i In 1 Thes 2. In 1 Thes hom 4. It is manifest that the Apostles did not deliver all things by Epistle but many things without writing And as well these as those are worthy of the same credit wherefore let us esteem the Tradition of the Church to be believed It is a Tradition seek no further In the fourth age S. Basil speaks thus k Lib. de Spirit sancto c. 27. The opinions which are kept and preached in the Church we have partly out of written Doctrine partly we have received by the Tradition of the Apostles brought to us in a mystery Both which have the same power to piety and no man contradicted these who hath but mean experience of Ecclesiasticall rights In the third age * Heres 61. we must use Traditions saith S. Epiphanius for all things cannot be received from divine Scripture wherefore the holy Apostles have delivered some things by Tradition even as the holy Apostle saith As I have delivered to you and elswhere so I teach and have delivered in Churches In the second age S. Irenaeus thus expostulateth * lib. 3. c. 4. But what if the Apostles neither had left Scriptures unto us ought we not to follow the order of Tradition which they delivered to them to whom they committed the Churches And in the first age S. Dennys tells us that c Areopag c. 1. Eccles Hierar those first leaders of our Priestly Office delivered to us those chief and supersubstantiall things partly in writings partly in unwritten institutions I could give plenty of proofs in all other particulars But as the cluster of grapes which was brought out of Canaan to the Israelites was a testimony of the fruit the Land brought forth Numb 13.23 So this small parcell of antiquity taken out of their great store is proof sufficient that the most antient Church even in all the first ages and the Scripture it selfe in the judgement of those Fathers did teach the same Doctrines that the Roman Church now doth and hath had a perpetuall and uninterrupted succession in those Doctrines and her Pastors and is therefore the self-same Church with the Apostles A thing fore-told by Daniel who cals it a Kingdom which shall never be dissolved Dan. 7.14 And in which the Maxime of wise Gamaliel is verified if this counsell or work be of men it will come to nought but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it Act. 5.38 39. § 9. But among the Protestant Churches I found no such thing neither Antiquity in their Doctrine but contrariwise their Doctrine condemned by Antiquity as I have shewed before nor yet in the bodie of their Professors And though they alledge some places of the Fathers in proof of their Doctrines yet they corrupt the meaning as may easily appear to those that divesting themselves of all interest can and will indifferently examine the places who shall find that they make not for them Nor indeed can they for my former alledged reason namely that if Antiquity had understood them so to wit in the Protestant sense some or other would either have reproved them for so frequently elswhere affirming the Roman Doctrines as Protestants confess they did as I have shewed or for affirming those Protestant doctrines which were contradictory to them which seeing they did not 't is manifest they believed no such contradictions in their writings but understood those places which Protestants alledge as Catholiques now doe as making nothing to the Protestants purpose But for their Catholique doctrines it is manifest that they cannot be interpreted to comply with the Protestant Religion for if they could why do the most learned Protestants accuse them of Popery It is a rule of * De doct Christ lib. 3. cap. 25. 26. S. Augustine in the interpretation of Scripture which is also as proper for the Fathers and agreeable to reason that where there are many cleer places on the one side and some few obscure places on the other the obscure must give place to the cleer and be reduced to an agreement with them in meaning which rule if it be observed it will easily appeare whether the Fathers were of the Roman or the Protestant Church As for the Antiquity of the body of the Professors of the Protestant religion it whom the antient Apostolicall Church hath her resurrection which like Epimenid◠they say fell asleep when she was yong and waked not till she was old no man knowing what was become of her in the mean while I could not indeed find i◠more antient than some very old men somewhat above sixscore yeares old Pa◠that died in England but few years agoe might have been grandfather to the Religion or at least elder brother to the Father thereof Martin Luther who in the year 1517. like a prodigious Comet began to appear and ingendring with the devill blasted the beauty of the Spouse of Christ and filled the Christian world with Heresie and bloud And in the year 1529. Luther and his Disciples received the name of Protestants from their Protestation and Appeal from the decree of the Diet of Spira in which title the nation of England I think doth more triumph than any of Luthers ofspring And whereas they do pretend some of them to have alwaies had a Being before that time it will fitly be examined in the next mark of the Church which is visibility For the maxime of law will hold good in this case IDEM EST NON ESSE ET NON APPARERE it is all one not to be and not to appear For the present seeing no more of them than yet we doe we may speak to them in the words of Tertullian * Tertul. de praescript 17. QUI ESTIS VOS UNDE ET QUANDO VENISTIS who are you from whence and when came you for either they are as young as Luthers Apostasie or else older than Christ and his Apostles even Jewes and so old that the mark is quite worn out of their mouth CHAP. XIII Of visibility the
not in the setling thereof fill their hands with blood And by Rebellion and unutterable cruelties propagate as they thought the Gospell of peace The Kingdome of England only excepted where the change was made by the Princes Which change not having gon far enough from the Catholique Roman Religion the people having got the sword into their hands doe now attempt according to the patern of all their fellow Protestants to make a second Reformation with such witty Rebellion and cruelty the only things wherin they did ever excercise any wit that as no posterity wil be able to imitate so no posterity will keep it silent but blazon it throughout the world to their eternall infamy when the Religion their Idoll to whom they sacrifice all this humane blood shall be sunk from whence it came to hell CHAP. XVI Of the sixth Mark of the true Church viz. Miracles And that there are no true Miracles among Protestants § 1. ANother mark of the Church is Miracles of which our Saviour saith John 14.10 He that believes in me the works that I doe he shall do and greater of which words the marginall notes of the English Bibles printed Anno 1576. say This is referred to the whole Body of the Church in whom this vertue doth shine for ever And againe Christ saith Mar. 16.17.18 These signes shall follow them that believe in my name they shall cast out devills they shall speak with new tongues they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover In so much that S. Augustine Cont. Ep. Fund c. 4. reckons this amongst many things forementioned that holds him in the Churches bosome saying The consent of people and nations retaines me the authority begun by Miracles nourished by hope increased by charity confirmed by antiquity retaines me the succession of Prelates since the Sea of Peter to whom our Lord consigned the feeding of his sheep after his resurrection to the present Bishops Sea retaines me finally the very name of Catholique retains me which not without cause this Church alone amongst so many so great heresies hath so maintained as when a stranger asks where they assemble to communicate in the Catholique Church there is no heretique that dares shew him his own Temple or his own house § 2. Now concerning Miracles the Protestants say that they are ceased and it is true to wit amongst them since they ceased to be members of the true Church and is therefore a signe that they have ceased to be so For this promise hath no limitation of time but is to continue for ever in the Church Nor do they prove the contrary by Scripture and if they cannot prove it by Scripture according to their own principles they are not to be believed And whereas some do alledge Fathers and Schoolmen to prove that Miracles are ceased they ought to distinguish and to know that there are two manners of being of Miracles to wit ordinary and extraordinary concerning which three things are affirmed First that in the Primitive Church Miracles were absolutly necessary for the planting of the Gospell in the world John 5.36 Acts 4.29.30 and then the gift of Miracles was ordinarily annexed to the ministry of preaching so that most Christians commonly had that gift in one kind or other 1 Cor. 12.28 Acts 8.17 Secondly that since the planting of the Gospell by 12. fishermen which was the Miracle of Miracles no further Miracle is absolutely necessary for men to whom this is known and therefore the gift of miracles is ceased to be ordinarily annexed to the office of preaching or common almost to all Christians as before it was Thirdly notwithstanding this in all ages there were are and ever shal be some speciall places and persons extraordinarily endued with the gift of Miracles for the comfort of Christians and conversion of remote nations to whom the same of the first miraculous planting of our Religion is not come And of Miracles of this kind c Aug. de civit lib. 22. c. 8. Greg. Dial. the writings of the Fathers and all Christian histories are full in so much that S. Augustine having mentioned many Miracles saith what shall I do I am not able to remember all that I know and doubtlesse sundry of ours when they read these will grieve that I have omitted so many which likewise they know aswell as I. And concludes that it would require many books to set downe the Miracles of healing done onely at the monument of S. Stephen * Beda hist l. 1. c. 26. Many Miracles also were done by S. Augustine the Monk who being sent from Pope Gregory above a thousand yeares ago converted the Kingdome of England the third time to the Roman Catholique faith Yea many Miracles were done in severall ages and severall places by Roman Catholiques by the confession of Protestant writers themselves In so much that the Centurists of Magdeburg do make report thereof in their 13. Chapter of every severall Century for thirteen hundred years after Christ out of the credible writers of those severall times In particular e Antonius 3. part Hi◠tit 23. 24. S. Francis S. Dominick and other holy men about their times did abound in Miracles also S. Katherine of Sienna and S. Bernard who being a Roman Catholique is yet acknowledged by f De Ecclés p. 369. post med Whitaker for a true Saint So did g Hackluit Navigat vol. 2. part 2. p. 88. Hartwell of the Kingdome of Congo in the Epist S. Xaverius in his conversion of the Indies of late yeares and many other Romish Priests in the conversion of the Kingdome of Congo in Africa and the same so credible that they are published to the world by Protestants themselves I will instance in some few that have been done in confirmation of some particular points of the Roman Faith Concerning Prayers to Saints S. Augustine de civit Dei l. 22. c. 8. saith that a devout woman called Palladia being diseased did in the presence of him and others pray to S. Stephen at his monument and was presently made whole Concerning Images Eusebius l. 7. c. 14. reports that the woman mentioned in the Gospell whom our Saviour cured of a bloody-flux by the touch of the hem of his garment erected the Image of our Saviour at the foot whereof there sprang up an herb which when it grew so high as to touch the bottome of the garment of the Image had power to cure all diseases c De passione imaginis Christi in Berito alledged in the 2 Councell of Nice Act. 4. Athanasius also and d De gloria Martyr l. 1. c. 22. Gregorius Turonensis make mention that upon violence offered by the Jewes to the Image of Christ blood did miraculously issue from thence The Miracles done by the signe of the Crosse by report of the Fathers are almost infinite in
by the zealous complaints against sin on either side for zealous complaint is hyperbolicall even in holy Scripture But it is manifest that the Protestant Religion hath not that sanctity of life in it that the Catholique hath when neither the founders thereof had any at all nor the followers any more but much lesse than when they were Catholiques In fine compare the lives of Roman Catholiques and Protestants both Clergie and Laity and of the same Nation for that some Nations perhaps are addicted to vice in generall more than others and every Nation to some one or few particular vices more than another the best to the best and the major part to the major part we shall find so have I done and I have heard even Protestants themselves confesse that they are exceedingly overballanced by the Catholiques CHAP. XIX Of the tenth and last here mentioned Mark of the Church viz. That the true Church hath never been separated from any society of Christians more antient then her selfe § 1. THe last Mark of the Church which I will mention is her never going forth out of any visible society of Christians elder than her self of which going out as a note of error and falshood the Apostles say They went forth from us 1 Joh. 2.19 Certain that went forth from us Acts 15.14 Out of your selves shall arise men speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 These are they that separate themselves Jude vers 19. Certain it is that the true Church is most antient as truth it self is elder than falshood if therefore there have risen in the Church men of indifferent judgements or affections from the true Church they have presently made a separation gone out of the Church wherein they were and erected a new Church to themselves As S. Augustine saith Tract 3. in Ep. Joan. de Sym. ad cateth l. 1. c. 5. All Heretiques went out from us that is they go out of the Church and againe The Church Catholique fighting against all Heresies may be opposed but she cannot be overthrowne all heresies are come out from her as unprofitable branches out from the Vine but she remaines in her vine in her root in her charity A vain thing therefore it is for Protestants to charge the Church of Rome with departing from the Word of God and the Doctrine of the Apostles unlesse they can prove that she departed from some former Church that held other doctrine than she doth But certain it is that this cannot be proved seeing she was planted by the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and never separated her self from any precedent Church It is true indeed that there were Churches elder than she in time as she is a particular Church as the Church of Ierusalem where the Gospell was first preached and of Antioch where S. Peter was first Bishop with other Churches in Asia but these all agreed in the unity of Faith and were all subject to the Church of Rome after it was planted in union under the head thereof S. Peter and his successors as I shall shew by and by And the Church of Rome did never seperate from any of these but many of these from her in the Heresie of Arius and others as Protestants will not deny If then she did never separate from any elder Church so that men might say here is a Church and there is the Church of Rome once the same with her and now separated from her she must still be the first and true Church or there is none upon earth But certain it is on the contrary side that all the former Churches which Protestants themselves will call Heretiques as Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Entychians Donatists with many others did separate from the Church of Rome and she can tell when and why and no lesse certain is it that all that are now called Protestants and all the pedigree of their fore-fathers Waldo Wickliffe Husse Luther Calvin and all the Kingdomes wherein their followers are were once and first of the Roman Catholique Church and have forsaken her Communion and departed from her and have not joyned to any other Church more antient and subsistent apart from her by which shee was condemned of novelty and separation nor are they able to shew any such Church therefore the Roman must needs be the true Church Or else which is a most absurd and impossible imagination the true Church hath been utterly extinguished and revived againe and that not by the service of such men as proved their calling by miracles or sanctity of life as Roman Catholiques have done to all the nations they have converted but were men notable only for their wickednesse And these amongst many others which might be added and of which much more might be said are those infallible Markes that prove the Church of Rome and those that communicate with her to bee the one true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church That Church of whose infallible and never-erring Judgement the Scripture assures us calling it The ground and pillar of truth which hath the Spirit of God to lead it into all truth which is built upon a rock against which the gates of hell shal not prevaile wherein Christ placed Apostles Prophets Doctors and Pastors to the consummation and ful perfection of the whole body that in the mean time we be not carryed away with every blast of doctrine 1 Tim. 3.15 John 16.13 Mat. 16.18 Ephes 4.11.12 That Church which whatsoever it says God commands us to doe and he that will not is an heathen and a Publican which whatsoever shee shall bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatsoever shee shall loose one earth is loosed in heaven which is the spouse of Christ his body his lot Kingdome and inheritance given him in this world Math. 23.3 and 18.17.18 Of which S. Cyprian Epist 55. saith To S. Peters chaire and the principall Church infidelity or false faith cannot have accesse And S. Hierome Apol. advers Ruff. l. 3. c. 4. That the Roman faith commanded by the Apostles cannot be changed And S. Gregory Nazianzen Carm. de vita sua 'Old Rome from antient times hath the right faith and alwaies keepeth it as it becomes the city which over-rules the world Which being so what remaines to every man but laying aside endlesse dispute about particulars to cast himself into the armes of this Holy mother Church and wholly rely upon her infallible judgement wherein Christ Jesus her husband hath promised and hath reason to preserve her And to submit themselves to the visible head thereof the Pope of Rome of whose authority as I did my self particularly enquire and was moved thereby so I will briefly propound it to others CHAP. XX. That the Pope is the head of the Church § 1. THe Protestants doe usually blaspheme the Pope and Sea of Rome with the title of Antichrist of the Whore of Babylon of the Mother of Abominations of the Beast with seven heads and ten hornes and many other like courteous compellations
thereof Mark 14.23 But the second All is restrained to all the Apostles what reason then is there to extend the former words further then to all the Apostles And the reason why Christ said drink yee all of this and did not say eat ye all of this was not as Protestants vainly imagine because Christ fore-saw that some would deny the use of the Chalice to the Communicants but that the first to whom our Saviour gave the cup and so the rest untill the last were to know that they were not to drink all but were to leave so much as might suffice for them or him that was to drink after without new filling and consecration Which forme of words he used most plainely a little before the supper of the Pasche for as S. Luke saith Luke 22.17 Taking the chalice he gave thanks and said take it and divide it amongst you whereas breaking the bread himselfe and giving to every one his part and not the whole to be divided amongst them there was no such necessity of the said words § 6. As for the words of our Saviour doe this in remembrance of me they doe no waies infer a precept of receiving in both kinds First because our Saviour said these words absolutely only of the Sacrament in the forme of bread but in the forme of wine only conditionally doe this as oft as ye shall drink in remembrance of me not commanding them to drink but in case they did drink which was lawfull and usuall in those times but not so now as I shall shew by and by that then they should doe it in memory of Christ So that this precept do this being the only precept given by Christ to his Church concerning this matter and given absolutely of the forme of bread conditionally of the form of wine there is no colour to accuse the Church of doing against Christs precept by communion under one kind only S. Augustine saith Epist 1 18. that Our Lord did not appoint in what order the Sacrament of the Eucharist was to be taken afterward but left authority unto the Apostles to make such appointments by whom he was to dispose and order his Churches But suppose Christ had spoken these imperative words doe this after the giving of the cup yet are they to be understood with restriction to those things that belong to the essence and substance of this action for if we extend it further to the accidentary circumstances thereof in which Christ did then institute and give the Sacrament many absurdities will follow For by this rule we must alwaies celebrate the Eucharist after supper and in unleavened bread the receivers must take it into their hands and the Priest must wash the feet of those to whom he administers it with the like Now seeing to bind men to these circumstances of our Saviours action is in all mens judgements very absurd we must not extend the precept doe this to the said or the like circumstances but acknowledge that the precept includes only the doing of that which pertaines to the substance of the Sacrament of which kind communion in both kinds cannot be it being also a circumstance the substance thereof being intire in one only kind as hath been proved So that the Protestants wrangling thus for the cup doe but fulfill in themselves though in a different sense the prophecy of Isaiah ERIT CLAMOR IN PLATEIS SUPER VINO there shall be crying for wine in the streets Isay 24.11 Thus it appeares that Communion in both kinds is not of the essence or integrity of the Sacrament nor necessary by any divine precept from whence it followes that as a thing indifferent it may be permitted or restrained according as the wisedome of the Church shall think fit For the precinct of humane power streacheth to things indifferent and only to them Things absolutely commanded man cannot forbid things absolutely forbidden man cannot command and therefore the territory of humane legislative power must be in things indifferent or else there is none at all which is against Scripture reason and the most generall beleef and practise of mankind The Apostles practised this power upon the Gentiles by imposing upon them a new law of abstinence for a time from things offered to Idolls and blood and that which is strangled Acts 15.29 which yet Christ himself never imposed but left it indifferent whereas after the Apostles decree it became necessary wherefore it is said that S. Paul walked through Syria and Cilicia confirming the Churches commanding them to keep the precepts of the Apostles and Elders Acts 15.41 § 7. Now the reasons moving the Church to restrain communion to one kind were many and weighty First to prevent thereby the occasion of error for whereas in the primitive Church the use of one or both kinds was indifferently practised as is apparent by testimonies of antiquity yea by the example of the Apostles Acts 2.42 and our Saviour himselfe Luke 26.30 yet when as the Manichean heretiques rose b see Aug. lib. de haer c. 46. Leo Serm. 4. de Quadrag who abstained from wine as a thing in it selfe unlawfull to be drunk and by consequence abstained from it also in the Sacrament holy Bishops did hereupon much commend the use of the chalice But this error being extinguished and another arising c Aeneas Silvius hist Bohem capt 3.5 against the integrity of Christ under either kind as also avouching the absolute necessity of both the Church of God hereupon began more universally to practise communion under one kind and withall in declaration of the truth and for prevention of Schisme did absolutely decree the lawfulnesse thereof with prohibition to the contrary So in more antient times when the Ebionites taught unleavened bread to bee necessary in consecration of the Eucharist the Church commanded the consecration thereof to be made in leavened bread And when the heretique Nestorius denyed our Blessed Lady to be the mother of God and only to be called the mother of Christ the Church condemned him and commanded that she should be called Mother of God And the Church hath ever found this the most effectuall means for the confutation and extirpation of heresie namely by contrary decrees and practise to declare and publish the truth A second reason moving the Church to forbid the use of the cup was the deserved reverence due to this highest Sacrament in consideration whereof the Holy Fathers did appoint most diligent care to be used lest any little particle of the Host or drop of the Chalice should fall to the ground Now the multitude of Christians in laterages being very great the negligence of many in sacred things as great through the coldnesse of their zeale devotion it could not morally be possible but that frequent spilling of the blood would happen if the Chalice were to be given ordinarily to the people d Aeneas Silvius Ep. 13. de errore Bohem. Narrat de Bohem. ad Conc. Basil
miserable and endlesse end Now seeing in the opinion of all men there are but two sorts of things required in this matter that is things to be believed and things to be done and that the things to be done are consequences of the former it behoveth you in the first place to be assured of the things you ought to believe seeing as our Saviour saith Mark 16.16 that He that beleeveth not shall be damned Which words in reason cannot be understood of some one or few yea or many points of faith excluding any one but of all that our Saviour commanded to be believed according to his Commission given to his Apostles saying Goe ye therefore and teach all nations or teaching them to keep all things whatsoever I have commanded you and according to the exhortation of S. Jude to the Church in his time That ye earnestly endeavour for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints Ep. Iude v. 3. Nor can you be probably assured that you have the faith once delivered to the Saints the whole faith which the Apostles taught all nations but by examining according to your ability the pleas for it on both sides seeing it is granted by all that the Roman Faith was the true and perfect faith as the Apostle himselfe by consequence confesseth where he saith I thank my God that your faith is published throughout the whole world Rom. 1.8 And if the Church of Rome have not changed her faith as in this Treatise is proved then you that differ and separate from her must be accused of novelty and change in forsaking her doctrine and communion which formerly in your predecessors you held Your return unto both which must be the meanes in the first place to deliver you from eternity of torments and advance you to the glorious liberty and felicity of the sonnes of God And that you may do so shall be the daily prayer and endeavour of From Paris August 4. 1648. Your humble servant in Christ Iesus THO. VANE A LOST SHEEP RETURNED HOME OR The motives of the Conversion to the Catholike Faith OF THOMAS VANE CHAP. I. The introduction And that the knowledge of the meanes to arrive unto eternall life is not otherwise attaineable then by Faith grounded on the Word of God § 1. SAINT Peter the Prince of the Apostles doth thus comfort encourage and command us 1 Pet. 3.14.15 But and if you suffer for righteousnesse sake happy are ye But be not affraid of their fear neither be troubled But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meeknesse and fear § 2. This happinesse and comfort of suffering for a good cause is remarkably expressed by our Saviour in the fift of S. Matthew where the blessings of other vertues are placed in the future time that they that mourne shall be comforted they that are mercifull shall obtain mercy and so of the rest but of the poore in spirit and of the poore absolutely as S. Luke hath it ch 6.20 and of those that suffer for righteousnesse sake it is affirmed in the present time that theirs is the Kingdome of God Mat. 5.10 the other Beatitudes are but in reversion but this in present possession § 3. And this by the mercy of God I feele in my selfe for heaven is more the joy then the place and this joy because God thinks it not fit as yet to call me to it he hath sent to mee so that I can say with S. Paul Rom. 5.3 I glory in tribulation The Apostles encouragement to abandon feare and to sanctifie the Lord I will by his grace daily put in practice But my present undertaking is the Apostles command to give an answer to every one that asketh me a reason of the hope and faith from whence the hope springs that is in mee and this with the enjoyned circumstances of meeknesse towards men and the feare of God § 4. And as some men here have asked me a reason so if I were in England I assure my selfe many more would do so and having heard of my change do aske one another and that with as much wonder and sorrow as beliefe thereof To these therefore and to all other both Catholiques and Protestants I give this ensuing answer for satisfaction To Catholiques that they may quit all feare of my recoyling to Protestants that they may be invited to follow my example which though it be founded in an unworthy person yet in so glorious an action as coming to the bosome of the Catholike Church they have no reason to disdaine to follow me § 5. In this affaire it is much more easie to find an entrance then an end For what time since the beginning of Christian Religion what place what thing doth not bear witnesse to the Catholike Faith Solomon saith Cant. 4.4 that the neck of the Spouse the Church is like the Tower of David builded for an armory whereon there hang a thousand shields a thousand arguments of defence of the Catholike Doctrines which the many excellent bookes of controversie written both by those of our own and other Nations doe most abundantly declare It shall therefore suffice me to say only so much as may witnesse that I did not make this change without sufficient Motives wherein I will make choice of a little of much and say as much as I can in a little § 6. Entring then into a serious consideration of the end for which I and all men were created to wit the glory of God and our owne eternall happinesse and of the knowledge of the meanes to attaine thereunto I found that by the consent of all Christians this was not to be gotten by cleer evident sight nor by humane discourse founded on the principles of reason nor by reliance upon authority meerly humane but only by Faith grounded on the word of God revealing unto men things that are otherwise only known to his infinite wisedome Secondly that God revealed all these things to Jesus Christ and he to his Apostles as he saith John 15.15 All things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you and this partly by word of mouth but principally by the immediate teaching of the holy Spirit to the end that they should deliver them unto mankind to be received believed and obeyed over the whole world even to the end thereof as he saith Math. 28.19 Goe teach all nations Thirdly that the Apostles did accordingly preach to all nations as S. Mark saith Chap. 16.20 They going forth preached everywhere And planted an universall Christian company charging them to keepe inviolably and to deliver unto their posterity what they had received of them the first messengers of the Gospel as S. Paul saith to Timothy 2 Tim. 2.2 The things that thou hast heard of me amongst many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who may instruct others Fourthly that
power thereof to be extinguished by permitting damnable errors in the whole Church and that soon after his departure as some Protestants say and not to recover light for twelve or fourteen hundred years together especially considering there was no possible meanes for any man to know the contrary there was no society of men that taught otherwise and if at any time there started up any they were condemned of error by all their fellow Christians and in processe of time melted from the face of the earth The Scripture if that were the means as Protestants pretend not being printed the invention of Printing not being in the world till about two hundred years ago and the Bibles that were written being but few by reason of the great labour of writing them and those that were not purchaseable but by few because of their price nor legible but by fewer because they were not printed but written and lastly not to be knowne to be the Word of God as I have shewed before but by the testimony of those men who they say were corrupted who having corrupted the doctrine might with much more ease have extinguished or corrupted the Text and made them speak what they pleased it being known to far fewer than the doctrine was it being difficult to obtaine uncertain whether it were right and very obscure in its meaning so that if they had been guilty of changing the Apostles doctrine they could easily have razed out all those places which Protestants urge against them and so have prevented the strange and notable discovery that the Protestants think they have made of their errors And if they say that God by his providence preserved the Scripture both from extinction and corruption may not we much more reasonably say having warrant for it out of the Scripture also whereas they have no warrant for the preservation of the Text that God by the same providence did and will alwaies preserve his Church from corruption which is a thing much more easily known than the Scripture consisting of a living multitude can expresse it self more plainly This infallibility in the mouth and Tradition of the Church the Prophet assureth Esa 59.21 My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from hence forth for ever And therfore S. Augustine saith Aug. Ep. 118. that to dispute against the whole Church is insolent madnesse § 4. To know divine and supernaturall truth by the light and lustre of the doctrine belongs to the Church triumphant Inward assurance without an externall infallible ground is proper to Prophets and Apostles the first publishers of Religion and seeing that God doth not now instruct either of these waies as I have shewed but by an externall infallible ground and this being the Tradition of the Church it followes that he must preserve it from error and likewise render the Church it selfe alwaies conspicuous that it may be discerned by sensible markes of which we shall speake anon And he is also bound by his providence to assist men in the finding out of this Church when they apply their best diligence thereunto that so they be not deceived And whereas some of the more learned Protestants say that though they have no infallible ground besides the teaching of the Spirit yet they are not taught immediatly by propheticall manner because they are also taught by an externall probable though not infallible motive to wit the Churches tradition I conceive that except they assigne an externall infallible meanes besides Gods inward teaching they cannot avoid the challenging of immediate revelation For whosoever knowes things assuredly by the inward teaching of the Spirit without an externall infallible motive unto which he doth adhere is assured prophetically though he have some externall probable motives to direct his belief S. Peter had some come conjecturall signes of Symon Magus his preversenesse and incorrigible malice yet seeing he knew it assuredly we believe he knew it by the light of prophecy because beside inward assurance he had no externall infallible ground If one see a man give almes publiquely though he see probable signes and tokens that he doth it out of vaine glory yet cannot he be sure thereof but by the light of immediate revelation because the other tokens are not grounds sufficient to make him certain For if a man be sure and have no certain ground of this assurance out of his own heart it is cleer that he is assured immediately and only by Gods inward inspiration Wherefore Protestants if they will disclaime immediate revelation in deed not in words only they must either grant Tradition to be infallible or else assigne some externall infallible ground besides Tradition whereby they are taught what Scriptures the Apostles delivered Lastly I was perswaded of the Churches infallibility in her Traditions and Doctrines because she is endowed with the power of miracles which wheresoere they are which I shall hereafter examine do both prove that that society of Christians is the true Church and that that Church is infallible in all that she proposes as the Word of God And the reason is because God who is truth it self cannot set his hand and seal that is miracles and works proper to himself to warrant and authorize a falshood invented by men Against which * Feild lib. 3. cap 15. Whites Reply p 216. Protestants object and say that miracles are only probable and not sufficient testimonies of divine doctrine alleadging Bellarmine who saith we cannot know evidently that miracles are true for if we did we should know evidently that our faith is true and so it should not be faith To which may be answered that such evidence as doth exclude the necessity of pious affection and reverence to Gods Word evidence that considering the imperfection of humane understanding may enforce men to believe cannot stand with true faith If we know by Mathematicall or Metaphysicall evidence that the miracles done in the Church were true this evidence would compell men to believe and to overcome the naturall obscurity and seeming impossibility of the Catholique Doctrine therefore as Bellarmine saith we cannot be Mathematically and altogether infallibly sure by the light of nature that miracles are true Notwithstanding it cannot be denied in reason what our Saviour affirmes that miracles are a sufficient testimony binding men to believe the very works that I do do bear witnesse of me that the Father hath sent me Joh. 5.36 and consequently that we may know them to be true by Physicall evidence as we are sure of things we see with our eyes and handle with our hands as S. John saith 1 Epist 1.1 what we have seen with our eyes what we have beheld and our hands have handled of the word of life Or we may be as sure of Miracles as we are of such things as
being once evident to the world are by the worlds full report declared unto us which is a morall infallibility So that if we have not a Metaphysicall or Mathematicall infallibility of the truth of Miracles yet we have a Physicall and morall infallibilitie as much as we have of any thing we either hear or see Nor doth this Physicall evidence take away the merit of faith because this evidence not being altogether and in the highest degree infallible in it self for our senses may somtimes be deceived it is not sufficient to conquer the naturall obscurity darknesse and seeming falshood of things to be believed upon the testimony of those miracles For the mystery of the Trinity of the Incarnation Reall presence and the like seem as far above the reach of reason as any Miracle can seem evident to sense hence when faith is proposed by Miracles there ariseth a conflict betwixt the seeming evidence of the Miracles and the seeming falshood and darknesse of Catholique Doctrine against which obscurity a man cannot get the victory by the sole evidence of miracles except he be inwardly assisted by the light of Gods Spirit moving him by pious affection to cleave to the Doctrine which is by so cleer testimony proved to be his Word Even as a man shut up in a chamber with two lights whereof the one makes the wall seem white the other blew cannot be firmly assured what colour it is untill day-light enter and obscuring both those lights discover the truth so a man looking upon Christian Doctrines by the light of miracles done to prove them will be moved to judge them to be truth but looking upon them through the evidence of their seeming impossibilities unto reason they will seem false nor will he be able firmly to resolve for the side of faith untill the light of divine grace enter into his heart making him prefer through pious reverence to God the so-proposed authority of his Word before the seeming impossibility to mans reason CHAP. VII That Catholique Tradition is the onely firm foundation and motive to induce us to beleeve that the Apostles received their doctrine from Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ from God the Father And what are the meanes by which this doctrine is derived downe to us § 1. AS Catholique Tradition is infallible in it self so is it most necessary for us there being no other certaine testimony to any prudent man no firme ground or motive to believe that the Primitive Church received her doctrine from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God nor no way to bring it downe from those times to these but only the Tradition of the Church For we may observe three properties of the doctrine of faith to be true to be revealed of God to be preached and delivered by the Apostles The highest ground by which a man is persuaded that his faith is true is the authority of God speaking and revealing it the highest proof by which a man is assured that his faith is revealed is the authority of Christ and his Apostles who delivered the same as descending from God but the highest ground that moveth a man to believe that his faith was preached by the Apostles is the perpetuall Tradition of the Church succeeding the Apostles unto this day assuring him so much according to the saying of * De praescr c. 21. 37. Tertullian who maketh this ladder of belief in this sort what I believe I received from the present Church the present from the Primitive the Primitive Church from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God and God the prime verity from no other fountaine different from his own infallible knowledge So that he that cleaveth not to the present Church firmely believing the Tradition thereof as being come down by succession is not so much as on the lowest step of the ladder that leads unto God the revealer of saving truth successive Tradition unwritten being the last and finall ground whereon we believe that the points of our belief came from the Apostles which may be proved by these arguments § 2. First if the maine points of faith be to be believed to come from the Apostles because they are written in Scriptures and the Scriptures are believed to be the Word of God upon the report of universall Tradition then our belief that the things which we believe come from the Apostles and from God resteth upon the Tradition of the Church but it is most certaine that the Scriptures cannot be proved to have been delivered unto the Church by the Apostles but by the perpetuall Tradition unwritten conserved in the Church succeeding the Apostles all the other waies by which the Protestants endeavour to prove the Scripture to be the word of God being vaine and insufficient as I have proved before Secondly common and unlearned people which comprehend the greatest part of Christians may have true faith yet they cannot have it grounded on the Scripture for they can neither understand nor read it or if read it yet but in a vulgar language of the truth of whose translation they are not assured therefore must rely upon the testimony of the present Church that that which they believe is the Word of God Thirdly if all the maine and substantiall points of Christian faith must be believed before we can securely read and truly understand the holy Scripture than they are believed not upon Scripture but upon Tradition going before Scripture and that it is so is manifest because true faith is not built but upon Scripture truly understood according to the right sense thereof nor can we understand the Scripture aright unlesse we first know the main Articles of Faith which all are bound expresly to believe by which as by a rule we must regulate our selves in the interpretation of the Scripture otherwise without being setled in the rule of faith by Tradition men are apt to fall into grievous errors even against the main articles of the faith as of the Blessed Trinity and Incarnation of the Son of God as experience doth sufficiently testifie so that reading and interpreting Scripture doth not make men Christians but supposeth them to be made so by Tradition at least for the main points such as every one is bound expresly to know Fourthly they to whom the Apostles wrote and delivered the Scripture were already converted to Christianity and instructed in all necessary points of faith and in the common practises of Christianity and so by what they knew by Tradition could easily interpret what was written but otherwise might easily have failed in the mainest points as some forsaking Tradition did for example the Arrians who were confuted by the Catholiques not by bare Scripture for of that the Arrians had plenty but as it was interpreted by Tradition Therefore none can be supposed to understand the Scripture aright so to know the true word and will of God but by being such as they were to whom the Apostles
faith were delivered to them by the Apostles to the Apostles by Christ to Christ by God the fountain of all truth CHAP. IX That there is and ever shall be a visible Church upon earth And that this Church is one holy Catholique and Apostolique § 1. NOw considering all that hath been said before the summe whereof is this That we have no meanes to know certainly the doctrines of the Apostles but only the Tradition of the Church and that that Tradition is and ought to be infallible hence I conceived that this consequence was necessary that there should be and is alwaies a visible Church in the world to whose Traditions men might cleave and that this Church is one universall Apostolicall Holy First there is alwaies a true Church of Christ in the world for if there be no meanes for men to know that Scriptures and all other Articles came from Christ and his Apostles and so consequently from God but the Tradition of the Church then there must needs be in all ages a Church receiving and delivering these Traditions else men in some age since Christ should have been destitute of the ordinary meanes of salvation because they had no meanes to know assuredly the doctrines of Christianity without assured faith whereof no man can be saved And although a false Church may deliver the true Word of God as it is contained in the Scripture and the Creed yea even a Jew or Heathen may do so for this is but casuall yet none but a true Church can deliver the Word of God with assurance to the receiver that the text is incorrupt thereby binding him to the belief thereof Now it is necessary that men have the true Scripture not only casually but they must be sure the Text thereof be uncorrupt therefore there must be a true unerring Church whose authority is so aut hentique that it is a sufficient warrant for men to believe the doctrine shee delivers to come from the Apostles Secondly this Church must be alwaies visible and conspicuous For the Traditions of the Church must ever be famous and most notoriously known in the world that a Christian may truly say with S. Augustine De utilit Cred. c. 14. I believe nothing but the consent of Nations and Countries and most celebrious fame Now if the Church were at any time invisible or very secret and hidden then could not her Traditions be famously known nor could men that were willing to submit themselves to her directions know where to find her out of whose communion they cannot attain salvation Thirdly this Church is Apostolicall that is derived from the Apostolicall Sea by the succession of Bishops and Pastors for else how can we be assured that we have the Apostles doctrine It must be one generation that must certifie another and if there should be any interruption in that time all might be lost and changed And how could the Tradition of Christian Doctrine be notoriously Apostolicall if the Church delivering the same hath not a manifest and conspicuous pedigree and derivation from the Apostles Which is a convincing argument used by S. Augustine Epist 48. circa med How doe we trust out of the divine writings that we have manifestly received Christ if we have not also from thence manifestly received his Church The Church that hath a lineall succession of Bishops from the Apostles famous and illustrious whereof not one hath been opposite in Religion to his immediate predecessor proves evidently that this Church hath the Doctrine of the Apostles For as in the rank of three hundred stones ranged in order if no two stones be found in that line of different colour then if the first be white the second is white and so the rest unto the last even so if there be a succession of three hundred Bishops all of the same Religion if the first have the Religion of the Apostles and S. Peter the second hath and so the rest even unto the last Fourthly this Church is one that is all the Pastors and Preachers deliver and consequently all her Disciples and children believe one and the same Faith For if the Preachers and Pastors of the Church disagree about matters which they preach as necessary points of Faith they lose all their credit and authority for who will believe witnesses on their own words if they disagree in their testimony Fifthly I infer that this Church is universall spread over all Nations that she may be said to be every where morally speaking that is according to common humane account by which a thing diffused over a great part of the world and famously knowne is said to be every where In this manner the Apostle said that the faith of the Romans was renowned in the whole world Rom. 1.12 that so the whole world may take notice of her as of a worthy and credible witnesse of Christian Tradition howsoever her outward glory and splendour peace and tranquillity in some places and at some times be more or lesse eclipsed and shee be not alwaies in all places at once And the reason of this perpetuall visible universality is because the Tradition of the Church is the sole ordinary meanes of faith toward the Word of God This Tradition therefore must be so delivered as that it may be known to all men seeing God will have all men without exception of any nation to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth 1. Tim. 2.4 which they cannot do unlesse the Church be so diffused in the world that all known nations may take notice of her And Gods will that all men should be saved though it be but an antecedent will as Schoolemen call it yet it inferreth two things which some Protestants deny first the salvation of all men secondly the meanes of their salvation In respect of the meanes the will of God is absolute that all men in some sort or other have sufficient meanes of salvation In respect of the end to wit the salvation of all men the will of God is not absolute but as Schoolemen say virtually conditionall that is God hath a will that all men be saved as much as lies in him if the course of his providence be not intercepted and men will cooperate with his grace And the reason why some Nations hear not the Gospell and Word of God is not the defect of his Church but the want of working in the naturall causes to discover such Countries which defect God will not ever miraculously supply But if the Church were invisible to the world and hoarded up her Religion to her selfe either not daring or not willing to professe and preach the same unto others Nations may be knowne and yet the Word of God not known to them If therefore this Church should be hidden for a long time mens souls should perish not through defect in the naturall causes but only through the hiddennesse obscurity and wretchednesse of the supernaturall meanes to wit of the Church not
thing invisible and according to this notion the Catholique Church is proposed in the Creed Secondly propositions of Faith must be invisible according to the Predicate or thing believed but not alwaies according to the Subject or thing whereof we believe some other thing The things the Apostles believed of Christ to wit that he was the Son of God the Saviour of the world were things invisible but the subject and person of whom they did believe these things was visible to them yea God did of purpose by his Prophets foretell certain tokens whereby that subject might by sense be seen and discerned from all other that might pretend the name of Christ or else his comming into the world to teach the truth had been to little purpose In this sort the Predicate or thing believed in this Article the Holy Catholique Church to wit Holy is invisible but the Subject to wit the Catholique Church which we affirme and believe to be holy in her doctrine is visible and conspicuous to all Yea God hath of purpose foretold signes tokens whereby shee may by sense be cleerly discerned from all other that may pretend to the title of Catholique For were not this subject the Holy Catholique Church which we believe to be holy and infallible in her teaching visible and discernable from all other that pretend to that title of what use were it to believe that there is such an infallible teaching Church in the world hidden we know not where like a Candle under a Bushell or a needle in a bottle of hey § 3. Secondly if there must be alwaies in the world as was proved before one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church that is a Church delivering doctrines uniformly thereby making them credible universally thereby making them famously known to mankind holily so making them certain and such as that on them we may securely rely Apostolically so making them flow in the channel of a never-interrupted succession of Bisbops from the Apostles then this Church must be either the Roman or the Protestant or some other opposite to both Protestants cannot say a Church opposite to both for then they should be condemned in their own judgement and be bound to conforme themselves to that Church which can be no other but the Grecian a Church holding as many doctrines which the Protestants dislike as the Church of Rome as might easily be proved if need were It is further manifest that the Protestants are not this One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church since their revolt and separation from the Church of Rome because in that very act of separation they did extinguish all these titles for they changed the doctrines they once held they forsook the body whereof they were Members brake off from the stock of that tree whereof they were branches neither in their departure did they joyne themselves with any other Church different from the Roman professing the particular Protestant doctrines so that they made a new Church of their own not agreeing in all points of faith with any that went before neither have they which have come after them as there are very many Sects risen out of the first Protestant agreed with them And therefore there is none or the Roman is the One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church § 4. Thirdly the Protestants had the Holy Scripture from the Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church otherwise they cannot be sure that they are the true Scriptures of the Apostles because the testimony and Tradition of any other Church is fallible and may deceive them And if it may for ought they know it hath seeing they lived not in the Apostles daies thereby to make themselves certain thereof and so they will be altogether uncertain of that which they make the only object of their faith Luther cont Anab To. 7. German Ien fol. 169. whitaker de Eccles l. 3. p. 369. Now it is most certain that they had the Scriptures from the Roman Church acknowledged by Luther himselfe and also by Doctor Whitaker only they took the wicked boldnesse to cancell some parts thereof therefore they must either acknowledge that they are not sure that the Scripture is the Word of God or that the Church of Rome from whom they received it is the true Church And if the true Church hath delivered the true Text of Scripture then hath she also together with the true Text delivered the true Apostolicall sense because the Apostles themselves did not deliver to her the bare Text but with it the true sense to be delivered perpetually to posterity not by making a large and entire comment of all difficult places but by delivering with the Text the sense also about the maine and principall points So that they who by Tradition receive from the Apostles the true Text must together with it receive the true sense Now principal * Chemnit exam Cont. Trid. p. 1. fol. 74. Doctor Bancroft in the Survey p. 379. Protestants affirme the former saying No man doubteth but the Primitive Church received from the Apostles and Apostolicall men not only the Text of Scripture but also the right and native sense Which is agreeable to the Doctrine of the * Vincentius Lyrinens cap. 2. Fathers that from the Apostles together with the Text descends the line of Apostolicall interpretation squared according to the Ecclesiasticall and Catholique sense Whereupon * Aug. de util cred c. 14. S. Augustine affirms the later that they that deliver the Text of Christs Gospell must also deliver the Exposition saying that he would sooner refuse to believe Christ than learn any thing concerning him but of those by whom he was brought to believe Christ For they that can deliver by uniform Tradition a false sense may also deliver a false Text as received from the Apostles their freedome from or liablenesse to error in both being equall If therefore the Church of Rome have delivered the true Text then she hath also delivered and preserved the true sense or else we are sure of neither and so she only is the true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church or else there is none § 5. Fourthly it is granted by Protestants that the Romane Church was once the true Church and it cannot be proved that she hath changed her doctrine since the Apostles time therefore she is still the same true Church And that she hath not changed her Doctrine is thus proved the Doctrines that have continued for divers ages in the Christian Church and no time of their beginning can be assigned must needs be Doctrines descending from the Apostles and unchanged and such are the Doctrines of the Church of Rome Than the Doctrines of the Romane Church which Protestants reject have been universally received for many hundreds of years is by many learned Protestants confessed Perkins saith * Expos of the Creed p. 307. 400. during the space of nine hundred years the Popish Heresie hath spread it selfe over the whole world and
for many hundred years an universall Apostacy over-spread the whole face of the earth so that our Protestant Church was not then visible to the world Fulk saith * Treatise ag Stapleton Martiall p. 25. the Pope hath blinded the world these many hundred years some say 900. some 1000. some 1200. And * On the Revelat. p 64. Napier saith The Antichristian and Papisticall reign began about the year three hundred and sixteen after Christ which is now above 1300. years ago raigning universally without debateable contradiction Gods true Church abiding certainly hidden and latent Secondly Protestants cannot tell the time when the Church of Rome began to change and swerve from the Apostolicall doctrine therefore doubtlesse she hath never changed her faith Now that doctrines universally received although they be not written are Doctrines derived from the Apostles is affirmed by * De Baptis lib. 5. c. 23. S. Augustine and allowed by * D. sence p. 351. 352. D. Whitguift Archbishop of Canterbury who in his book against Puritanes citing divers Protestants as concurring in opinion with him saith whatsoever opinions are not knowne to have begun since the Apostles time the same are not new or secundary but received their originall from the Apostles But because this principle of Christian divinity brings in as Cartwright the Puritan there alledged speaks all Popery in the judgement of all men I will further demonstrate it though of it selfe it be cleer enough Christ by his Spirit being still present with his Church cannot permit errors in Faith so to creep into the Church as that by the very principles of Christianity they become unreformable but if errors so creep into the Church as that their beginning cannot be knowne and their progresse become universall then do they so enter and prevaile that by the principles of Christianity they are past reformation and that because whosoever undertakes to reform them is to be condemned as an Heretique for he that will undertake to reform Doctrines universally received by the Church opposeth himself against the whole Church and is therefore by a knowne and received Principle of Christianity and Christs owne precept to be accounted as a Heathen and a Publican Mat. 18.17 Epist 118. And as S. Augustine saith To dispute against the whole Church is insolent madnesse For the Church by Christ is appointed the Judge and corrector of all others as our Saviour saith Tell the Church and therefore is not to be judged nor corrected by any he that hath the high presumption to doe so presently pulls on himself the censure of a Heathen And justly too for like the Giants amongst the Poets who waged war against the Gods he doth not only oppose the present Church but the Church of all ages even the Apostles themselves and who is sufficient for these things And he begins a new course of Christianity seeking to overthrow that Doctrine which is universally received and cannot be proved by any Tradition of Ancestors to be otherwise planted in the world than by the Apostles themselves through the power of innumerable miracles Wherefore these Doctrines if they be errors are errors whose reformation no man by the principles of Christianity ought to attempt And seeing it is impossible there should be any such errors the Principle of S. Augustine stands firm That Doctrines received universally in the Church without any known beginning are truly Apostolicall and of this kind are the Roman Doctrines from which Protestants have revolted But some Protestants object that the errors of the Pharisees were universally received in the Jewish Church yet reformed by our Saviour To which may be answered that Protestants out of their desire to make Catholiques seem like the Pharisees make themselves seem as if they did not any whit understand the Gospell For the Traditions of the Pharisees were not universall Traditions but certaine practises of piety invented by themselves and deducted by their skill from Scripture whereby they would seem singularly religions and not as other men Secondly Christ Jesus proving himselfe to be true God might reforme errors universally received and the Church of the Jewes falling erect a new Church of Christians as he did which is not lawfull for any one else to doe For Christian Religion must continue to the worlds end by vertue of the first Tradition thereof and must never be interrupted without extraordinary and propheticall beginning by immediate revelation and Miracles If therefore errors be delivered by the full consent of Christian Tradition they are irreformable Again some Protestants say that one may oppose the whole Church and confute her errors by Scripture not be as an Heathen or Heretique for not every one that opposeth the Church is to be accounted an Heathen Whites Reply p. 136. but only such as inordinately and without just cause oppose it And who I pray shall judge of the justnesse of the cause By this doctrine every man is made an examiner and judge of the whole Church hellish confusion brought in thereby For if against the sentence of perpetual universal Tradition a private man may without the guilt of heresie pretend Scripture and stand obstinately therein though the Church do give seeming and appearing answers as some of them confesse to his Scripture yet condemne her answers saying they are sophisticall as some of them do what can be more disorderly or what is Hereticall obstinacy if this be not Wherefore S. Augustine saith absolutely Epist 48. it is impossible men should have just cause to depart from impugn the whole Christian Church And why but because it is a ruled case in Christianity he that heareth not the Church is an Heretike Yet notwithstanding this the Protestants doe charge the Church of Rome DE FACTO to have falne into errors and to have changed her faith and that because points of doctrine undefined about which Doctors have disputed and held different opinions have been afterwards defined by the Church so that it was not lawfull for any after that to make doubt thereof the Church by this meanes hath held in later ages that to be DE FIDE a matter of faith which the former ages did not and so say they hath changed the faith and believes and delivers more than shee received from the Apostles But this I found to be no change of faith but only a declaration of some point explicitly which was implicitly and involvedly believed before For all the Articles of faith were immediately re-revealed by Christ to his Apostles and by them againe delivered to their posterity so that since there have been no new and particular revelations but the first being laid up in the treasury of the Church for which cause S. Paul calls it a depositum a stock or pawn other truths have been deduced from thence as occasion hath required For when any one endeavours to corrupt the doctrine delivered by the Apostles the Church calls her Pastors and Doctors to
examine the matter and being infallibly assisted by the Spirit of truth which our Saviour promised should be with his Apostles to the end of the world that is with the Church their Successor which was to continue to the worlds end shee declares what is true and what is false as agreeing with or disagreeing from that doctrine which shee hath received from her Fore-fathers the Prophets and Apostles upon whom shee is built as S. Paul saith built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Ephes 2.20 For as in a building there is not the least stone which rests not upon the foundation so in the doctrine of the Catholique Church there is not the least point which is not grounded on or contained in that which was delivered by the Apostles For example in the principles of every Science are contained divers truths which may be drawn out of them by many severall conclusions one following another These conclusions were truths in themselves before though they did not so appear to us till wee saw the connexion they had with the premises and how they were contained in them And by the many severall conclusions so drawn the truth of those principles doth more shew it selfe but doth not receive any change in it selfe thereby even so in the prime principles of our faith revealed immediately by God and delivered to the Church are contained al truths that any way belong to our faith but it was not necessary that the Church should manifest all these at their first meeting in Councell but only so much in every severall Councell as should concerne the present occasion of their meeting which is some particular heresie or heresies then sprung up and so more according to the successive growth of heresies which when shee hath done shee cannot be charged with creating of a new faith or altering of the old but shee doth only out of old grounds and premises draw such conclusions as may serve to destroy new heresies and shew them to be contrary to the ancient faith In this manner the Church hath grown and increased in knowledge by degrees and shall still do so to the end of the world And as the sun spreads the raies of his light more and more betwixt morning and noon and his beames display themselves in a valley or some roome of a house where they did not before without any change of light in the sun himselfe So may the Church spread the light of her faith shewing such or such a point to be a divine truth which before was not known to be so or which though it were a divine truth in it selfe yet it was not so to us for want of sufficient proposall that is of the Churches wherein the Church resembles our Blessed Saviour her Lord and Spouse who though he never received the least increase of grace and knowledge from the first moment of his being conceived yet the Scripture saith He grew in wisdome and age and in favour with God and men Luc. 2.52 to wit because he shewed it more and more in his words and actions This also further appeares by the method which Catholique Fathers and Doctors observe in and out of Councells in proving and defining points of faith namely by having recourse to the authority of Gods Word conteined both in Scripture and Tradition and to the belief and practise of the Church in searching whereof the Holy Church joynes humane industry with Gods grace and assistance For when any question or doubt of faith ariseth particular Doctors severally dispute and write thereof then if further cause require the Holy Church assembles her Pastors and Doctors together in a generall Councell to examine and discusse the matter more fully as in that first Councell of the Apostles whereof the Scripture saith The Apostles and Elders assembled together to consider of this word Acts 15.6 The Pastors being thus come together and having the presence of our Saviour and his Holy Spirit according to his promise amongst them out of Scripture and Traditions joyning therewith the consent of holy Fathers and Doctors of foregoing times she doth infallibly resolve and determine the matter not as new but as ancient orthodox and derived from her forefathers making that which was ever in it selfe a divine truth so to appeare to us that now wee may no more make question thereof So that from hence it appeares that the Church makes no new Articles of faith such as then may be said to have their beginning but only explications and collections out of the old which were delivered to the Apostles and by them to us And though the Church doe thus grow in the knowledge of points of faith yet this is no newnesse of faith but a maintenance of the old with a kind of increase by way of explicating that which was involved cleering that which was obscure defining that which was undefined obliging men to believe more firmly and explicitly that which before they were not bound so to believe That is only to be called a new faith which is contrary to that which was held before or hath no connexion with it and when we cease to believe that which we believed before this indeed is change of faith the other is but encrease And if this encrease of faith by the declaration of Councells may be called a change and innovation of faith there is no Heretique but may challenge antiquity to himselfe and put novelty on the score of the Church For he may say such a thing for example that the Sonne is of the same substance with the Father was not held de fide a matter of faith before the Councell of Nice therefore it is new That Baptisme administred by Heretiques is good baptisme was not held as a matter of faith before the daies of S. Cyprian therefore it is new And the Heretique may say that he believes only that which was believed before such or such a Councell which he please for the case is alike in all and therefore he believes the antient Faith By which way of arguing he may renounce the decrees of all Councells as Novelties and maintaine many Heresies as the antient Faith Yea by this absurdity a man may deny divers Books of the Scripture as the Epistle to the Hebrewes the second Epistle of S. Peter the Epistle of S. Iames of S. Iude and the Apocalyps with some others because they were not admitted for Canonicall untill 300. or 400. yeares after they were written Yet when they were declared to be Canonicall there was no change of faith in the Church thereby for the believing of these Books was involved in this revealed Article I believe in God and the believing of them to be Canonicall was involved in this revealed Article I believe the holy Catholike Church onely hereby was an increase of the materiall object of our faith to us not in it selfe we being bound upon the declaration of the Church to believe that thing firmely and without dispute
which before perhaps we were not so obliged to doe § 6. A fifth argument moving me to believe that the Roman Church is the Catholique was this That doctrine which hath been delivered by Tradition as the doctrine of our Ancestors without any opposition made by any known Catholique Fathers and Doctors and if any did oppose the doctrine he was censured of Novelty and after admonition if he persisted therein was condemned of Heresie such doctrine is derived from the Apostles and unchanged and such is the doctrine of the Roman Church 'T is true indeed that divers points of the Roman doctrine have been opposed as by Arrius Pelagius Berengarius Waldo Wickliffe Husse and many others but these were not accounted orthodox Fathers but were taxed of Novelty and innovation and for such are delivered to us by Tradition and history of the times wherein they lived And it cannot be prudenty imagined that if the Church of Rome had like these men attempted to change the doctrine of the Apostles there should be no Tradition of it no historicall narration of it but that all the good and true Catholiques should be asleep to this great businesse of defending the flock from Wolves or which is more absurd should against their knowledge and conscience suffer damnable errors to steal in to the destruction of themselves and all the world that should succeed them Now the opposition of the Church in the forementioned manner is so far from obscuring the Churches doctrine that it makes it far more famous and illustrious and apparently Apostolicall even as the sun strugling with a misty morning breaking through it appears more beautifully glorious and unconquerable And this Doctor Feild a learned Protestant confesseth when a doctrine is in any age constantly delivered as a matter of faith Field of the Church l. 4. c. 14 and as received from ancestors in such sort as the contradictors thereof were in the beginning noted for novelty and if they persisted in contradiction in the end charged with heresy it is impossible but such a doctrine should come by succession from the Apostles But Protestants think it sufficient that they find as they say the Roman doctrine contradicted in the writings of orthodox Fathers though their opposition was not noted by antiquity nor by the fame of Tradition delivered to posterity But this answer leaves no meanes to common people to know certainly the perpetuall Tradition of Gods Church which is the guide of their faith but by reading and examining the Fathers which to them is impossible Besides if that some few obscure and hard passages out of the Fathers may suffice to call the Tradition of the Church into question then there is nothing so cleerly and unanimously delivered by Tradition but may fall under a new examination seeing nothing is or can be writ so plainely especially where there is very much also written but that some obscure and oblique passages may be raked out to make shew of a contradiction and if this counterpart may have the title of antiquity set over it what Heresie will want its defence out of the Fathers What Tradition was more constantly delivered by the Christian Fathers and Doctors than our Saviours Consubstantiality with his Father Yet the new Arrians as we may see in Bellarmine bring divers testimonies out of the antient Fathers Lib. 2. de Christ c. 19. to prove that in this point they contradicted themselves and one another In like manner doe the Protestants now bring some obscure places out of the Fathers in the defence of their heresies which yet in a true sense doe import no such thing but being a little obscure they more easily wrest them to their corrupted meaning But on the contrary the Fathers are abundant and cleer in those places which maintaine the Catholique doctrines and none of the Fathers of those times did accuse other of error in those points which if they had thought them so there is no doubt they would For wee cannot imagine the true believers of those times lesse vigilant than of these and we see now that no man can broach an error against faith but presently he hath abundant opposition and further questioning if the cause require Therefore it is apparent that Protestants when they alledge the Fathers as contradicting themselves and one another in the Catholique Doctrines of those times either mis-alledge their words or mistake their meaning For if those contradictions were reall why did not antiquity note them as it noted their differences about smaller disputable matters S. Hierome and Epiphanius took pains to note the errors of Origen yet amongst them all they did not note any which the Church of Rome now holds though his writings be full thereof If the sentences of the Fathers be true in the sense that Protestants alledge them why did not some charge them for maintaining the contrary Romane Doctrines a thousand times more frequently mentioned in their writings And on the other side if the Romane Doctrines were true why did not some tax them for maintaining of Protestantisme doubtlesse they would if they had understood them in the sense that Protestants now do It is manifest therefore that they that lived in those times who were therefore better able to understand their meanings than the Protestants that are sprung up so many hundred yeares after did not conceive that the Fathers maintained the Protestant doctrines in their writings for if they had they would quickly have been reproved seeing the current of Christian Religion even of those times was agreeable to the present Roman for as * Napier On the Revelat p. 191. also Cent. Mag. cent 2. c. 4. col 55. Napier saith during even the second and third ages the true temple of God and light of the Gospell was obscured by the Roman Antichrist himself And according to * Treatise of Antichrist lib. 2. c. 2. p. 25. Downeham the generall defection of the visible Church fore-told 2 Thess 2. began to work in the Apostles time § 7. On the contrary wee find in the writings of the Orthodox Fathers that the Doctrines which Protestants now hold were condemned as hereticall in those persons that then held them and they were not therein opposed by any other Orthodox Fathers For example the Protestants hold that the Church may erre so did the Donatists for which they are frequently reproved by * S. Augustine Passim cont Donat. Protestants deny unwritten Traditions urge Scripture only so did the Arrians and are condemned for it by * Epiphan Her 75. Aug. cont Maximin l. 1. c. 2. ult S. Epiphanius and S. Augustine Protestants teach that Priests may marrie so did Vigilantius and for it is condemned by * Cont. Vigilant c. 1. S. Hierome Protestants deny prayer for the dead so did Arrius for which he is condemned by * Aug. haer 53. Epiphan har 75. S. Augustine and S. Epiphanius Protestants deny invocations of Saints so did Vigilantius
for which he is condemned by S. * Hier. cont Vigil c. 3. Hierome Protestants deny reverence to Images so did Xenaias for which he is rereproved by * Hist lib. 16. c. 27. Nicephorus in these words Xenaias first O audacious soule and impudent mouth vomited forth that speech that the Images of Christ and those who have pleased him are not to be worshipped Protestants deny the reall presence so did the Capernaites who were saith * In Psal 54. 55. S. Augustine the first Heretiques that denied the reall presence and that Judas was the first suborner and maintainer of this heresie Protestants deny confession of sinnes to a Priest so did the Novatian Heretiques for which they are reproved by * Lib. de poenit c. 7. S. Ambrose So did the Montanists and are reproved by Saint * Hieron Epist ad Marcell 54. Hierome Protestants say that a man is justified by faith only so did the Pseudo-Apostles for which they are condemned by S. * De fide oper c. 14. Augustine I might increase this Catalogue by the addition of many other and make the new Protestant Religion appear but a frippery of old Heresies but these shall suffice From all which it appears that the Fathers held the same faith with the present Romane Church and that there was no opposition of Fathers against Fathers nor of any one Father against himself at least in matters of faith but that they all held the unity of the faith that they that held the contrary were by them condemned of Heresie that in bringing any places out of the Fathers to confirm their Heresies they did misinterpret them as the Protestants now do that therefore the Doctrine of the Romane Church is Apostolicall and unchanged and therefore she is the true Church CHAP. XI That the true Church may be knowne by evident marks and that such markes agree only to the Roman Church And first of Vniversality the first mark of the Church § 1. IN further pursuit of the true Church I addressed my self by the marks thereof to find it out For I accounted it vaine to try by the Scripture whether the particular doctrines of Protestants were the doctrines of the Apostles unlesse I could find their Church to be the true Church by the marks of the true Church set down in Scripture For either the Scripure can clear all controversies or it canntot if it cannot there will be no end of controversie amongst them that rely only on Scripture if it can then surely it can clear this most important one which is the true Church by the marks thereof and if so it is fit that that should be determined in the first place on which all the rest depends Ep. dedic as Doctor Feild acknowledgeth And whereas some Protestants make the truth of the doctrine to be the onely mark of the Church it is preposterous being the declaration of a thing obscure or pretended to be so by a thing more obscure in as much as to know the truth of the doctrine in all the particular instances is harder than to know the society of the Church And it is necessary to know the truth of doctrine in all the particulars before we can thereby know the true Church because if she erre in any one point of faith she thereby falls from the title of the true Church Now who is he that can boast to know the integrity of the doctrine of the Church in all the particular controversies against every society that holds the contrary by infallible proofs of Scripture and invincible answers to all their objections If any could do this who knowes not that ignorant and unlearned people of whose salvation notwithstanding God hath the same care as of the learned and to whom the marks of the Church should be equally common since they are equally obliged to obey her are not capable of this examination Cont. Ep. Fund c. 4. For the rest of the people saith S. Augustine it is not the quicknesse of understanding but the simplicity of belief that secure them Therefore it is manifest that they must have other marks to know the Church by than that of her Doctrine namely marks proportionable to their capacity to wit externall and sensible marks as eminency antiquity perpetuity with the like even as children and ignorant people must have externall and sensible marks and other than the essentiall forme of a man to know and discern a man from other living creatures Else how could S. Paul say God hath made in the Church Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors to the end we should be no more little children blown about with every wind of doctrine Ephes chap. 4. ver 11. if hee had not given us other marks to know the Church than the purity of the Doctrine Besides purity of Doctrine being the essentiall form of the Church cannot be a mark of it because they are commonly repugnant and incompatible conditions For the mark doth commonly demonstrate the thing to the sense and the essentiall form doth shew it to the understanding the mark designes the thing in existence the essentiall forme designes it in essence the mark shewes where the thing is the essentiall form teaches what it is the mark is sooner known than the thing and contrariwise the thing is sooner known than the essentiall form of the thing 1 Phys c. 1. for the thing defined as Aristotle saith is known before the definition A Mark then must have three conditions The first is to be more known then the thing since it is that which makes the thing to be known The second that the thing be never found without it The third that it be never found without the thing either alone if it be a totall mark or with its fellowes if it be a mark in part According to these conditions I found divers Marks set down in Scripture appliable only to the Church of Rome § 2. Of which the first is to be Catholique that is universall which was fore-told by the Prophet Esay saying All Nations shall flow unto it Esay 2.2 And by the Psalmist that it should have the Heathen for its inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for its possession Psal 2.2 And by our Saviour saying This Gospell of the Kingdome shall be preached in all the world for a witnesse to all Nations and then shall the end come And that repentance and remission of sinnes should be preached in his Name amongst all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Mat. 24.14 Luc. 24.47 Therefore to distinguish Christs true Church from all Hereticall Sects the Apostles in their Creed and the antient Fathers in their Writings have given her the Sirname of Catholique a name ever insisted upon by the Fathers against Heretiques no lesse than now And that the Roman Church is this Catholique Church dispersed over the whole world is manifest to all those that have either read the histories of the world or
Hier. cont Iov lib. 1. those that married together after their vowes not onely for Adulterers but also for incestuous persons That Church held the g Cyp. Cacil Ep 63. mingling of water with Wine in the Sacrifice of the Eucharist for a thing necessary and of divine and Apostolicall Tradition She held h Aug. de pecc orig cap. 40. Exorcismes Exsufflations and renuntiations which are made in Baptisme for sacred Ceremonies and of Apostolicall Tradition She besides Baptism and the Eucharist held i Aug. cont Petil lib. 3. cap. 4. Confirmation k Aug. de nupt conc c. 17. Marriage l Amb. de poenit c. 7. Penance m Leo 1. Epist or auricular Confession n Aug. cont Parm. l. 2. c. 13. Orders and Extreme-Vnction for true proper Sacraments which are the seven Sacraments which the Church of Rome now acknowledgeth That Church in the Ceremonies of Baptisme used o Cyp. Epist 70. Oyl p Conc. Carth. 3. c. 5 Salt q Gr. Naz. de Bapt. Wax-lights r Aug. Ep. 101. Exorcismes the ſ Aug. cont Iul. lib. 6. cap. 8. sign of the Crosse a Amb. de Sacra l. 1. word Ephata and other things that accompany it none of them without reason and excellent signification She also held b Aug. de an ejus orig l. 3. c 15 Baptisme for infants of absolute necessity and for this cause permitted c Tertul. de Bapt. Lay-men to baptize in the danger of death That Church used Holy Water consecrated by certain words and ceremonies and made use of it both for d Basil de S. Spirit c. 17. Baptisme and e Epiph. har 30. against Inchantments and to make f Theod. hist Eccles l. 5. c. 3. Exorcismes and conjurations against evill spirits That Church held divers degrees in the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to wit g Concil Lacd c. 24. Conc. Carth. 4. c. 2. Bishops Priests Deacons Sub-Deacons the Acolyte Exorcist Reader and the Porter consecrated and blessed them with divers forms and ceremonies And in the Episcopall Order acknowledged divers seats of Jurisdiction of positive right to wit Archbishops Primates Patriarchs and h Hieron ad Damas Ep. 57. Concil Chal. Ep. ad Leon. one super-eminent by divine Law which was the Pope without whom nothing could be decided appertaining to the universall Church and the want of whose presence either by himself or his Legats or his Confirmation made all Councells pretended to be universall unlawfull In that Church their service was said throughout the i Hier. praef in Paralip East in Greek and throughout the k Aug. Ep. 57. de doct Christ l. 2. c. 13. West as well in Africa as Europe in Latine although that in none of the Provinces except in Italy and in the Cities where the Romane Colonies resided the Latine tongue was understood by the common people She also observed the distinction of k Aug. Ep. 118. Psa 63. 83. Feasts and ordinarie daies the distinction of l Hier. ad Helis Ep. 3. Theod. hist Ec. l. 2. c. 27 Ecclesiasticall and Lay habits the m Optat. l. 1. p. 19. reverence of sacred vessels the custome of n Theod. hist l. 5. c. 8. Isod de Diu. Off. l. 1. c. 4. shaving and o Greg. Naz. de pac or 1. unction for the collation of Orders the ceremony of the p Cyrill Hier. Cac. Mart. 5. Priest washing his hands at the Altar before the consecration of the mysteries q Concil Lacd c. 13. pronounced a part of the Service at the Altar with a low voice made r Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 22. c. 8. processions with the Reliques of Martyrs ſ Hier. cont Vigil kissed them t Hier. cont Vigil carried them in cloaths of silk and vessells of gold u Hier. c. Vi. took and esteemed the dust from under their Reliquaries accompanied the dead to their sepulchres with w Greg. Naz. in lul Orat. 3. Wax Tapers in signe of joy for the certainty of their future resurrection The Church of those daies had the pictures of Christ and his Saints both x Euseb de vita Const l. 3. out of Churches y Paulin. Ep. 12. Basil in Martyr Barlaam and in them and upon the very z Prudent in S. Cassian Altars of Martyrs not to adore them with God-like Worship but by them to reverence the Souldiers and Champions of Christ The faithfull then used the a Tert. de Coron milit sign of the Crosse in all their conversations b Cyril cōt Iul. l. 6. painted it on the portall of all the houses of the faithfull c Hier. in vit Hil. gave their blessing to the people with their hand by the sign of the Crosse d Athan. cont Idol imployed it to drive away evill spirits e Paul Ep. 11. proposed in Jerusalem the very Crosse to be adored on Good-Friday In brief that Church used either directly or proportionably the very same Ceremonies that the Roman Church useth at this day And finally that Church held f Tert. de Praescript Iren. l. 3. c. 3. l. 4. c. 32. that to the Catholike Church only belongs the keeping of the Apostolicall Traditions the authority of the interpretation of Scripture and the decision of controversies of faith and that out of the succession a Cyp de unit Eccles Conc. Car. 4. c. 1. of her Communion of b Hier. cont Lucif Aug. de util cred c. 8. her Doctrine c and her Ministry there was neither Church nor salvation d Cyp. ad Pup Ep. 63 ad Mag. Ep. 76. Hier. ad Tit. c. 3. And let the indifferent Reader now judge whether by this face we may know the Romane or the Protestant Church § 3. But because there is between two or three hundred years from the time of the first generall Councell to the Apostles and that some Protestants say that as Mephibosheth in his infancy fell from his nurses lap whereby he became lame and halted all his life after So the Church in the most primitive times fell from the true faith whereby she hath ever since gone awry we will still go on in the quest of the Roman Churches Antiquity even to the times of the Apostles alleadging some one amongst many of every age of the first five hundred years to make the proof the fuller in confirmation of some Roman doctrines that are most mainly gainsaid by Protestants Wherein will appear that false and vaine challenge of Bishop Jewell renewed by D. Whitaker who to the glorious Martyr Campian writes thus * Resp ad Rat. Camp Attend Campian the speech of Jewell was most true and constant when provoking you to the antiquity of the first six hundred years he offered that if you could shew by any one cleer and plain saying out of any one Father or Councell he would grant you the victory
it is the offer of us all the same do we all promise and we will all perform it Indeed in the first three of the first six hundred years the Church was almost under continuall persecution and so the writers of those times were few and much of that which they wrote did perish in those great ship-wracks of persecution and the matters that they wrote of most commonly were of another quality than concernes our present differences the Heresies of those daies being for the most part different from the present and much of their writings being spent in Apologies for themselves against the Heathen Yet all these advantages of the Protestants are too narrow to cover their designe For in those ages to retort the former boast of the Protestants there is not one single proof out of any one Father rightly interpreted for any one point of doctrine held by Protestants opposite to the Roman Catholique and for the Roman Catholique there is abundance In the alleadging whereof I will begin at the bottom and so go upward in some of which testimonies there shall be intermingling the interpretation of some Scriptures to the same purpose whereby I will include the testimony of Scripture also as it is interpreted by these Fathers who were doubtlesse better expositers than John Calvin or any of his followers And first of the Reall and corporall presence of our Saviour in the Holy Eucahrist and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Masse In the fift age or hundred of years S. Augustine expounding the title of the Psalme in which it is written And he was carried in his owne hands saith * Aug. Conc. 1. in Ps 33. Brethren who can understand how this could be done in man for who is carried in his own hands a man may be carried in the hands of another How this may be understood in David himselfe according to the letter we find not but in Christ we find For Christ was carried in his owne hands when commending his own body he said This is my Body for he carried that body in his hands Nor have the Protestants more reason to deny this place to intend the true reall naturall body and person of our Saviour because Turtullian saith it is a figure of his body than the Manichees and other Heretiques had to deny a reall body to our Saviour when he lived upon earth because the Scripture saith He took upon him the forme of a servant and was made in the likenesse of men Philip. 2.7 From which place they inferred that he was not a man really and indeed but had only the forme and likenesse of a man And if they would ' not stand to the judgement of the Church for the sense and meaning of these words who could convince them For they drew all other places to the sense of this and would not suffer this to yeald unto them though they were never so many or never so plaine In the fourth age S. Ambrose saith * Lib. 4. de Sacram c. 5. Before it be consecrated it is but bread but when the words of consecration come it is the body of Christ. To conclude heare him saying Take and eat of it all for this iâ— my body and before the words of Christ the chalice is full of wine and water when the words of Christ have wrought there it is made blood which redeemed the people Therefore mark in how great matters the word of Christ is potent to convert all things Moreover our very Lord Jesus testifieth unto us that we receive his body and bloud what ought we to doubt of his fidelity and testimony And again he saith * Lib. de iis qui misteriis initiantur c. 9. Perhaps you may say I see another thing how do you affirme to me that I shall receive the body of Christ This yet remaines to us to prove How great examples therefore do we use to prove that it is not this which nature hath formed but which benediction hath consecrated and that there is greater force of benediction than of nature because by the benediction the nature it selfe is changed Moses held a Rod he cast it down and it is made a Serpent c. which if humane benediction were so powerfull that it converted nature what say we of the divine consecration it selfe where the very words of our Lord and Saviour do work In the third age S. Cyprian tells us plainly if the former be not plaine enough for Transubstantiation that * Serm. de Coena Dom. prope init That bread which the Lord did give to his disciples being changed not in shape but in nature by the omnipotency of the word is made flesh and as in the person of Christ his humanity was seen his divinity lay hid so in the visible Sacrament the divine essence doth infuse it selfe after an expressible manner In the second age we find S. Iraeneus speaking thus * Lib. 4. c. 32. in fine But giving councell unto his diciples to offer unto God the first fruits of his creatures not as to one that wanted but that they might be neither unfruitfull nor ungratefull he took that which is bread of the creature and he gave thanks saying this is my body And the cup in like manner which is of that creature which is according to us he confesseth his blood and taught a new oblation of the new Testament which the Church receiving from the Apostles offers to God through all the world to him that maketh the first fruits of his gifts in the new Testament nourishments to us of which in the twelve Prophets Malachy 1.10.11 hath thus fore-signified I have no wil to you saith the Lord Omnipotent and I wil not receive a sacrifice of your hands for from the rising of the sun unto the going downe my name is glorified amongst the Gentiles and in every place incense is offered to my Name and a pure sacrifice because my name is great amongst the Gentiles saith the Lord Almighty Manifestly signifying by these words that the former people ceased to offer to God but in every place sacrifice is offered to God and this pure but his name is glorified in the nations Nor can this be meant of the Sacrifice of all Christians in generall but only of the Priests because as by the Chapter it doth appear God speakes of rejecting the Priests of the old law and their Sacrifice and choosing a new priesthood whom he calls the sonnes of Levi Mal. 3.3 by which figuratively is meant the Priests of the new Law and so do the Ministers of England frequently stile themselves the Tribe of Levi. Besides Protestants confesse that their * VVhitak cont Dur. l. 8. p. 572. praiers and best actions are impure and sinfull it cannot therefore be meant of such Sacrifices for this is a pure sacrifice and proper which none but Priests can offer is therefore according to the exposition of S. Irenaeus the Sacrifice of the Body and
third mark of the Church And of the vanity of Protestants supposition that the true Church is sometimes invisible That Protestant Churches have not alwaies been visible § 1. The third mark we will seek the true Church by is Visibility which was foretold by the Prophet Esay 2.2 Micah 4.1 It shall come to passe in the last daies that the mountaine of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow unto it Also Ezek. 37.28 The nations shall know that I am the sanctifier of Israel when my sanctification shall be in the middle of them for ever And S. Augustine resembles it according to the saying of our Saviour Matth. 5.14 A city placed on a hil that cannot be hid And he hath placed his tabernacle in the sun Psal 18.6 that is in open view c. his tabernacle his Church is placed in the Sun not in the night but in the day Tom. 9. in Epist Jo. Tract 2. And further saith of the Church that e Cont. Petil. l. 2. c. 104. she hath this most certain marke that she cannot be hid she is then known to all Nations the sect of Donatus is unknown to many Nations that then cannot be she To the children of the Church it is appointed by Christ that for the redresse of their grievances they tell the Church Mat. 81.17 which were a delusion unlesse the Church were alwaies visible who did also forewarn us against all obscure congregations saying If therefore they shall say unto you behold he is in the desert go you not forth behold he is in secret places believe it not Mat. 24.26 Now according to these assurances I found that the Roman Church was alwaies and eminently visible but the Protestant never eminent and for the most part not visible at all Concerning the visibility of the Church of Rome it is proved before by those testimonies which shew the antiquity perpetuall continuance thereof which cannot be proved but with the granting of her visibility Nor have I found the Protestants denying it the thing being so visible that it leaves no place for objections But they think to wipe out this mark by saying that it is not necessary to a true Church to be alwaies visible but others disliking that assertion by reason of the absurdity thereof do affirme to counterpoize the Roman that the Protestant Church hath been alwaies visible § 2. And first they that hold that the Church hath been invisible and that therefore visibility is not a certain mark of the Church indeavour to prove it by the example of the Church of the Jewes in the daies of Elias 3 King 19.10.18 who complained that the Prophets were slaine and he only was left alive and God answered that there were left seven thousand that had not bowed the knee to Baal To which objection I found the answer of Catholiques very true namely that this complaint of Elias was uttered with relation to the Kingdome of Israel onely wherein Elias then was and was persecuted by King Ahab but in the Kingdome of Judah the Church did florish and was sufficiently known to him and all men under the reigns of Asa and Joshaphat 3 Kings 22.41 who reigned in Judah when Achab reigned in Israel As what time the number of true believers was so great 2 Chron. 17.14 15 16 17 18 19. that the men of war only did amount to many hundred thousands And whereas M. Meade makes reply to this answer saying that the Church was invisible in the Kingdome of Iudah also in the daies of Manasses because it is said 2 Chron. 33. that Manasses set up Idolatry committed all impiety and caused Judah and Jerusalem to erre I answer that this comes short of a proof for though the Kings example in all cases though never so bad have a mighty influence on the people yet this proves not but that the Kingdome or an eminent part or at least a visible part both of Priests and people was still untainted even as it was in the daies of the persecution of Antiochus against the Jewes who set up the Abomination of desolation the Idoll of Olympick Jupiter in the Temple and compelled men to worship it Besides if it were as he would have it the case is much different between a very short time of the invisibility of the Church of the Jewes for we read in the same Chapter that Manasses quickly repented and amended all and the invisibility of the Protestant Church which by their own confessions was above a thousand years Also the comparison between the Church of the Jewes and Christians is not equall the New Testament being established in better promises Heb. 8.6 and therefore that may be incident to the one which is not to the other Moreover if there had been this totall eclipse it had relation but to the Nation of the Jewes only besides which were many other faithfull people in all ages as appears by the examples of Melchizedek Job c. in the Old Testament and in the New of Cornelius and the Eunuch to the Queen of Candace amongst which the Church might be visible though amongst the Jewes invisible § 3. Others I have heard say that by Catholikes own confession in the daies of Antichrist the Church shall be invisible But I never have read any Catholique that said so yet on the contrary I have found Protestants affirm a Bullinger in Apoc. 20. Fulk against Rhē in Thes 2. sect 5. the visibility of the Church and that universally even all the daies of Antichrist which makes against themselves if they account the Pope Antichrist as most of them do and themselves the Church Yet Doctor White contrary to his brethren saith that b F. VVhites Reply p. 61. lin 15. 26. in time of persecution the true Church may be reputed an impious Sect by the multitude and so not be known by the notion of true and holy nor can her truth be discerned by sense and common reason To which I answer that as there are four properties of Church-doctrine so there are foure notions of the Church The first is to bee Mistresse of saving truth and according to this notion the Church is invisible to the naturall understanding both of men and Angells for God only and his Blessed see our Religion to be the truth The second is to be Mistresse of Doctrine truly revealed by secret inspiration according to this notion ordinarily speaking the Church is invisible to almost all men that are or ever were the Apostles and Prophets only excepted The third to be Mistresse of the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles by their preaching and miracles planted in the world according to this notion the Church was visible to the first and Primitive times but now is not The fourth is to be Mistresse of Catholique doctrine that is of Doctrine delivered received by full Tradition and profession all the
adversaries thereof that are under the title of Christian being divided amongst themselves and notorious changers and according to this notion the Church is ever visible and sensible to all men even to her enemies Otherwise there is no ordinary meanes left for men to know what the Apostles taught nor consequently what God by inspiration revealed to them And if she and the light of truth she carries with her should be hidden and lost we must begin again anew from a second fountain of immediate revelation from God and build upon the new planting thereof with Miracles in the world by some new Apostles And if this be absurd then there must ever be in the world a Church visible whose Traditions are famously Catholique and consequently shewing themselves to be the Apostles to all men that will not be obstinate And that the Church shall be universally visible even in the daies of Antichrist may be gathered out of the Scripture Rev. 20.8 For she shall then be every where persecuted which could not be unlesse she were visible and conspicuous even to the wicked And even during the first 300. years after Christ wherein the Church indured incomparably more universall and raging persecutions than ever were yet the a Magd. cent 1 2 3. Fulke cont Stapleton de success Eccl. p. 246. Century-writers and sundry others do take certain and particular notice of the Catholique Bishops and Pastors by name in those very ages of their administration of the Word and Sacraments and their open impugning of Heresies And surely our Lord himself had been which is blasphemy to think of him who is the eternall wisdome of the Father the most imprudent of all Law-makers to have a Law so obscure and exposed to so many suppositions depravations and false expositions whereto the malice of the Heretiques of all ages hath subjected it without leaving a depository to keep it and a judge to interpret it or to leave it to such a keeper and such a judge as should be invisible § 4. Other Protestants I have observed who though they confesse the invisibility of their Church yet professe the being thereof and assigne the place for it to be in the Roman Church mixed like a great deal of ore with a very little pure gold so that it was not discernable But this assignation of their Church seemed to me very unreasonable for either those Protestants did professe their owne faith or they did not if they did then doubtlesse they were visible and the Roman Church would soon have taken notice of them as she did in all ages of such though it were but one man that differed from her If they did not make profession of their faith what wretched sonnes of fear were they that to preserve their temporall security durst not publiquely avow their own Religion but comply in all things with a Religion in their opinion false and impious and dissemblingly do all the externall acts thereof and this all their lives for many generations successively This was not the part of a true Church or of any true member thereof who will surely die rather than deny his Saviour as he doth who believing himselfe to be of the true Religion makes profession of that which he deemes to be false Nor did they fulfill the Prophesie of Esay concerning the true Church which saith I have set watchmen upon thy walls which shall never hold their peace day nor night Esay 62.6 But Doctor Feild hath a new fancy of his owne which I never observed in any but himselfe who saith to this purpose that before the separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome the Church of Rome it selfe was the Protestant Church and that the Papists were but a faction of the Court of Rome an assertion so grosly false that all the world is a witnesse against it yea even I think all other Protestants themselves and needs no confutation § 5. Others taking all these Pleas for insufficient do affirm that their Church was in being and in sight also in all ages but that through the injury of later times no testimony thereof is now remaining but that all their records through the violence of the Pope and his Clergie have been utterly suppressed Of which vaine conceipt there is no proof at all and if the assertion without proof will serve their turne it may serve also for any other Religion Christian or not Christian who if they please may say the same thing but are never like to be believed by any man of common understanding Besides it thwarteth all experience as appeares by the example of Husse and Wickliffe whose writings are yet extant of Charlemaines pretended Book against Images and Bertrams concerning the Sacrament Also by the decrees of Catholique Councells and the large writings of Catholique Doctors reciting and condemning all opinions contrary to the Roman faith Lastly by the Ecclesiasticall Historiographers of every age who make this the argument of their writings yea even from them the Protestant * Centurists of Magdeburg Cent. Madg. Osiand Ep. Illyricus Catol VVhitak cont Duraeum pag. 276. 469. and others do recite the opinions mentioned and condemned in every age by the Church of Rome of which some were the very same that have since been revived by Protestants So that the Church of Rome hath been so far from extinguishing their records that she hath been the chief recorder of them and their doctrines § 6. The last and most valiant attempt of Protestants is to affirme that as the Church must be allwaies visible so theirs hath been in persons distinct from the Roman Church and thereby invite us to * A Protestants book so entituled look beyond Luther Which barren endeavour of theirs hath been like Peters fishing all night and catching nothing For they whom the Protestants claime for their predecessors were neither of their Religion nor yet alwaies visible there happening huge gaps betwixt them nor can the Protestants by any art or industry bring both ends together First they were not of the same Religion for to be of the same Religion or Church with another imports an agreement in all points of faith for the truth of doctrine being of the essence of the Church whosoever erres in any little thereof he ceaseth to participate of the soule of the Church which is the Spirit of truth and is but a dead member one equivocally and in name but not in truth We see that the Arrians Macedonians and many other Heretiques were accounted and are so by many Protestants not of the Catholique Church for one single error against faith now the Protestants disagreeing in many points not only from one another at this present but from all that went before them and that in points which they believe to be revealed in the Scripture their only rule are neither one Church amongst themselves at this present nor any one of them one with any society that hath gone before In particular the Grecians whom
they court to their faction are no Protestants for they hold damnable errors in the judgment of Protestants to wit Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion in one kind for the sick with many others So that Protestants are in great penury of professors of their Religion before Luther that are forced to call the Grecians in as Protestants in essence for they may even as well name the Pope himselfe As for John Husse and his followers who brake out about the year 1400. and are claimed to be Predecessors in the Protestant Religion it is certaine that they were no Protestants but held such Doctrines that if they were now in England they should suffer as Papists For they held a p. 216. seven Sacraments b p. 209. Transubstantiation c p. 217. art 7 8. the Popes primacy and the d Luther in Colloq Ger. c. de Missa Masse it self as Fox in his Acts and Monuments acknowledgeth No greater title have they to Wickliffe who appeared about the year 1370. in whom some Protestants say their visibility was maintained for he did visibly maintain Popery as e Wiclerus de blasphemia c. 17. holy water the f Idem de Eucharist c. 9. worship of Reliques and Images the g Idem in Ser. de assumpt Mariae intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary h Idem de apostosia c. 18. the Rites and ceremonies of the Masse all the i Idem in postil sup c. 15. Marci 7. Sacraments with all the points of Catholique doctrine now in question Moreover he held errors in the condemnation wherof both Catholiques and Protestants do agree as that k Acts Mon. p. 96. a. art 4. if a Bishop or Priest be in mortall sinne he doth not order consecrate or baptize l Idem p. 96 fine That Ecclesiasticall Ministers should not have temporall possessions He m Osiand Epit. hist Eccl. p. 459 art 43. condemned lawfull oathes with the Anabaptists and held many other pernicious doctrines Let any man then judge whether this man and his followers were Protestants or no. Then they ascend higher and claim on Waldo a merchant of Lions who brake out of the Sheepfold about the year 1220. with his followers as men in whom the Protestant Church was visible But these men were no more of kin to them than the former For they held the n In Ep. 244. p. 450. reall presence in the B. Sacrament for which they are reproved by Calvin who therfore understood them in the Catholique sense not in the Protestant And the most essentiall Doctrine of the Waldenses was their extolling of the merit of * Illiriâ—us Catolog Test p. 1498. voluntary poverty affirming all Ministers to be damned that had rents and possessions and that the Church perished under Pope Silvester and the Emperour Constantine through the poyson of temporall goods which Clergy-men began then to enjoy as they said against the Law of God Surely Protestants do not account this an Article of their faith Moreover the Waldenses held * Idem Catol Test p. 1502. these Anabaptisticall Errors That children are not to be baptized That there is no difference betweene a Bishop and a Priest a Priest and a Lay man That the Apostles were Lay-men and that every Lay-man that is vertuous is a Priest may preach and administer Sacraments That a woman pronouncing the words of consecration in the vulgar tongue doth consecrate yea transubstantiate bread into the body of Christ That it is a mortall sin to swear in any case That Magistrates being in mortall sin do lose in their office and no man is to obey them with many other absurdities too tedious to be recited The like may be said of the Albigenses and also of Beringarius who broached his Heresie about the yeare 1048. who was a Protestant but onely in the point against Transubstantiation which he also recanted and died a Catholique And what do any of these or all these together availe the Protestants every one of them extending but to some part of time between this and the Primitive Church and is also but the example of some one or other private man in whom the revolt first began who was first a Catholike and beginning afterwards to hold some one or few points of the Protestant faith continued in all other matters of controversie a Catholique By all which it appeares that none of these were Protestants and that therefore in them the visibility of the Protestant Church is not maintained And that if it were yet seeing they lived at severall times ununited by a line of time one to another but jumping over severall ages against the Law of nature which non facit saltum and that therfore in the between-spaces there was an invisibility of the Protestant Church the main question of their Churches perpetuall visibility is yet unsatisfied Especially when we consider that for about a thousand yeares which was the time betwixt Beringarius and the Apostles the Protestants pretend to no predecessors As for the most Primitive Fathers whom they affirm to maintain the Protestant Doctrine I have in brief shewed it to be false already and they that will search shall more largely find it so Also they all died members of the Roman Church So that the Protestants have not in them to wit the Fathers a visible Church distinct from the Roman nor was the Roman theirs From whence it is manifest that there is not any one Protestant Church in the world that can shew her visibility in any Kingdome city poor countrey village or particular person from the Apostles time to Luther the truth wherof M. Wotton is not ashamed to confesse where he saith in his answer to a Popish Pamphlet p. 11. You will say shew us where the faith religion you professe were held Nay prove you they were held no where c. and what if it could not be shewed yet we know by the Articles of our Creed that there hath been alwaies a Church in which we say this Religion we now professe must of necessity be held with us it is no inconvenience to have the true Church hid This stands you upon to disprove which when you attempt to do by any particular records you shal have particular answer Than which saying what more ridiculous To presume that their Church was alwaies visible in the land of Vtopia sure where no man ever saw it because it is the true Church wheras they should prove it the true Church because it hath been alwaies visible the knowledge of her visibility being much more easie than of her truth which is the main thing in controversie And to require of Catholiques proof that they were not visible by particular records is extreme foolish records being memorialls of things that were not of things that were not § 7. All which considerations shaking the confidence of many Protestants in the visibility of their Church before Luther
directions only not obligations Therefore in England many both of the people and Clergie also doe deny some one some another particular according to their pleasure and yet the Generall Church of Protestants and the particular of England doth suffer men teaching and professing contrary doctrines as points of faith to abide in her communion and passe under the name of Protestants And seeing that of contrary doctrines one side must needs be false while the Protestant Church permits both sides to be preached as matter of faith and the Word of God she knowingly suffers the profession of false doctrine and so is the mother of falshood as much as truth and therefore cannot be the true Church The Church of Rome doth not so but if any preach or professe contrary to that which is decreed she shuts them out of her Communion and disinherits them of the title of Catholique As for other points which are without the compasse of her decrees wherein there is a mighty latitude according to the extent of mens reasons she permits every man to hold as his particular understanding shall direct him The Puritanes will have all governed by the written word of God The Chillingworthians will have all guided by particular reason and both sorts differ amongst themselves The Church of Rome more wisely in matters of faith and Religion is directed by the Word of God either written or unwritten and therein her children never differ or if they do are renounced In Schoole points and things undefined her children are guided by their particular reason and herein they do and may differ yet without disunion as well as in points of Philosophie For Schoole points are not points of Religion properly religion being derived à RELIGANDO from binding but in School points men are not bound to the belief of either side but have free liberty to hold or change as they think they have cause untill it be otherwise determined by a Councell And this may be done without the just imputation of division as S. Augustine De Bapt. cont Donat. l. 1. c. 18. l. 2. c. 4. saith Divers men be of divers judgements without breach of peace untill a generall Councell allow some one part for pure and cleer Thus doth he excuse S. Cyprians disagreement and error concerning the baptizing of such as were baptized by Heretiques saying that himselfe durst not have condemned the same unlesse I had been strengthened with the most agreable authority of the Catholique Church to which Cyprian himselfe no doubt would have yeelded if at that time the truth of the question had been made cleer and manifest by a generall Councell Which some refusing to doe after that that opinion of Cyprians was by a Councell condemned to shew the difference of holding against a point defined and not defined Vincentius Lyrinensis chap. 9. thus breakes out O admirable change the authors of one self opinion are called Catholiques and the followers of it heretiques Secondly there is in doctrines a difference between the conclusion or point of faith it selfe and the reason or manner thereof in the former of these unity is required and is performed most axactly amongst Catholiques but in the later which concernes but the reason of that conclusion which reason is for the most part reduced to some Scholasticall subtilty learned men have in all ages and may without breach of unity maintaine their difference For although all men be bound to the decree'd point of faith yet they are not so to the reason and manner thereof unlesse the same also be defined by the Church And hereby are answered all the objections of Protestants concerning the disagreement of Catholiques as of the Thomists and Scotists concerning the Conception of our Blessed Lady of the Dominicans and Jesuites about the concurrence of Grace and Freewill with such like in which the Church hath not yet interposed her Decree And some Protestants affirm out of their profound politicall insight that she never will and that because forsooth she dares not out of fear to displease so mighty a party as each opinion hath And yet they know that the Church was not afraid to decree against the opinions of Luther and his brood notwithstanding she lost some Kings and much people thereby but the losse was not only hers but theirs much more she lost some incurable members but they lost themselves And doubtlesse when she sees it meet to determine any of the controversies amongst the learned shee will doe it without any fear but of God In the mean time we see that their differences of opinions breed no more disturbance in the Church nor rancor amongst themselves than their different colours and shapes of apparrell Brotherly charity is not violated amongst them they will all goe to the same Church they will communicate together and confesse to one another nor is there any of them but if he be asked will say that he will stand to a Generall Councell in any of the points of difference amongst them and submit his judgement to hers But Protestants have no Councells nor any authority to call a Councell out of the extent of their temporall dominions the Articles of Religion which they have agreed upon apart are very different one from another as may be seen in their Harmony of Confessions nor in the same Dominion will they stand to any determination of Convocation Synod or Assembly further than it decrees according to the Word of God of which every one will be a judge for himfelfe And in the mean time they violate brotherly charity make schisms and separations one from another refuse to goe to Church or communicate together and in defence of their differences wage war one against another So that their Harmony of Confessions may more truly be called the confusion of Confessions and their Churches the tumults of Religion The greatest unity they have is not in believing but in not believing though therein they are not exact as I have shewed before their faith as they call it being for the most part negative consisting in denying what Catholiques affirme as denying and not believing the infallibility of the Church the Reall Corporall presence seven Sacraments Invocation of Saints Purgatory and Prayer for the dead with many other abating their positive faith almost to nothing now not-believing is not believing and their profession and union in the most is not of faith but of infidelity And for their positive belief I think it consists in two Articles only That there is a God and that Jesus Christ died for the sinnes of the world and whosoever affirmes more than this it will be no hard matter to find some other Protestants that will deny it what union then is there amongst them but that which was betwixt Symeon and Levi to be brethren in evill and in writing the Articles of their Religion as Draco did his lawes in blood For what nation is there where the Protestant Religion hath settled her foot where they did
Saint is kept with great veneration and frequent Miracles wrought thereby and there was he made perfectly whole and thereupon abjured the Religion wherein his father brought him up and became a Roman Catholique § 3. Now for the Miracles that are said to be done in the Roman Church we have as high humane Testimony as can be imagined So that Protestants may with as much reason deny all humane story as that there were Henries and Edwards Kings of England whom they never saw yea they may as justly deny or doubt of the truth of their owne names which they doe not know but by report and mens calling them so and the poor record of a Church-book but Miracles have much more famous Records and more people that believe them And can they prudently imagine all Christians but themselves so stupid and foolish to believe these things without sufficient proof who in all other matters they must without the help of modesty acknowledg more wise and learned then themselves What did Christ and his Apostles doe more than the Roman Church hath since done and what can Protestants say more against her than the unbelieving Jewes or Gentiles might say against them And because some feigned Miracles are sometimes discovered from thence to charge all with the same accusation as it is unjust so it is absurd and destroies all humane faith they may as well deny all that is or hath been done in the world whereof they have not been eye-witnesses because some of those reports have been false Therefore as they believe Catholiques when they say some were feigned so in justice they ought to believe them when they say others are not so Otherwise by the same way of reasoning they may say that the Miracles of Moses were not true because the Magitians were counterfeit or that the new Testament is not the word of God because there were many Gospells Epistles counterfeited under the names of the Apostles And surely Catholiques would never endeavour to discover feigned Miracles if they were not sure that some were true but rather by one act condemn all that have been since the Apostles that are or shall be for false and counterfeit as Protestants in effect doe when they say that Miracles are ceased Moreover to affirme that Miracles are Antichristian as some Protestants doe is improper first because it is yet in question betwixt us whether Antichrist be come or no which Protestants have not proved nor never will with reference to the Pope Secondly it is granted on both sides that Antichrist shall doe no Miracles properly but only some signes and wonders not exceeding the power of nature and the devills art whereof one is to cause fire to come down from heaven Apoc. 13.13 which never any Pope did but the Miracles done in the Church doe exceed all created power And lastly many Miracles were done in the Roman Church before the time or times for they agree not in their reckoning that Protestants say Antichrist did first appear as at the reliques of d Chrysost in lib. cont Gentiles Babylas e Nazian in Cyprian Cyprian f Ieron in vita Hilar. Hilarion and many others So that all Catholiques may say with Richardus de Sancto Victore not with doubt or feare of being deceived but with assurance to the contrary g Lib. 1. de Trinit c. 2. O Lord if it be error that we believe we are deceived by thee for thou hast confirmed these things to us with signes and wonders which could not be done but by thee CHAP. XVII Of the seventh Mark of the true Church viz. Conversion of Kingdomes and Monarchs § 1. ANother Mark of the true Church is the conversion of Kingdomes and Nations from Heathenisme to the faith of Christ As the Prophet Esay saith Kings shall bee thy nursing-Fathers and Queens thy Mothers Esay 49.23 thou shalt suck the milke of the Gentiles and the brests of Kings Esay 60.61 Their Kings shall minister to thee and thy gates shall be continually open that men may bring to thee the riches of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought c. Esay 60.10 11. And the English Bible printed Anno 1576. upon the 49. of Esay vers 23. saith The meaning is that Kings shall be converted to the Gospell and bestow their power and authority for the preservation of the Church And this Mark I found on the Roman Catholike but not upon the Protestant Church The first three hundred years after Christ being a time of great persecution there were few or no Kings converted to Christianity and from Constantine to Boniface the third which was almost 300. years more there were few Kings converted except the Emperours of the East and West and they were converted to the Roman Catholique not to the Protstant Faith as Napier in his Treatise on the Rev. p. 145. confesseth saying After the year of God 300. the Emperour Constantine subdued all Christian Churches to Pope Sylvester from which time till these our daies the Pope and his Clergie hath possessed the outward and visible Church Now since the yeare 600. these Prophesies have been accomplishing and they have been done by the Roman Church not by the Protestant Churches which were untill Luthers daies under hatches and invisible by their owne confession before mentioned And if wee look upon the conversion of Kings and Nations in these later times since their ignis fatuus which they call the glorious light of the Gospell hath appeared we shall find it performed not by Protestants but by Roman Catholiques in the remote and divided parts of the m Joan. Petrus Maffeus hist Indicarum 16. East and n Jos Acosta de natur novi orbis West Indies and of o Hartwell of Congo Epist to Reader Africa as by sufficient testimony appears In so much that Simon Lythus a Protestant before alledged saith The Jesuites within the space of a few years have filled Asia Africa America with their Idolls And whereas it is objected that the Gothes were converted to the Christian Religion by the Arrians first p Cap. 22. de not Eccl. Bellarmine proves it to be false secondly if it were true yet it is of no moment to prove the power of any other Religion but the Roman Catholique for the converting of nations and the fulfilling of the large Prophesies of the Scripture therein seeing they that are pretended to be converted by the Arrians were but the lesser part of the Gothes most of them having been Catholiques before Thirdly this example doth rather make for the Roman faith in that of all the world converted to Christian Religion there is but one poor half example of conversion and that false too wrought by any other Religion Which when it is observed that this pretended conversion was wrought by Arrians who even in the opinion of most Protestants were Heretiques it will turne to the shame and reproach of Protestants who pretending to be the true
and it is the maine designe of some of the Clergie to perswade the people into a belief that he is Antichrist which conceipt when it hath once strongly seized them as it doth yet by very weake and silly arguments they care not to enquire any further but conclude from thence and that justly if it were true that neither he nor his adherents are either Head or members of the Church But the contrary I found most evident by the testimony of all antiquity First that our Saviour appointed S. Peter his Vicar Head of his Church here on earth and after him his successors in the Sea of Rome nor do we read either in Scriptures Councells Fathers or histories that any other of the Apostles but Peter was thought or pretended by any to be the chiefest over the rest and over the whole Church and that it is necessary that some one be Head both reason and authority doe convince Nor is it a denyall of Christ to be the Head while we say that S. Peter was and the Pope is so For Christ we confesse is the Head originally and immediately the Pope derivatively from and by him Christ is the principall the Pope but his deputy and representer and these two headships doe not contradict as some Protestants imagine but are subordinate the one to the other And with as much reason they may deny a King to be head of his Kingdome because the Scripture saith Psal 46.8 God is King over all the earth as deny the Pope to be head of the Church because Christ is so S. Basil Concione de poenit shewes us the difference of their headships Though Peter be a rock saith he he is not a rock as Christ is for Christ is the true immovable rock of himselfe Peter is immoveable by Christ the rock for Jesus doth communicate and impart his dignities not voiding himselfe of them but holding them to himselfe bestowes them also on others He is the light and yet you are the lights He is the Priest and yet he makes Priests He is the Rock and he made a rock Therefore our Saviour saith to Peter Math. 16.18.19 Thou art Peter and upon this Rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevaile against it And I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven Nor is it contrary to this as Protestants imagine to say as the Fathers sometimes doe that the Church was built upon the confession of Peter these two expositions not excluding but including one another For they intend that the Church was built causally on the confession of Peter and formally on the ministry of the Person of Peter that is to say the confession of Peter was the cause wherefore Christ chose him to constitute him the foundation of the ministry of the Church and that the person of S. Peter was that on which our Lord did properly build his Church as S. Hilary in Mat. c. 16. saith The confession of S. Peter hath received a worthy reward So that to say the Church is built upon the confession of Peter is not to deny that it is built on the person of Peter but it is to expresse the cause wherefore it is built upon him as when S. Hierome ad Pammach advers error Joan. Hierosol Ep. 91. said that Peter walked not on the waters but faith it is not to deny that S. Peter walked truly on the water but it is to expresse that the cause that made him walk there was not the naturall activity of his body but the faith that he had given to the words of Christ So that these two propositions are both true Peters faith walked on the water and Peters person walked on the water so likewise these the Church is built on the faith of Peter and the Church is built on the person of Peter the confession of Peters faith being the cause why Christ built his Church upon Peters person Againe our Saviour said to Peter Simon sonne of Jonas lovest thou me more than these He saith unto him yea Lord thou knowest that I love thee He said unto him feed my lambs John 21.15 And thus the second and the third time Which speed was directed to Peter alone as appeares by these words more than these whereby he is separated from the rest and by these words is given to him the Ecclesiasticall power to feed and also to governe as the word in the originall doth signifie and that not some alone but all the whole flock of Christ Of which the Fathers give abundant testimony S. Aug. saith Serm. 5. in fest Pet. Pauli speaking of S. Peter that he only amongst the Apostles deserved to hear verily I say unto thee thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church worthy truly who to the people who were to be builded in the house of God might be a stone for their foundation a pillar for their stay a key to open the gates of the Kingdome of heaven And againe Quaestion vet nov Test q. 7◠'Our Saviour when he commands to pay for himself and Peter seemes to have payed for all because as in our Saviour were all the causes of superiority so after him all are contained in Peter for he ordained him the head of them that he might be the head of our Lords flock S. Gregory also lib. 4. Ep. 32. saith ' It is cleer to all that know the Gospell that by our Lords mouth the care of the whole Church is committed to Holy Peter the Prince of all the Apostles for to him it is said Peter lovest thou me feed my sheep and further he applies the places of Scripture spoken to S. Peter above mentioned to this end And S. Chrysostome Hom. 87. in Joan. 21. saith that Peter was the mouth of the Apostles and the Prince and top of the company and therefore Paul went to see him above others As for S. Pauls reproving of S. Peter it was for an error of conversation not of doctrine as Tertullian saith nor doth it any way diminish his Primacy but only shews that an inferiour may reprove his superiour if the matter require it and the manner be not unseemly which no man will deny Therefore this instance is nothing to the purpose being thus also answered by S. Augustine lib. 2. de Bapt. c. 1. § 2. And as Christ ordained S. Peter to be the supreme Pastor and Head of the Church so it was his will that that office should continue in S. Peters successors in the Sea of Rome That there should be one chiefe Pastor alwaies in the Church for the government thereof and deciding of controversies Gods practise in the Church of the Jewes Numb 20.28 Exod. 18.15 c. Deut. 17.8 c. gives us reason to believe who appointed the High Priests therein to succeed
way of receiving it is impossible to receive him unworthily which is contrary to the Scripture and the common beliefe of all Christians for according to them none receive him but they that receive him worthily faith being the means with them which makes them receive him both really and worthily which who so wants doth not receive at all so that every one that receives him really receives worthily and the rest receive nothing but bread and wine and so do not receive Christ unworthily but only bread and wine at the most unworthily and how this should make them properly guilty of the body and blood of our Lord which they do not receive and liable to damnation thereby as the Apostle saith it doth is beyond the reach of my apprehension Others coming yet nearer say that they believe the reall and corporall presence but they do not believe Transubstantiation they believe that Christ is truly there but the manner they say is unknowne and unexpressible But they ought to know that men ought firmely to believe the manner of a mystery revealed when the same belongs to the substance of the mystery so that rejecting the manner we reject also the substance of the mystery Now the mystery in substance is that the body of Christ is present in the Sacrament in such sort that the Priest the Minister thereof shewing what seems bread may truly say thereof in the person of Christ this is my body This supposed as the substance of the mystery I infer that two Catholique doctrines concerning the manner thereof belong to the substance of this mystery and cannot be called in question without danger of misbelief First the reall presence of the whole body of Christ under the forme of bread Secondly that this is done by Transubstantiation because it cannot be done otherwise Even as he that believes the mystery of the Incarnation the substance whereof is that in Jesus Christ the nature of God and the nature of man were so united that God is truly man and man God he must necessarily believe that this union is not metaphoricall and in affection only but true and reall Secondly that this union is substantiall not accidentall Thirdly that this union of natures is not by making one nature of both as Eutyches taught but hypostaticall whereby the nature of God and man is united in one person This mystery is high subtile and incomprehensible to flagging reason yet must be believed seeing it belongs to the substance of the mystery which could not be true if it were not thus so it is in the reall presence As for the novelty of the word which some object they have little reason to do so knowing it is some hundreds of years older than the name Protestant and for the thing it is as antient as our Saviours celebrating his last supper And had not the Catholique doctrine been opposed by Heretiques perhaps the word had not yet been in use no more had consubstantiall used in the Nicene Creed had not Arrius denyed the Son to be consubstantiall or of the same substance with the Father For the Church doth and may make fit words to explicate the truth of her doctrine as occasion requires wherein she doth not change the doctrine but expresseth it more plainly or significantly CHAP. XXII Of Communion in one kind § 1. I Will instance in two particulars more because I know that Protestants doe mightily check at them the former is Communion in one kinde the later Prayer in an unknown tongue Concerning the former Protestants are by their Ministers instructed to beleeve that in this matter Catholiques are sacrilegious against God and injurious to men robbing the Church of the precious blood of Christ and giving the people a lame and halfe Sacrament instead of one whole and entire But to rectifie their understandings they may be pleas'd to take notice that the Catholique Church doth not count it in it selfe unlawfull to receive in both kinds nor yet doth she hold it necessary but in its owne nature indifferent and so by consequence determinable to one or both kinds according to the differences of persons times and places as she in her wisedome shall think fit But Protestants think it absolutely necessary for the Laity to receive in both kinds first because it was so instituted secondly because it was as they think so commanded These being the two hinges of this their opinion we must here a while arrest our considerations wherein I shall shew that there is no precept of receiving under both kinds and that the institution hath not the force of a precept § 2. To begin with the institution we must know that for a man to be bound to use any institution of God two things are required First that the end of the institution be necessary and that it be necessary for every particular person to endeavour the attaining thereof whence all men hold that though the propagation of mankind by marriage be an institution of God necessary for the continuation of the world yet while there are enough that comply with that duty to which mankind is in generall bound every particular person is not oblig'd to marry Secondly that if every particular person be bound to endeavour to attaine the end of an institution that also the whole thing instituted be necessary for the attaining of that end for if there be variety of meanes ordained sufficient for the attaining of that end a man is not bound to use all that which is instituted but it is sufficient to use so much thereof as will lead a man to that end Whence all men againe hold that although God created and instituted variety of meats and drinks for the maintainance of mans corporall life yet no man is bound to use them all but he dischargeth his duty sufficiently if he use so much of any of them as will suffice to arrive at that end for which they were instituted to wit the maintainanee of his corporall life so that if a man can live of two or three sorts of meat he is not bound to use ten or twenty and if he can live of meat without drink he may without offence choose whether he will ever drink or no. To apply this to our present purpose it is apparent enough that by the force of divine institution only no man is bound to use Communion under both kinds For though the end why Christ did institute the Sacrament in both kinds be necessary and all must endeavour the attaining thereunto to wit maintainance and increase in grace which is the life of the soule yet there are other meanes of Gods institution also by which we may attaine to this end Whence it is that learned Divines hold that though the Sacrament of the Eucharist be necessary NECESSETATE PRAECEPTI by the necessity of precept yet it is not necessary NECESSITATE MEDII as they speak that is the use thereof is not such a necessary meanes for the maintenance of spirituall
of which prophanation there hath been over frequent experience CHAP. XXIII Of the Liturgie and private prayers for the ignorant in an unknowne tongue § 1. PRayer in an unknowne tongue hath two branches one concerning publique prayer in a tongue which the people that are present doe not understand the other private prayer in a tongue which the party praying doth not understand both which Protestants think absurd in reason and contrary to Scripture but Catholiques beleeve truly that they are neither For maintenance whereof let us consider the meaning of S. Paul 1 Cor. ch 14. the place by them violently but impertinently objected against us We must then know that as the gift of tongues was given to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit when he in the shape of tongues desended upon them so the same gift with divers others was continued amongst the Christians for some time after This gift amongst the other they did exercise in their publique Church-meetings where they assembled for the benefit edification of the hearers speaking some extemporary prayer or other holy discourse both for matter and language as the Spirit gave them utterance with great affection elevation of the mind towards God Yea the language many times was such as no man present understood as is intimated verse 2. for he that speaketh in an unknowne tongue c. no man understands him no nor many times did the speaker understand himselfe for the gift of tongues and the gift of interpretation of tongues were two distinct gifts as we see in the 12. ch and did not alwaies meet together as we may gather from the 13. verse of this chapter where the Apostle exhorteth him that speaketh in an unknowne tongue to pray that he may interpret which was a signe that ordinarily they could not by verse 14. where he saith If I pray in a tongue my spirit prayeth but my understanding is unfruitfull now this must be meant of a tongue which he himself did not understand otherwise his own understanding could not be unfruitful And thus also doth S. Augustine de Genes ad lit lib. 12. cap. 8.9 and other Fathers interpret S. Paul By this it is manifest that the Apostle doth not here reprove the practise of the Church of Rome in her Latine Liturgie directly seeing this here reproved and that are extreamly different Therefore ours can be only so far reprovable as it agrees with the other in the reasons for which it was reproved which are want of interpretation therby want of edification to the auditors of sufficient warrant to the unlearned through want of understanding of what was said to say thereto Amen Now seeing ours doth not agree with that in any of these it is therefore irreproveable Yet if it should agree with that in any of these it should not notwithstanding be unlawfull because they differ in the maine and principall part the end for these Church-meetings were intended for the instruction edification of the auditors therefore it was fit the exercises thereof should be in a tongue which they that were to be instructed understood but the publike Liturgie of the Church was instituted for the service praise of God therfore may be without unlawfulnesse in any tongue that he understands to whom it is dedicated The truth of all this will appear if we consider the differences between that case and ours The languages then spoken were utterly unknowne many times to any man there present even to the speaker himself but the Liturgie of the Church is in a language or languages known to very many as the Latin in the Latin Church to all Scholars to most Gentlemen youths bred in Grammer Schools in some countries to most Mechanicks it cannot therfore absolutely be said to be an unknown tongue And though it cannot be proved unlawful to have the Liturgie in a tongue absolutely unknowne yet where the Latin tongue hath been unknowne to all or most of the better sort the Church hath dispensed with the use thereof as appears by the dispensation of Pope Paul 5. to turn the Liturgie of the Masse into the vulgar language of China to use the same until the Latin tongue grew more known familiar in that country Moreover the prayers other spiritual excercises which S. Paul speaks against were extemporall made in publike meetings according to the present inspired devotion of the speaker So that the unlearned hearer or he that supplied his place the Clark except he understood the language consequently the matter could not prudently say Amen to it seeing he knew not whether the thing that was spoken were good and lawfull or no. But the Liturgie Service of the Church hath set offices for every day approved by the Church therefore from hence a man may be confidently assured that it is good lawfull and therefore he may boldly say Amen Besides there are means applied to the ignorant multitude by which they are or may be if they use diligence therein made to understand the publike Prayers of the Church namely Sermons Exhortations Catechismes private instructions Manualls Primers in vulgar languages where the Prayers used in the Church are found So that the ordinary common passages of the publike Service may be and are easily understood even by women children they may understandingly say Amen Therefore as the Apostle did allow of an unknowne tongue in the exercises of the Corinthians provided there were some to interpret it so the Service in Latin is very allowable even under this notion while there are the aforesaid meanes used for the interpretation thereof And the Congregation is edified as the Apostle appoints it should be by the things that are done said in the Church while the people have but a generall understanding of the severall passages thereof And if they were in a vulgar language the difference for matter of understanding would be but in a little more or lesse for that every woman boy girl in a Church should be able to understand word by word the Liturgie therof be it in what language it will is morally impossible seeing there are great store of words in every tongue in common use amongst the better sort which common people do not understand And suppose this might be avoided in those parts of the Liturgie which are composed by the Church by making choice of the most vulgar words that might be found yet it is impossible to be so in that which makes the greatest part of the Liturgie to wit the Scripture And if yet all the words of the Scripture could be bowed to their understanding for the Grammatical signification thereof yet without all paradventure the sense which is the chiefe thing to be understood and for which only the language doth serve by reason of the innumerable figurative speeches therein is altogether impossible For example let any unlearned Englishman say whether these following places in English for so
of her Communion than of any other yea many times there have been when shee hath enfolded all Christians in her armes and not one to be found out of her Communion her doctrines then in reason are to be received as most probable And as some Philosophers say naturall bodies doe neglect the lawes and rules of of their particular motions to serve and follow the lawes of universall nature of which one is That there must be no Vacuum or place utterly empty which law to observe we see that heavie bodies will rise upward which otherwise would fall downward So the particular rules of reason in particular men if they will shew themselves the dutifull children of reason must give place to this generall and universall rule of reason implanted in mankind and when they are inclined one way to an opinion by their own private and domestique reason they must suspend that inclination and conquer the provocations thereof and readily yeeld unto the fundamentall and universall law of reason which is that in matters of whose truth there is no infallible certainty that is most likely to be true and hath the most reason on its side wherein the most and the most reasonable of reasonable creatures doe agree Which if they doe they shall not run upon the rock of believing contradictions as some of them imagine but shall find themselves obliged by the train of their owne principles to become Roman Catholiques These considerations together with the great assistance of Gods grace have caused me to forsake the Communion of all Protestant Churches who like those mentioned in S. John say they are Jewes the true Church and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Revel 2.9 And not to content my selfe to be a Catholique in opinion only keeping it private to my selfe to save my temporall interest nor with the two Tribes and halfe forbear to enter into the land of Canaan but stay on the other side of Jordan tempted thereunto by the pleasantnesse of the land but disdaining to match my love so low as of this creeping world with the renouncing of all I possessed or that my hopes could reach at to the pulling on my selfe the displeasure of my friends and kindred the reproach and hatred of the Protestant party to the abandoning of my selfe my wife and children to all the calamities which are all that beggery and perpetuall banishment could throw upon us lanching forth into the deepe of this wide world without rudder anchor sailes or tackling to humble our selves at the feet of our Holy Mother the Church of Rome which is the one true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church and will be so and will be accounted so when these like their predecessors revolters from the Church of Rome shall be no more And to choose to perish for want if it be the will of God in communion with the Catholique Church rather than to have the Empire of the world stoop under my command and be a Protestant And to say as Themistocles did to his wife and children though in a different sense PERIISSEMUS NISI PERIISSEMUS we had perished if we had not perished if we had not perished temporally we had perish'd eternally nor would I sell the inward peace and consolation I here find though at such a rate as would undo the world to buy it for he that purchaseth worldly prosperity with the losse of the true faith out-buyes it and will prove a bankrupt with which the tendries of the whole world being counterpoized prove too light as our Saviour saith What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his owne soule Math. 16.20 And all this because they that are out of the true Church are out-lawes against God are without Christ and without God in the world as the Apostle speakes Ephes 2.12 and because as all antiquity testifies that b Concil Cart. 4. c. 1. out of the Catholique Church there is no salvation c Aug. Ep. 152. That whosoeuer is not in the Catholique Church cannot have life d Aug. de Sym ad Catech lib. 4. That he shall not have God for his Father who will not have the Church for his Mother e Cyp. de unit Eccl That Christ is not with those that assemble out of the Church f Ibidem That though they should be slaine for the confession of Christ this spot is not washed away even with blood g Ibidem That he cannot be a Martyr that is not in the Church h Aug de gest cum Emerito That out of the Catholique Church one may have Faith Sacraments and in sum every thing except salvation i Prosp promis praedic Dei par 4. c. 5. That he that communicates not with the Catholique Church is an Heretique and Antichrist k Fulgent de fide ad Pet. c. 19. That no Heretique nor Schismatique that is not restored to the Catholique Church before the end of his life can be saved And this Catholique Church is the Roman Church because the Bishop of Rome is the head thereof appointed so by God and received by the Christian world in all ages as I have proved before and that not only for a time but at this time and for ever And this being the Rock on which the Church is built surely it shall never be removed nor he that like the wise-man builds thereon as our Saviour saith the raine fell the floods came the winds blew and rushed upon the house and it fell not for it was founded on a rock Matth. 7.25 26 27. On the other side all other Churches are built upon the sandy foundation of humane invention and must expect the fate of the fooles house on which the the raine fell the floods came the winds blew and rushed thereon and it fell and the ruine thereof was great CHAP. XXIII The Conclusion wherein is represented on the one side the splendor and orderly composure of the Roman Catholique Church And on the other side the deformity and confusion of Protestant Congregations § 1. NOw for a Conclusion let me invite the Reader to stand as it were upon mount Nebo as Moses did and take a view of the Land of Canaan the Roman Catholique Church on the one side and the wildernesse of the Protestant Churches on the other Here amongst Catholiques you shall see a Church like the cloud that appeared to Elisha as big as a mans hand which by and by spread over the face of the earth a Church which hath incircled in her armes at least in their predecessors all that ever wore the name of Christians which hath stretched her dominions as far as the Sun his beames and wheresoever he hath bestowed his corporall she hath bestowed her spirituall light There amongst Protestants you shall see Churches that have got possession only of the most obscure places and that by patches like a poor mans land and those too usurped by fraud and violence
from the just owners thereof not purchased but stolne Here you shall see a Church that hath continued without interruption since the first planting thereof that hath kept perpetuall Term without Vacation that in all the rough tempests of this worlds persecution hath still rid out the storme and though by the tyranny of heathen and heretiques millions of her children did fall it was but like the morning deaw watering thereby the seeds of grace which themselves had sowne and when they calmly bled it was but oyle to the Apostles lamps whose bright flames may yet serve to light posterity to heaven And as the enemies of the city of Rome were wont to weep to see it on fire because it would afterwards be fairer built so the devill though he caused it yet did mourne to see the Church of Rome on fire in her Martyrs which was ever repaired by a greater encrease of converts who constantly kept the faith till they lost themselves in keeping it like Naboth who kept his possession with the losse of his blood There you shall see Churches like Castor and Pollux rising and setting by turnes sometimes alive sometimes dead with such huge great gaps between the times of their subsisting that for any succour they could have from them millions of soules might in the interim have dropt into hell And as the Moabites when they saw the waters look ruddy thought they had been mingled with blood when it was but the reflexion of the morning sun beames on them so when they suffered any thing they called it persecution for their obedience to God when it was indeed but the effect of justice on them for their Rebellion against Gods deputies Ecclesiasticall and civill the high Priest and the Prince and instead of giving them increase as persecution hath alwaies done to the Church it did with the aid of their inward discords utterly extingnish them Who have had none but have made many Martyrs reviving even in these later present times the antient copies of cruelty against Catholikes blindly believing that by killing Gods servants they do God service Whose meek spirits have paid as large a tribute of patience unto heaven and sufferance to the world as any that went before them and have proved in themselves the truth of the Spouses saying in the Canticles ch 5. v. 10. My beloved is white and ruddy being blanch'd with the whitenesse of innocence guled with the blood of martyrdom the fury of whose malice and persecution hath pursued many even through the gates of death adding prophanation to their cruelty by disturbing the dead bodies and silent urnes of Saints departed A poor revenge and foolish which doth more expresse their hatred than satisfie it and shewes that their malice doth more afflict their owne minds before it is executed than it can doe their enemies bodies in the execution So eager so importunate is sinne ever to its owne shame § 2. Here you shall see a Church that hath alwaies been in view whom neither fear nor coynesse hath made to hide her head and whose admired beauty hath invited all men to her chast embraces and like Medusaes head hath turned them to stones of this living building by the admiration of her surpassing beauty There you shall see Churches such which is very strange as were never seen or very seldome keeping such unkind and retired state that men like Diogenes who went about Athens with a candle and a lanterne at noone day to seek an honest man must doe so about the world to find them out and in the mean time perish for want of spirituall aid who never had any beauty riches or rarity amongst them but only Giges his ring whereby they did for the most part walk invisible The English Proverb saith that where God hath his Church the devill hath his Chappell and so he hath alwaies had in Heretiques who in regard of place have been mingled with Catholiques but that the devill should have all the Church and God not so much as the Chappell as they pretend is most incredible § 3. Here you shall see a Church like the city of Jerusalem that is at unity within it selfe and like the wals of Byzantium so closely united that they seem to be all but one entire stone And as God spake of old By the mouth of his Prophets Luc. 1.70 intimating that though they were many Prophets yet they had all but one mouth in regard of the unity and agreement of their sayings so speakes he now by the mouth of the Priests in the Catholique Church A body having Christ for the head from whom as the Apostle saith the whole body being fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplies according to the effectuall working in the measure of every part makes encrease of the body to the edifying of it selfe in love Whose powerfull union like the Bundle of Arrowes presented by the Emperour Saladine to his sonnes as the Embleme of united strength cannot be broken by the assault of any force which like the floating Ilands or the stone Tyrrhenus being unbroken floats still aloft and keepes her head above the main when others like clods of earth rent from the Jland or broken in pieces of that stone sink to the bottom and perish There you shall see Churches stand like the stones in some high waies to measure their length a mile asunder from each other And as the Cameleon changes it self into all colours except white So they wander through all the forms of opinions that fancy can imagine saving only truth Which need no externall disasters to try their strength no forraine enemies to attempt their destruction For like the Serpents teeth sown by Cadmus or the eternally-hating brethren Eteocles and Polynices they with mutuall cruelties destroy each other Here a Church that for the admirable effects of her unity deserves the name of that pretious stone which for the rarity thereof is called Vnity There such as for the variety and deformity wherewith they are possessed may be termed Legion § 4. Here you shall see a Church that religiously triumphs over all Christian Kings and Kingdomes of the world making them the Trophees of her spirituall victories and conversions whose powerfull influence hath cast a charme upon the fierce and lionly natures of barbarous Princes and hath not only made the Lion and the lamb to live together as was foretold by the Prophet but hath turned the Lions into Lambs Alexander the great being asked if hee would run at the Olympick games said I could be content so I might run with Kings Here then may be exercised a vertuous ambition and truly worthy of the majesty of the most excellent King of England who if he will honour the Church and himselfe to run this way shall run with almost all Kings of the Christian world both his owne and other Kings predecessors and that at the true Olympick exercises the exercises of heaven There you shall see
to cure all our maladies And thereceipts for these cures contriv'd with wondrous art for as bodily evills are cured either with things of the same quality or the contrary so here For wounds given by the world here is a cure by giving the world away in almes For wounds received from the flesh a cure by mortifying the flesh with fasting and other austerities A cure for the fiery darts of the devill by the darts of prayers shot up to heaven And when we depart this life for this warfare must not alwaies last here is precious oile to embalme our soules with grace which like the oyle to the antient Roman wrastlers makes us nimble agile in our latest wrastlings with the devill that we may slip out of his hands and be presented rendering a sweet smelling savour unto God And that this holy Church may continue in succession untill her royall Bridegroom call her up to his own throne here is Holy Sacramentall Matrimony both to represent that union and by grace to encrease it And that this multitude may not beget confusion here are holy Orders by vertue whereof they that are ordained do govern this society as spirituall Magistrates and conduct it as spirituall Captaines through the wildernesse of this world to the land of Canaan the heavenly Jerusalem which is above Here is the true Communion of Saints both of those in heaven in earth and under the earth by the participations of each others Prayers Merits and Satisfactions Here is as in all well-governed Common-Wealths Justice both commutative and distributive Commutative betwixt God and Christ who payed a ransome for us and purchased an estate for us and we take possession upon the conditions required distributive in rendring rewards and punishments according to the geometricall proportion of mens merits or offences § 8. Here are the Arcana imperii high and mysterious things such as are worthy the wisedome and contrivance of God Things to be believed by the world thought incredible things done by God and to be done by us by the world thought impossible things to be suffered by the world thought intolerable and they are believed done and suffered which could not be effected but by a power omnipotent And because they are so difficult none but God could subdue mortalls to the belief and practise of them and therefore even because they are such they prove him only to be their author For who can imagine that Confession a thing so much against the bias of flesh and bloud or the belief of Transubstantiation a thing so far above the reach of humane reason could have got such possession in the soules of Christian mankind and that without any externall violence had not the finger of God writ it on mens hearts In doctrines of this Church that will admit the use of reason for their proportionablenesse no things seem more reasonable and where they are above reason nothing can be more sublime and befitting God the Author of this Religion and Christ Jesus the husband of this Church God who is the God of reason of which that small portion which man is Master of which yet ennobles him above all bodily creatures is but a ray from the splendor of his all-seeing sun-light a spark from his celestiall fire worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Ephes 1.11 which counsell implies prudence and reason in his actions according to the type of that eternall law whereby he workes himselfe and commands all his creatures to work And by this character the doctrines and the discipline of the Catholique Church proclaim him for their Author and are not therefore to be disgraced as they are by Protestants by the ill-sensed name of policy giving to the vertue of highest wisedome the superscription of deceitfull cunning And the knowledge of those things which in the government of this noblest Kingdome of Christ surmount the reach of present reason are reserv'd for a reward of our humble belief in the life to come when our faith shall be happily turned into sight and we shall cleerly see and be fully and eternally satisfied with the reason of al those things which now our short understandings have not line enough to fathom Excellent things are spoken of thee thou city of God Psal 86.3 And as it is written of Alexander the Great that his body was of such an excellent composition that it sent forth sweet vapours that perfumed all his clothes and our Saviour we know had such abundant vertue flowing from him that it cured such as touched him such is the body of the Church of so rare so holy and so rationall a composure that vertue goes out of her and sanctifies and wisedome and makes reasonable all her garments all her utensils and whatsoever appertaines to her the smell of thy garment is like the smell of Frankincense Cant. 4.11 And if any third party that were neither of the Roman nor of any Protestant Church should observe the admirable frame of this Church both in regard of the doctrine discipline he would surely say as the Apostle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 14.25 God is truly in you and with the Patriarch Jacob How dreadfull is this place this is no other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven Gen. 28.17 and as in the Canticles 6.10 this is she that goeth forth like the springing morn faire as the moon choice as the sun terrible as an army in battel aray But looking on the Churches of Protestants or any sort of Heretiques he should see a body without a head or which is as monstrous an hydra a beast with many heads and that possibly may have as many more if Kingdomes should be lessened and encreased having a law without a Judge but every one that is a party claiming that power in his owne cause Where they have no assurance that their law is uncorrupt but by the testimony of those they account their adversaries and the greatest lyars and seducers of the world Who have amongst them no faith but opinion no charity but humanity no hope fitly tempered with fear but bold presumption and pretended assurance for which they that are the most confident have the least cause of any men in the world Where there is no beauty comelinesse or order worthy the Bride of Christ not yet of the design or owning of any generous or wise and prudent man But as some Philosophers hold that the world was made by the accidentall concourse of Atomes So they seem to be made by chance and by chance to come together not being united by any internall form but only in a politicall opposition of her who is their Mother and Mistresse The Senate of Rome having chosen three men to go on an Embassie whereof the one had his head full of cuts and gashes the other was a fool and the third had the Gout Cato laughing said that the Senâ—â— had sent an Embassadour which had neither head heart
nor feet And even such imperfect things are all hereticall and deformed Churches which want faith for their head charity for their heart firmnesse and perseverance for their feet Holding such monstrous and absurd opinions that they make up a bundle of Heathenisme Turcisme Heresie and contradictions to common-sense Can then any indifferent and prudent man who knowes that God made the world with wisdome in number weight and measure can he think that they are the Church of God the deare Spouse of Christ for whose sake he descended from his heavenly Throne and took and lost humane life Or will he not rather say that they are mad 1 Cor. 14.26 Who are framed neither in number weight nor measure their societies and Churches being or being possible to be according to their principles as many as their persons their opinions vaine and foolish and their government confused and mis-shapen seeming rather a chaos than a creation In summe there is nothing that can be said for a true Catholique Church but may be truly said for the Roman there is â—othing that the Protestant Churches have said or can say for themselves but have been or may be said by Heretiques and are said by those who subdivide and separate from them which pretences if they be good in them against the Church of Rome they are good in others against them which yet they will not admit So that the Church of Rome is the true Church or there never was any true Church and all Protestants are Heretiques or there never were any that deserved that name § 9. What remaines then for all Protestants of what sort or title soever but to listen to the voice which sayeth Goe out of her my people that yee be not partakers of her sinnes and that ye receive not of her plagues Revel 18.4 To redeem their soules from forfeiture that have been thus long morgag'd to eternall death and with the Prodigall son to returne home to the Catholique Church their mother and thereby to God their Father in whose house there is plenty of celestiall Manna while they perish for want of food or become fellow commoners with the hogs and feed upon huskes and draught and thereby to give joy both to earth and heaven in their conversion seeing that as the elements never rest contentedly but in their proper placeâ— so they will find no rest but in the bosome of the true Church which is the proper place of every Christian To listen to the voice which crieth Return return ô Sunamite return return Cant 6.13 And the Spirit and the Bride say come And let him that heareth say come and let him that is athirst come And whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely Revel 22.17 by coming to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angells to the generall assembly and Church of the first borne which are written in heaven and to God the Judge of all and to the Spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant Heb. 12.22.23.24 before he come to them as a terrible Judge revealed from heaven with his mighty Angells in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospell of our Lord Jesus Christ 2. Thess 1.7.8 And that they may all doe so especially the Kingdome of England and most especially the most excellent King thereof Strike ô strike their and his soule O Lord with thy omnipotent grace whose magnetique vertue may draw his Royall heart to thee and make him a glorious and happy instrument of drawing others till they all meet in the unity of the faith so to continue untill their mortality shall put on immortality and his temporall crown of thornes be exchanged for an eternall crown of glory Amen FINIS S. Ambr. Ep. 31. ad Valent. Imp. Non erubesco cum toto orbe longaevo converti verum certè est quia nulla aetas ad perdiscendum sera est Erubescat senectus quae emendare se non potest Non annorum canities est laudanda sed morum Nullus pudor est ad meliora transire A Table of the Contents of the severall Chapters contained in this Book Chap. 1. THe Introduction And that the knowledge of the meanes to arrive unto eternall life is not otherwise attaineable then by faith grounded on the Word of God pag. 1. Chap. 2. Of the means to know which is the Word of God And that all the arguments imployed by Protestants to prove that the Scripture and it only is the Word of God are insufficient And that the Generall Tradition of the Catholique Church is the only assured proof thereof p. 6. Chap. 3. Of the insufficiency of means used by Protestants to find out the true sense of Scripture The absurdity of that assertion of theirs That all points necessary to salvation are clear and manifest p. 26. Chap. 4. Of the vanity and impiety of those who affirm that each mans particular reason is the last Judge and interpreter of Scripture and his guide in all things which he is obliged to believe and know And that the Catholique Church is the only Judge p. 36. Chap. 5. Of the meaning of those words Church and Catholique and that neither of them belong to Protestants p. 49. Chap. 6. Of the Infallibility of the Church p. 54. Chap. 7. That Catholique Tradition is the only firme foundation and motive to induce us to believe that the Apostles received their Doctrine from Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ from God the Father And what are the means by which this Doctrine is derived down to us p. 66. Chap. 8. That the Church is infallible in whatsoever she proposeth as the Word of God written or unwritten whether of great or small consequence That to doubt of any one point is to destroy the foundation of Faith And that Protestants distinction between points fundamentall and non-fundamentall is ridiculous and deceitfull p. 78. Chap ' 9. That there is and ever shall be a visible Church upon earth And that this Church is one holy Catholique and Apostolique p. 94. Chap. 10. That the Roman is that one holy Catholique and Apostolique Church p. 105. Chap. 11. That the true Church may be knowne by evident marks and that such marks agree only to the Roman Church And first of Universality the first mark of the Church p. 137. Chap. 12. Of the second mark of the Church viz. Antiquity both of persons and Doctrine p. 151. Chap. 13. Of Visibility the third mark of the Church And of the vanity of Protestants supposition that the true Church is sometimes invisible That Protestant Churches have not alwaies been visible p. 188. Chap. 14. Of the fourth mark of the true Church viz. a lawfull succession and ordinary vocation and mission of Pastors And that it is ridiculous to affirme that Catholiques and Protestants are the same Church p. 208. Chap. 15. Of the fifth Mark of the true Church viz. Unity in Doctrine and of the horrible dissentions among Pretestants p. 216. Chap. 16. Of the sixth Mark of the true Church viz. Miracles And that there are no true Miracles among Protestants p. 240. Chap. 17. Of the seventh Mark of the true Church viz. Conversion of Kingdomes and Monarchs p. 254 Chap. 18. Of the eighth and ninth Marks of the true Church viz. Sanctity of Doctrine and life p. 260. Chap. 19. Of the tenth and last here mentioned Mark of the Church viz. That the true Church hath never been separated from any society of Christians more antient then her felf p. 276. Chap. 20. That the Pope is the head of the Church p. 281. Chap. 21. That English Protestants do much mistake Catholike Doctrine being abused by the malice or ignorance of many of their Ministers And that upon their owne grounds they are obliged to inform themselves more exactly of the truth p. 297. Chap. 22. Of Communion in one kind p. 331. Chap. 23. Of the Liturgie and private prayers for the ignorant in an unknowne tongue p. 351. Chap. 22. Of the foolish deceitfull and absurd proceedings and behaviour of Protestants in matter of Religion And of the vanity and injustice of their pretext of conscience for their separation from the Roman Church p. 336 Chap. 23. The Conclusion wherein is represented on the one side the splendor and orderly composure of the Roman Catholique Church And on the other side the deformity and confusion of Protestant Congregations p. 362. The faults made by the Printer I desire the Reader thus to correct Page 21. line 1. dele § 5. p. 37. l. 2. r. tittle p. 47. l. 25 r. faith p. 61. l. 18. dele come p. 71. l 19. r. dangerous p. 85. l. 14. 15. r. ununiversall p. 140. l. 24. r. Psal 2.8 p. 147 l. 3. r. became l. 17. r. man p. 165. l. 9. r. intermingled p. 168. l. 11. r. unexpressible p. 188. l. 23. r. to a City p. 199. l. 9. r. tittle p. 201. l. 21. r. one p. 208. l. 22. r. all meet p. 210. l. 4. dele ought r. accusing p. 221. l. 13. r. call p. 261. l. 17. r. of hell l. 25. r. in our p. 276. l. 23. r. different p. 290. l. 2. r. say of l. 12. r. pillar of p. 293. l. 8. r. denying them p. 292. l. 18. r. Bishop p. 307. l. 12. r. as his p. 341. l. 15. r. consequentiae p. 358. l. 12. r. done in p. 358. l. 14. r. to this p. 367. l. 15. dele in p. 368. l. 5. r. Vnion Postscript The French Printer to the English Reader WHilst this piece so generally and deservedly lik'd and applauded both in the English Originall and in the French Version was reprinting here at Paris the learned Author returning hither from Rome in the very nick of time hath thought fit to add a Preface and two new Chapters to it the first Of Communion in one kind the other Of praying in an unknowne tongue both no lesse requisite then abundantly satisfactory So that I make no question but the contentment and benefit you will receive thereby will easily reconcile you aswell to the misnumbring of some Chapters pages occasioned by the Addition as to some other Errata's for which my ignorance in your language craves the benefit of a pardon Adieu
mentioned by Plutarch which hath a body like a sword but wants a heart they had at least in the opinion of some a shew of strength and sharpnesse but inwardly had no power Spirit or vigour And that all their specious shewes of purity Reformation and Evangelicall truth were but like a shallow brook or plash of water wherein we may discern the Sun or moone and stars with the whole face of heaven as if it were as deep as heaven is high when if we but sound it with our little finger we pierce it through even to the earth So their pretences of the pure Word of God heavenly truth and nothing but the truth as if like Prometheus they had fetch'd it themselves from heaven being fathomed I found no deeper than the shallow conceits of private heads And that like Micol they had sent away David and laid an Image in his place 1 Kings 19. they had renounced the true and living Word of God which is the true sense thereof and laid an image of their owne fancy drest in the same letter in the room thereof and so were though not of Saints and Images which they ought yet worshippers of their owne imaginations which they ought not as being a high Idolatry § 8. These these are the motives which have inclined me to believe that the Church of England and all other Protestant Churches are guilty both of Heresie and Schisme two sinnes of highest nature the one against God the other against our neighbour the one against faith the other against charity by denying their beliefe to doctrines revealed by God the supreme Author and proposed by the Catholique Church the supreme witnesse of divine truth and by rending the seamlesse coat of Christ separating from the Communion of his Church and that as some of their most learned say for things not fundamentall and what can be more imprudent than for an unfundamentall error to commit a fundamentall sinne And such it is to separate from the true Church as the learned amongst them confesse the Church of Rome to be And as the pretended errors for which they did separate they confesse were not fundamentall so for ought they know for they confesse that the judgement of their Church may erre they were no errors at all and so again for ought they know they have not reformed but deformed themselves and are gone out of Gods blessing as we say into the warm Sun What madesse it is to make or continue a separation from a true Church so acknowledged by all Christians upon pretences not accounted true by any but themselves and nor certainly known to be true so much as by themselves And as S. Augustine de unit Eccles c. 3. argues against the Donatists If both sides were true they had no cause to separate and to fly from those whom they had in possession If both false there was no cause of separation that they should fly from those who were no more faulty than themselves If our doctrines are true and theirs false there was no cause of their separation because they ought rather to have amended themselves and continued in unity and if ours are false and theirs true there was no cause of their separation because they ought not to have forsaken the innocent world to whom either they would not or they could not demonstrate their truth Nor can it excuse them to say that such or such things are against their conscience for as much as they ought to regulate their consciences by the Word of God in the mouth of the Church not of themselves otherwise contentious and self-will'd Spirits will never want this plea to separate from the Church and so to serve God with their Will-worship and not to demand of the Church that she make her conscience stoope to a compliance with theirs which is insolent and unreasonable 'T is true that he that doth any thing against his conscience sins so also if he do not that which he is commanded he sins therefore to reconcile this conflict of conscience men may and must though it go against the grain of their private judgement submit themselves by an implicite faith to the Church by believing her to be wiser than themselves and so believing what she saith to be true Otherwise this conscience would be a plea for all disobedience and impiety when wicked men might say that they could not be perswaded in their conscience that the things they were commanded to believe or do were good but rather the contrary were so and therefore they would do them Thus erroneous men may think it lawfull to commit murder or adultery as all Rebells do the one and Familists and Adamites the other And we see that Protestants who make conscience their Plea against the Church of Rome and a ground of Separation will not admit this from others that are under their command The legall Protestants of England would not permit any man under pretence of conscience to refuse the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy but thought all men bound to submit their beliefes therein to them And now the Reformers of the reformed who heretofore complained of it as an Egyptian burden to have any thing imposed on them against their conscience make no scruple to impose upon other mens consciences in their oaths Protestations and Covenants of conspiracy and Rebellion against their lawfull Prince and of believing a Religion not only now in Being but whatsoever hereafter shall be by them contrived nor will they suffer any mans tendernesse of conscience to be a ground for the separation of his obedience So that the separation of all Protestants from the Church of Rome under pretence of conscience as it hath no ground of truth so hath it not either of prudence or justice § 9. And if the Protestants especially the Chilling worthians will be as they pretend the servants of reason and follow her whither she shall guide them I cannot see how they can avoid coming to the Catholique Roman Church For seeing that according to them there is no infallible certainty of the truth of any point of Faith for if there be so it is in their fundamentalls yet seeing they have no infallible knowledge what those fundamentalls are they must needs slide back againe to their former universall uncertainty all the assurance they have in matter of religion can be but probable Now Aristotle the great Master of reason gives this rule of probability That saith he is probable which seems so to all or to the most or to the most wise and amongst them to all or to the most or to the most famous and eminent which rule is so consonant to reason as I think no reasonable creature will deny it Nor can any Protestant except pride and ignorance shut the doore of his confession deny that this rule of probability amongst all sorts of Christians is applyable only to the Roman Catholique Church there having been infinitely more and more wise and learned people