such special opportunities of knowing the judgement of the antient Church both Iewish and Christian Besides I am informed that the famous Bishop of Sardis Melito a man of great judgment and venerable holiness as your Sixtus Senensis saith did take a journey to the Eastern Churches where the Apostles principally preached to find out the true Canon of the Scripture and returned with the same Canon that we own but for the Apochrypha brought home a Non est inventus And moreover that divers of your greatest Champions do confess that a great number of the Antient Fathers were of our opinion among which themselves reckon Melito Origen Athanasius Eusebius Ruffinus Hierom and Amphilocius so say Canus and Bellarmine and Andradius and in the General Sixtus Senensis confesseth that the Antient Fathers were of our opinion Are these things so Pop. I will not deny the truth it is so but you must know that other Fathers were of another minde as Clemens Cyprian and Ambrose and especially St. Austin and the Council of Carthage Prot. The Fathers of our opinion were both far more numerous and such as lived nearest the Apostolical Times and Churches The Council of Laodicea was more antient than that of Carthage and therefore of greater Authority and besides the sixth Council of Constantinople doth expresly confirm all the Decrees of the Council of Laodicea among which this was one and the Council of Carthage too doth not your work For in their Catalogue there is both more than you own to wit the third Book of Esdras although they call it the second as the Greeks did and less too for they shut out Baruch and the Maccabees But besides all this I am told that very many of your most eminent Doctors have disowned these Books which we reject as the Parisian Divines and Cardinal Ximenius with the Complutensian University and Aquinas and Lyra and Pagnim and many others Is it so Pop. I confess this is true Prot. Then I am sure this may satisfie any rational man concerning the Testimony of the Antient Church and for the next point viz. their agreement with the Canonical Books I think it is plain enough that they do grosly contradict them and the truth too that fact of Simeon and Levi which good Iacob acted by Gods Spirit detesteth Iudith commends Chap. 9. Tobit is said to have lived 202. years Chap. 14. whereas if he said true he must have lived twice as long for he saith he was taken captive by Salmanasser Chap. 1. and 2. and 14. and when he was about to die he saith the time was near for the return of the Israelites from their Captivity and the re-building of the Temple which was burn'd If the Books of the Maccabees say true Antiochus his soul had a lease of his body for three lives and he was killed thrice over I commend the Author he was resolved to make sure work of him 1. He dies at Babylon in his bed 1 Mac. 2. 6. then he is stoned in the Temple of Nanea 2 Mac. 1. Lastly he dyes in the Mountains by a fall out of his Chariot 2 Maccab. 9. And the fine fetches of your Authors to reconcile these gross contradictions put me in mind of a story we heard at School if you remember of a Gentleman that told this lye That he shot a Deer at one shot through his right ear and left hinder leg and you know how hard his man was put to it to help his Master out but I will not launch forth into the Sea of untruths and absurdities that are contained in those Books these may suffice to shew you that we do not without warrant reject them but howsoever it is sufficient for my purpose that you grant that my Bible as the Word of God and these Books in it Canonical and I can know this without the Churches Authority Pop. Do not make too much haste if I do grant that these Books in the Original Language are the Word of God yet yours is but a Translation Prot. Is it rightly translated for the substance or is it not What Bible is that which you have Pop. A Latin Bible Prot. Is that the Word of God and rightly translated Pop. Yes the Council of Trent hath decreed so Prot. Then I pray you let us try this Experiment do you pick out any 20. verses in several parts of the Bible and turn them into English out of your Bible Pop. The motion is fair I will do it Prot. I do not finde any substantial difference in all these places between your Translation and mine the difference is wholly in words not at all in sense so now I thank you for this occasion for I have heard some of your Priests ranting highly against our Translation and now I see they have no cause for it Pop. If all this were over yet the Scripture is not a sufficient Rule to guide you to Heaven of it self without Tradition Prot. Why so I beseech you Pop. Because you are also commanded there to hold the Tradition true in your Bible to 2 Thes. 2. 15. Hold the Traditions which ye have been taught whether by Word or Epistle Prot. How do you prove that he speaks of such Traditions as were not written in the Scripture Pop. Because he so plainly distinguisheth between what he taught them by word and what he taught them by Epistle or Writing Prot. That may be true that he speaks of some things of which he had not written to them and yet they might be written by him to others or by others at least after that time but besides notwithstanding this distinction between Word and Epistle divers of your own Authors affirm that Tradition is perfect and that St. Paul taught all things necessary by word of mouth and why may not I as well say that he taught all by Epistle But I pray you What do you mean by these Traditions Pop. I mean all the Traditions which either he or any other Apostles did deliver all these you are bound to receive Prot. I will not quarrel with you for that bring me solid proofs of any of your unwritten Traditions that they did indeed come from the Apostles I promise you I will joyfully receive them But I pray you what are these Traditions you speak of Pop. Such as these the Doctrine of Purgatory Invocation of Saints of the Popes Supremacy of the single life of Priests of the Fasts of the Church private Masses Worship of Images c. Prot. And do you think that all that did not believe and receive these Traditions shall be damned Pop. No by no means for then I should condemn many of the Holy Fathers and Martyrs who differed from us at least in some of these Points Prot. Then it is not necessary to salvation to receive these Traditions and the Scripture may be sufficient without them But further These unwritten Traditions you talk of I beseech you how came you to discover them and
denying of the reading of Scriptures to the people and others And will you yet brag of the Antiquity of your Religion 3. These Doctrines wherein we differ from you have been not only proved from Scripture but from the plain testimony of Antient Fathers as I think none can doubt that laying aside prejudices shall read what our Iewel and Morton and Field and others have written How then can you have the confidence to charge us with Novelty Pop. Your Church is new in this respect that although some others before you might own some of your Doctrines there was no Church that owned all your Doctrines both positive and negative Prot. That is not necessary I hope every alteration of Doctrines of less moment doth not make the Church new if it doth it is most certain that your Church is new also for nothing can be more plain than that the Catholick Church nay even your own Church of Rome did not antiently in former ages hold all these Doctrines which now she owns as your own greatest Authors confess this is sufficient that the Church of God in most former ages hath owned all our Substantial Doctrines But what have you further to say Pop. It is sufficient against you that your Church is Schismatical and you are all guilty of Schism in departing from the true Catholick Church which is but one and that is the Roman Prot. I desire to know of you Whether in no case a man may separate from the Church whereof he was a member without Schism Pop. Yes certainly if there be sufficient cause for it for the Apostles did separate from the Church of the Jews after Christs death and the Orthodox separated from the Arrian Churches and all Communion with them yet none ever charged them with Schism Prot. Since you mention that instance I pray you tell me Why they separated from the Arrians Pop. Because they held this Heresie That Christ was a Creature and not the true God Prot. Very well hence then I conclude That if your Church do hold any Heresie and require all her members to own it too it is no Schism for us to separate from you Pop. That must needs be granted but this is but a slander of yours for our Church holds no such Heresies Prot. Your Church doth not hold one but many dangerous Errours and Heresies as I do not doubt to manifest e're you and I part And if you please we will leave the present Argumeut to this issue if I do not prove your Church guilty of Heresie and the imposition of it too I am content you should charge us with Schism if I do you shall mention it no more Pop. You speak reason let it rest there Prot. Besides methinks you deal barbarously with us you drive us out from you by your tyranny and then you blame us for departing as if Sarah had call'd Hagar a Schismatick for going out of Abraham's family from which she forced her Tell me I pray you if the case be so that I must depart from the Roman Church or from God What must I do Pop. The case is plain you must rather depart from that Church Prot. This is the case If I do not depart from your Church she will force me to live in many mortal sins I must believe a hundred lies I must worship the Cross and Relicks and Images which God commands me under pain of his highest displeasure not to worship I must worship the Sacrament with divine worship which I am assured is no other for substance than bread for your Church is not content to hold these opinions but she enjoyns these practices to all her members And if things be thus I think you will not have the confidence any more to charge us with Schism for obeying the command of God to come out of Babylon since you force all your members to partake with you in your sins Rev. 18. 4. Besides all this let me ask you upon what account you charge us with Schism Pop. For departing from the Catholick Church and from your Mother Church of Rome and from the Pope whose Subjects once you were Prot. If then I can prove that we are not departed from the Catholick Church nor from our Mother Church nor from any of that subjection we owe to the Pope I hope you will acquit us from Schism Pop. That I cannot deny Prot. Then this danger is over For 1. We never did depart from the Catholick Church which is not your particular Roman Church as you most ridiculously call it but the whole multitude of Believers and Christians in the world Nay the truth is you are the Schismaticks in renouncing all Communion with all the Christian Churches in the world except your own which are equal to yours in number and many of them far superiour in true piety Next we do not own you for our Mother Ierusalem which is above not Babylon that is beneath is the Mother of us all If we grant now you are a true Church yet you are but a sister Church Pop. You forget that you received the Gospel from our hands Prot. Suppose we did really so Doth that give you authority over us If it did not Rome but Ierusalem should be the Mother Church from whom you also received the Gospel This you deny which shews that you do not believe your own Argument to be good And for the Popes Universal and Infallible Authority which he pretends over all Christians I have diligently read your Arguments for it and I freely profess to you I find your pretences both from Scripture and Fathers so weak and frivolous that I durst commend it to any understanding and disinterested person as a most likely means to convince him of the vanity and falseness of that Doctrine that he would peruse any of your best Authors and the very sight of the weakness and impertinency of your Arguments would abundantly satisfie him of the badness of your cause Pop. You have no Ministers because you have no uninterrupted succession from the Apostles as we have and therefore you have on Church and therefore no Salvation Prot. I observe you take the same course that the Adversaries of the Gospel ever did who when they could not reprove the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles they quarrelled with them for want of a Calling as you may see Iohn 1. 25. Mat. 21. 23. Act. 4. 7. But the good Christians of that time took another course and examined not so much the Call of the persons as the truth of the Doctrine Act. 8. 17. It seems to me a secret confession of your guilt and the Error of your Doctrine that you are so careful to turn off mens eyes from that to a far meaner point But tell me Do you believe that such an uninterrupted Succession of Ministers from the Apostles is absolutely necessary to the being of a Church Pop. Yes verily or else this Argument signifies nothing Prot. How then can you convince me
and that the Atheist ought to yield to them Pop. Yes doubtless for every man is bound to receive the truth especially when it is so proposed and proved to him Prot. It seems then by this when you list you can prove the Scripture to be the Word of God without taking in the Churches Authority I hope you will allow me the same benefit But again let me ask you your Church that you talk of which believes the Scripture to be the Word of God Doth she believe it to be the Word of God upon solid grounds or no Pop. Yes doubtless our Church is not so irrational as to believe without grounds nor do we pretend Revelation but she believes it upon solid Arguments Prot. I wish you would give me a list of their Arguments But whatever they be that are sufficient to convince your Church why should they not be sufficient to convince any private man Popish or Protestant or Atheist And therefore there is no need of the Churches testimony Or will you say the Church hath no other sufficient reason to believe the Scriptures but her own testimony that is she believes because she will believe Pop. God forbid that I should disparage the Church or give Atheists that occasion to scoff at the Stripture Prot. Then I also may be satisfied without the Churches testimony that the Scriptures are the Word of God and I am so by such Arguments as your self mentioned but really I cannot but smile to see what cunning sophisters you are how you play at fast and loose The same Arguments for the Scriptures are strong and undeniable when you talk with an Atheist and are all of a sudden become weak as water when a Protestant brings them Pop. But if you can prove in the General That the Scriptures are the Word of God yet you cannnot without the Churches Authority tell what Books of Scripture or which are Canonical and so you are never the nearer Prot. Here also I must ask you again How doth your Church know which Books are Scripture and Canonical doth she know this by Revelation Pop. No we leave such fancies to your Church Prot. How then doth she know this and why doth she determine it Is it with reason or without it Pop. With reason doubtless being induced to believe and determine it upon clear and undoubted Evidences Prot. I pray you tell me what are those Evidences upon which she goes Pop. I will be true to you our great Bellarmine mentions these three The Church saith he knows and declares a Canonical Book 1. From the testimonies of the Antients 2. From its likeness and agreement with other Books 3. From the common sense and taste of Christian people Prot. Since a private man especially one that besides learning and experience hath the Spirit of God to guide him which is that anointing given to all Believers which teaches them all things 1 Joh. 2. 27. may examine and apprehend these things as well as the Pope himself and better too considering what kind of creatures divers of your Popes are confest to have been he may therefore know without the Churches Authority what Books are indeed Canonical but I pray you tell me Do not you acknowledge those books to be the Word of God which we do that are in this Bible Pop. I must be true to you we do own every Book you have there but you should receive the Books which you call Apocryphal so that indeed your Bible is not compleat for you believe but a part of the written Word of God which I must tell you is of dangerous consequence Prot. If these Books be a part of Gods Word I confess we are guilty of a great sin in taking away from Gods Word and if they be not you are no less guilty in adding to it so that the only question is Whether these Books be a part of the holy Scripture or no Now that if you please we will try Bellarmines rules Pop. The motion is fair and reasonable Prot. First then for the judgment of the Antient Church let us try that I know you hold the Churches judgment infallible especially in matters of this moment and I suppose you think the Iewish Church was infallible before Christ as the Christian Church now is Pop. We do so and the Infallibility of the Iewish Church and High Priest Deut. 17. is one of our principal Arguments for the Infallibility of our Church Prot. Then only these Books of the old Testament were Canonical which the Jewish Church did own Pop. That must necessarily follow Prot. Then your cause is lost for it is certain the Jews rejected these Apocryphal Books which you receive and they reckoned only 22. Iosephus his words acknowledged for his by Eusebius are most express for us The Iews have only 22 Books to which they deservedly give credit which contains things written from the beginning of the World to the times of Artaxerxes other things were written afterward so the Apocryphal Books are granted to have been but they are not of the same credit with the former because There was no certain succession of Prophets and I am told divers of your learned Authors confess it as Catharinus Costerus Marianus Victor and Bellarmine himself whose words are these All those Books which the Protestants do not receive the Iews also did not receive and this is more considerable because to the Iews were committed the Oracles of God Rom. 3. 2. And neither Christ nor his Apostles did accuse them of breach of trust in this matter Moreover I am told and surely in all reason it must needs be true that the Canonical Books of the Iewish Church were written in the Iewish or Hebrew language whereas these were written in Greek only Are these things so Pop. What is true I will acknowledge It is so The Jewish Church indeed did not receive them nor yet did they reject them as our Canus well answers Prot. Either that Church did believe them to be Canonical or they did not if they did then they lived in a mortal sin against Conscience in not receiving them if they did not they were of our opinion Pop. Well what soever the Jewish Church did I am sure the Antient Christians and Fathers did receive these Books as a part of the Canonical Scriptures Prot. I doubt I shall take you tardy there too I am told that the Council of Laodicea in the year of our Lord 364. drew up a Catalogue of the Books of the Scripture in which as in ours the Apocryphal Books are rejected Pop. It is true they did not receive them nor yet reject them Prot. If they did not receive them that undeniably shews that they did not believe them to be Canonical and yet they diligently scanned the point and the Books had then been extant some hundred of years and they were far more likely to know the truth than we at this distance having then
poor Elijah and so Michaiah were left alone nor those in Malachy's daies that the Priests caused them to stumble at the Law Malac 2. 8. nor the Crucifiers of Christ that they obeyed the decrees of their Priests and Rulers I list not to repeat what I have said elsewhere therefore read Nullity of Romish Faith ch 2. sect 12. And will you yet stumble at the same stone 2. The people will not be excused by their Priests misguidance because they neglect their duty If indeed there were no duty incumbent upon the people but to believe what your Priests say and do what they require then your Church speaks reason But that none but a mad man will say There are several duties required of the People no less than of the Priests the Law of God was not given only to the Priests but to all the People God publisheth this law in the hearing of all the people and speaks in the singular number to every one of the people thou shalt do or forbear this or that and the curse is threatned to the people Deut. 27. 26. Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them and all the people shall say Amen Which the Apostle repeats Gal. 3. 10. Cursed is every one not Priests only but the People too that continueth not in all things which are written in this book of the law to do them If the Priests then should have taught the Israelites as your Priests now teach you thou shalt worship a graven image when God saith thou shalt not worship a graven image can any serious man think this would have freed them from that curse and that it was safer for them to obey the Command of men than of God O the impudence of your Priests that dare say so O the blockishness of those people that will believe them when they say so your Pope may well contend with us for it seems your Priests will contest with God for Supremacy When the Priests and Prophets in Isaiahs daies were generally corrupt the people are not advised to believe all that they taught and to obey all that they decreed which is the strain of your Church but are commanded immediately to go to the law and to the testimony and if any speak not according to them they are to be rejected because there is no light in them Isa. 8. 20. Even people are required not to believe every spirit but to try the spirits 1 John 4. 1. Nor did the Apostles exempt themselves and their doctrines from this Tryal but allowed commended and required it in the people The Beraeans are not reproved and censured as they would certainly be that should tread in their steps at Rome but commended for examining the Doctrine of S. Paul by the Scripture Acts 17. 11. And the same Apostle allows the Galatians not only to try his Doctrines whether they were agreeable to what they had received but in case they find them contrary he gives them Commission to censure and anathemize him Gal. 1. 8 9. And he bespeaks the Corinthians in this language I speak to wise men judge you what I say 1 Cor. 10. 15. And he commands the Thessalonians to prove all things without exception as well as to hold fast that which is good 1 Thess. 5. 21. Consider these things I beseech you and do not wilfully cast away your precious souls upon trifles God hath given the Scripture as a rule to try things by and this was written for the Ignorant and the people as well as the learned and the Priests John 20. 31. he hath given people reason to try things with if you will hide these Talents in a Napkin at your peril be it The Prince was commanded to read and meditate in the Book of the Law that he might observe to do all that is written therein Iosh. 1. 8. Can you seriously think that if the corrupt Priests had agreed to teach him to do contrary to all that was written therein that this would have excused him before God then that Precept was both superfluous and dangerous and if you do not think so as you must needs if you have any Conscience then neither will it excuse your people for according to the Doctrine of your Church Prince and People are alike in this both tied to believe as your Church believes God commands every Christian to prove his own work and tells us that every man shall bear his own burden Gal. 6. 4 5. and that every man shall give an account of himself to God Rom. 14. 12. Do not think your Priests account shall serve turn and all the Christian people of Corinth are commanded to examine themselves whether they be in the faith 2 Cor. 13. 5. And dare you still live in the wilful breach of all these Commands and blindly give up your Souls and Consciences by an implicite faith to the conduct of your Priests to lead them whether they please 3. The Scripture hath given you full warning of your danger Read but two places Ezek 33. 8. where God assures us that the wicked shall die in his iniquity though he perished through the Watchmans fault and Matth. 15. 14. where Christ confutes this very opinion of yours which was also the opinion of the Jews that they were safe enough while they folowed their Priests Decrees and Counsels and tells them If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the Ditch and doubt of this if you can or dare In a word if this senceless Doctrine were true not only Men would have dominion over our Faith contrary to express Scripture Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ Matth. 23. 10. Not that we have dominion over your faith said the great Apostle but also Christ should lose his dominion and have no authority in his Church but as your Priests please and it seems he shall not have this favour from you to continue in his Office quamdiu bene se gesserit but quamdiu vobis placuerit and Christs power is apparently limited to your Interpretation but the power of your Church is absolute and unlimited and the People obliged to believe them quamcunque sententiam tulerint whatsoever they shall decree as Gretser expresseth it If this be not to make the word and Authority of God and Christ void through your Traditions I know not what is I will trouble you no further If you be capable of Counsel take warning and suffer not your selves to be lead hoodwinckt to Hell to serve a Carnal Interest of some among you but quit your selves like men and by the grossness of this delusion learn to suspect the rest and with humble and honest hearts read what is here proposed to you for your Souls good and God give you light Let my Soul prosper no otherwise than I heartily wish the good and salvation of you all but if you will still persist in your blindness and add further obstinacy to your
the falseness of your Religion For such will be apt to conclude that your Faith is not right because your uncharitableness is so notorious and monstrous in condemning all the world besides your selves and that too upon such frivolous pretences This argument therefore of yours hath little weight Let me hear what further you have to say against our Religion Pop. Then consider seriously of this that your Church confesses that she is Fallible and that you have no Infallible Iudge among you whereby Controversies may be ended but our Church is Infallible Prot. I confess now you speak home make this good That it is necessary the Church should be Infallible and that yours is so and I shall ease you of the trouble of further Arguments But I must ask you two Questions 1. What is the meaning of this Proposition and 2. How you will prove it For the first I ask you how you understand it What is this Church which you tell me is Infallible Are you agreed among your selves in that point To tell me of an Infallible Judge and not to give me infallible assurance who this Judge is is to deceive me with vain words and will no more end Controversies than to tell me there is an Infallible Judge in Heaven For where I pray you shall I finde your Infallible Judge Now I am in quest of him I intreat your counsel and direction Tell me then Is it the body of your Church and multitude of Catholicks that is your Infalible Judge Do you make your people the Judge of Controversies Pop. No For we all agreed the Government of the Church is Monarchical Prot. Are you then agreed that the Pope alone is the Infallible Judge speak the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth Pop. I will deal truly with you we are not all agreed in that point the French Catholicks generally deny it and divers of our eminent Doctors and Writers as Bellarmin confesses and among the rest a Pope Adrian by name denies it and even they that seem to be better minded towards the Pope acknowledge that it is no heresie to deny this and that divers good Catholicks deny it and that it is but a disputable point Prot. Is it then a General Council that is infallible Are you agreed in that deal truly and clearly with me Pop. Then I must confess we are not all agreed in that neither For the Pope will deny this and all the Iesuites and Italian Catholicks and others who ascribe this Infallibility to the Pope only Prot. Who then is this Infallible Judge Pop. The Pope and a General Council agreeing together Prot. Is there then at this time any General Council at Rome or elsewhere which doth agree with the Pope Pop. No but though there be no Council now in their persons yet there is in their writings and the Pope agreeing with them is infallible Prot. But I have been told that all your Doctors agree in this that no Writing can be a judge of Controversies If you deny this I should think the writing of God which you all acknowledge the Scripture to be might challenge this priviledge as well as the writings of any Council or men You all plead for the absolute necessity of a living Infallible Judge Pop. Though Catholicks are divided in the manner of expression yet all are agreed in this general Proposition That our Church is Infallible Prot. Call you this only a difference in manner of expression for one to say the Pope is Infallible another to say he is fallible for some of you to affirm the infallibility of Councils others utterly to deny it I beseech you remember I am inquiring after Particulars and therefore do not put me off with deceitful Generals who and where is the man or men to whom I must go to be infallibly resolved in all Controversies For if the King should tell his people he hath appointed a Judge to end all their civil Controversies this would be to no purpose unless he should tell who that Judge is So that till I hear you are agreed in this particular my doubts and perplexities must needs remain And then for the next point I ask you how you prove this Infallibility which you pretend to I must tell you since it is the very foundation of your Faith I expect very clear and undeniable Proofs I pray you bring me two or three of your strongest Arguments Pop. In this you speak reason and I shall comply with your desires I shall give you two or three plain and evident Scriptures to prove it 1. That of Mat. 16. 18. Hence I thus argue The Church is said to be built upon St. Peter he is the Rock spoken of and this Rock doth together with S. Peter include his Successours and the Church built upon this Rock that is united to and built upon the Pope is infallible for it is said The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Prot. Not one of all these things is true 1. It is more probable that not Peter's Person but his Doctrine or his Confession concerning Christ which now he made is the Rock upon which the Church is built Scripture is its own best Interpreter It is not Peter but Christ which is the foundation of the Church as he is called Isa. 28. 16. compared with 1 Pet. 2. 6 7 8. It is expresly 1 Cor. 3. 11. Other foundation can no man lay but that that is laid which is Iesus Christ and this is the more considerable because he speaks against those that made the Apostles foundations one saying I am of Paul another I of Apollos I of Cephas And if this were spoken of Peter no more is said of him here than is said of all the Prophets and Apostles Ephes. 2. 20. Ye are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets And besides if by this Text Peter had been made supreme and Infallible Head of the Church and Judge of all Controversies no Man in his wits can believe that St. Paul would have treated him so irreverently to speak the least as he doth Galat. 2. which is more considerable because then Christ was dead and Peter in the actual exercise of his Headship and Government and if we may believe you publickly and universally owned for such that he would have equalled himself with him as he doth Verse 7. The Gospel of the Vncircumcision was committed to me as the Gospel of the Circumcision to Peter And that he would have spoken promiscuously of Iames Cephas and Iohn that they all seemed to be pillars Ver. 9. and not a word of Peters being the rock and foundation and that he would have withstood St. Peter to his face as he did Verse 11. 2. If this were meant of Peter yet this is nothing to his Successours You must first prove that St. Peter had a Successour in that supposed universal Headship which will be very hard to perswade any understanding Man for 1. That authority
which the Apostles had over all Churches was peculiar to them and died with them we see God did not think it necessary to leave a successour to Moses in his full and absolute Authority no more was it necessary to leave any after Peter and the Apostles and the reason is the same because the work of Law-giving was finish'd and those that came after were tyed to the execution of their Laws 2. Besides if Peter did leave a Successour what prudent man can believe that he would not have left some notice thereof to the world in one of his Epistles I find he saith I will endeavour that you may be able after my decease to have these things in remembrance 2 Pet. 1. 15. How easie had it been to have added to that end I leave a Successour whom you must hear in all things I find Moses was very careful to leave a Successour and so was Elias and David and Christ as my Father sent me so send I you Was Peter the only careless person that would not be at the expence of a word to prevent all those Heresies Schisms and Contentions which were even then broached and most likely to increase after the death of the Apostles in the Christian world 3. If any did succeed St. Peter in his Head-ship one would think it should have been one of the surviving Apostles especially St. Iohn who lived above 20 years after him for who can believe that regards what he believes that Linus or Clemens who is said to be St. Peters successour should be superiour to St. Iohn yet the foundation of all your Religion is built upon this nonsensical opinion And if this priviledge did belong not only to Peter but some of his successours yet to say it belongs to all following Popes divers of which are acknowledged to be Apostatical and most wicked wretches and that such Monsters as were the true slaves of the Devil and brands of Hell should be the foundations of the Church by whom the Church was to be secured from the gates of Hell will not find belief with serious Men till East and West meet together and besides when our Divines say The Pope is Antichrist and the Man of sin you use to answer that these expressions the Antichrist and the Man of sin must needs point at a particular Man and not a whole Order of Men which if it be true the expression there used of this Rock especially being so particularly levell'd at Peter as you will needs have it cannot with any colour be thought to mean a succession of many hundreds of persons And sure I am whatever the Text speaks of Peter it speaks not one word of Peters Successours and therefore it is as easie for me to deny it as you to affirm it 3. Whatever this promise or priviledge is it belongs no more to the Church of Rome than to the Church of England the name of one is heer as clear as the other It is a general promise extending to the Church at all times and places signifying that God will have and maintain a Church to the end of the World And if this place concerns only those that are built upon St. Peter you grant the Church of England once was as the Church of Rome now is built upon him too when it was subject to the Pope And if their being built upon St. Peter did not secure them from Fallibility and Apostacy as you say it did not then consequently the building of the Church of Rome upon St. Peter did not make them infallible but they might as we say and prove they did fall away And certainly one of these two things must be granted either that every Church which did once adhere to Peter or the Pope are secured by this Text from falling away or else that notwithstanding this Promise every Church that now is subject to the Pope may fall away from him and so the Pope may be a head without a Body a Shepherd without so much as one sheep For if this Text did prove what they desire that all that do adhere to the Pope whilst they do so are Infallible yet it doth not prove that they all shall constantly adhere to him which is quite another thing 4. If this Promise and Priviledge did belong to any particular Church and to yours in a special manner yet it doth not prove your Infallibility This place concerns Doctrines no more than Manners and secures your Church no more against damnable Heresies than against damnable Practices since the gates of Hell prevail by one as well as by the other and since you acknowledge that Peters successours have lived and died in damnable sins they might as well die in damnable Heresies Besides if this Text did prove the Popes Supremacy yet here is not one word concerning his Infallibility which is quite another thing 5. If this Text did prove any Infallibility it doth not prove the Popes Infallibility which you alledge this Text for but the Infallibility of the Church which is built upon it Pop. But that Church is Infallible because they adhere to the Rock viz. the Pope who therefore must needs be more Infallible Prot. Then it seems the foundation of all your Infallibility is in the Pope as Peters Successour whom multitudes of your own Learned and approved Doctors acknowledge to be Fallible I have heard you all confess That your Popes may erre in Manners and Practice Is it so Pop. Yes Prot. Then whatsoever he thinks he may speak lyes and deceive the World in telling them he is Infallible and surely if a Man will deceive for any thing he will do it for such an Empire as the Pope holds but I have heard also your Popes may erre in matters of Fact Pop. That we do all agree in Prot. Then he may mistake and erre in these Questions whether Peter left a Successour and whether the Bishop of Rome be the person and whether there hath been that uninterrupted succession in the Papal Chair which you pretend to be necessary which must be Infallibly certain or else the Pope holds his Authority only upon courtesie so this place will not stand you in much stead Let me hear if you have any better Argument Pop. There is another place which if you were not an obstinate sort of Men would satisfie you all and that is 1 Tim. 3. 15. where the Church is called The pillar and ground of truth and therefore is Infallible Prot. Let me first ask you What Church is there spoken of which you say is Infallible Is it the Church of Rome Was Timothy Bishop of Rome or no Pop. No he was Bishop of Ephesus But why do you ask that Question Prot. This place apparently speaks of that Church in and over which Timothy was set so if it speak of any particular Church it must be that of Ephesus which you confess was Fallible not that of Rome or if it speak of the Universal Church that might be
or any other Christian that you have had such an uninterrupted Succession in your Church You must produce and it seems I must read all those many hundreds of great Volumes wherein such passages are mentioned In those you must shew me a perfect catalogue of the several names of those Popes and others who have without interruption succeeded one another ever since the Apostles days and this catalogue must be such that all your Authors are agreed in whereas I am told for certain they differ very much in their reports therein and are not so much as agreed among themselves who was Peter's next Successor whether Linus or Clemens or some other person they know not who and those Historians that report these things you must assure me that they were infallible which you do not pretend they were or else they might mistake the things themselves and mis-report them to me and I have heard and read that there have been divers interruptions and Schisms even in your Church one Pope set up against another and each pretending to be the true Pope and disannulling all the Acts of the other and that the Christian people were then wofully divided some cleaving to one others to another but it may be this was a mistake of our Ministers therefore tell me Was this true or no Pop. I confess it was true after the year of Christ 1300. there were several Popes at the same time one at Rome another at Avignon Prot. And how long did this difference last Pop. For about 50. years Prot. And is it true that I have heard that your great Baronius reports that for 150 years together the Popes were rather Apostates than Apostolicks and that they were thrust into the Papal Chair by the power of Harlots and the violences of the Princes of Tuscany Pop. I must be true to you Baronius doth say so at the year 897. Prot. Then never hence forward be so impudent to pretend to such a lawful clear and uninterrupted succession but blush that ever you mentioned it But besides I have heard that divers of our first reformed and reforming Ministers too were such as had received Ordination from and in the Church of Rome and from your Bishiops Is it true or is it not Pop. I will be ingenuous Our Doctors confess it but if your Ministers or some of them had a call from our Church yet they were only called to Preach not to overturn the world as they did and to undertake the Reformation of the whole Church Prot. You have said enough if they were called to the Ministry their Work and Office was to bear witness to the Truth and therefore to undeceive the world in those many Errors and Heresies which you had brought into the Church and Ministers are set for the defence of the Gospel they were therefore bound by their Office to edeavour the Reformation of the Church and salvation of Souls and as in a great Fire especially where the publick Officers neglect their Duty every man brings his Bucket to quench it so in that miserable estate into which you had brought the Church when the Pope and Bishops would not do their duty it was the duty of every Minister to endeavour and to stir up the Kings and Magistrates of the World to endeavour a Reformation Surely you cannot pretend to an higher priviledge than St. Paul and yet he gives all Ministers and Christians this leave and charge that if he himself should bring any other doctrine than what he had delivered any Minister though happily such a one as received his calling from him or Christian might not only forsake him but judge him accursed I shall only adde this our Ministers are in a very hard case I have discoursed with Anabaptists who have reasoned against our Ministers as no Ministers because they had their calling from Rome and now you will make them no Ministers because they had no Calling from Rome How shall they please you and them too But what have you further to say Pop. I have this further which is indeed unanswerable namely the horrible divisions of and in your Churches Here is Luther an and Calvinist Episcopal and Presbyterian Independent and Anabaptist and Quaker and Socinian and Familist and what not so that a man that would turn to your Church knows not which to turn to but our Church is one and entire at perfect unity in it self Prot. I pray you tell me in the first place are divisions a certain Argument to prove any Church not to be true Pop. I cannot say so for it is plain the Iewish Church in Christs time was full of Divisions there were Pharisees Sadduces Essenes c. And so was the Church of Corinth in St. Pauls time while some said I am of Paul others I of Apollo others I of Cephas and some denyed Pauls Ministry and Apostleship and some denyed the Resurrection Prot. Very well then you may blush to use such an Argument I am told that the old Heathens did use this very Argument against the Primitive Christians Pop. It is true they did Prot. What a shame is it that you are forced to defend your cause with such weapons as were used by the Pagans and wrested out of their hands by the Antient Fathers But besides you talk of our Divisions I pray you let me ask you will you allow me to father all the opinions of every Papist I read or talk with upon your Church Pop. No in no wise Let our Church speak for her self It is one great fault of your Ministers they catch up every particular Opinion of any Private Doctor and presently charge our Church with it though it be such as she hath condemned whereas they should judge of our Church only by her own Decrees and Councils Prot. Very well I desire only the same justice from you Do not father upon our Church those Opinions which she dislikes and abhors Socinians Quakers c. are yours rather than ours and joyn with you in abundance of your Doctrins Judge of our Churches by their publick Confessions and there also you would find that our divisions are generally inconsiderable being almost all about a Form of Government or oft-times but a manner of expression and none of them in fundamental Points But since you talk of Divisions let me ask you are all the Members of your Church of one mind I have been told otherwise We hear great talk every day of the difference between the Jansenists and the Jesuits and if we may believe either of them it is a Fundamental difference and such as concerns the very life of Religion I will not trouble you with other things But are you agreed in that which is the foundation of your unity I mean concerning the Supream Infallible Judge of Controversies I remember your self told me that some of you thought it was the Pope and others a Council And I have read that Popish Nations and Universities and Doctors are all together divided about
12. 6. that is years it being a very familiar thing to put dayes for years in Prophetical Writings But if the Church may be obscured for three years why not for thirty yea three hundred Did Christ in his supposed promise of perpetual Visibility in the Church make an exception for these three years I trow not And tell me I pray you should you live till that time when Antichrist shall prevail and your Religion no less than ours be obscure and invisible if any of the followers of Antichrist should dispute against you that yours was not the true Church because not visible Would you grant it Pop. God forbid I should be so wicked to deny my Mother and Church because of her Afflictions Prot. Then I see you your selves do not believe this to he a good argument and that you do not make perpetual visibility a necessary token of the true Church To this I add there is no need we should shew a constant succession of Protestant Churches ever since the Apostles dayes as you pretend is necessary the succession that you pretend in your Church is sufficient for ours and so long as we generally agree that your Church was a true Church till later years though wofully corrupted and our Predecessors continued in it till your wounds stunk and became incurable we need no other succession than yours but when your impiety came to the height then we visibly departed from you and have given such reasons for it as you will never be able to answer In the mean time let me hear what you have further to say Pop. For as much as all your Ministers confess our Church was once a true Church I pray you tell me how and when she did fall you cannot tell either the time when she fell or the manner how by Apostacy or Heresie or Schism if you can name your Authors Prot. This is a most unreasonable demand A friend of mine had the Plague last year and died of it I askt him when he was sick how and when he got it he said he knew not Shall I then conclude he had it not Shall I make Christ a lyar and dispute that there were no tares because they were sown when men slept Mat. 13. 25. and so could not know when or how they came Shall I believe no Heresie to be an Heresie unless I can shew how and when it came into the Church What if the Records of these things by the injury of time are lost and their original left in obscurity shall I therefore say it is now become no Heresie I beseech you answer me freely this question Suppose I could bring plain and strong evidences from the holy Scripture and from antient Tradition or the unanimous testimonies of the Antient Fathers that your Doctrine of Merits for instance is an Heresie your Doctrine of worshipping Images is Idolatry and that you are in divers particulars apostatized from that faith which the Scriptures and Fathers do own in this case Would you not confess that you are guilty of Idolatry Heresie and Apostasie Pop. If it were so and you could really bring as you falsely pretend you can but indeed cannot any such solid proofs I must and will confess it For all our Writers agree that although we must believe many things that are not contained in the Scripture yet we must believe nothing contrary to the Scriptures nor to the consent of the antient Fathers Prot. Very well hence then I gather that the only question between you and me is Whether we can evidently and solidly prove the particulars now mentioned which if we can do as I am satisfied our Ministers have done you are convicted in your own Conscience and will confess your self and your Church guilty of Heresie Idolatry and Apostasie whether I can tell the manner or time or Authors of this doctrine or no. Therefore leaving these frivolous and impertinent questions let me hear what you have to say more against our Religion and whereas your discourse I observe hath wholly run upon Generals I beseech you come to some particulars and shew me the falshood of the Doctrines of our Church But it doth not a little confirm me in my Religion that you confess as I shewed before most of our Doctrines to be true and grounded upon Scripture whereas yours are additions of your own devising Now if things be thus you shall not need to trouble your self about many particulars But if you please single out some of our principal Heresies as you call them and let me hear what evidences you can bring against them Pop. Your Heresies are very many but I shall mention one which may be instead of all and that is your rule of Faith and Iudge of Controversies which you make to be the Scripture only Prot I am glad you have fallen upon so material a point the deciding whereof may make other Disputes in great part useless Tell me then what you have to say against this Doctrine Pop. I will urge four Arguments against it 1. Scripture hath no authority over us but from the Church 2. You cannot know what Books are the holy Scriptures or part of it but by the Churches report 3. If neither of these were true yet Scripture is not a sufficient rule for your faith without Tradition 4. If it were sufficient yet it is so obscure that you cannot know the sense of it without the interpretation of the Church You see here is a fourfold cord which you will find is not easily broken Prot. Make these things good and I confess you do your work in a great measure Let me hear your Proofs Pop. For the first then I say that Scripture hath no authority over us but from the Church neither you nor I are bound to believe the Scripture to be the word of God nor can any man know it or prove it to be so but from the testimony of our Church concerning it Prot. I pray tell me if you were to discourse with an Atheist who utterly denies the holy Scriptures and the Church too Could you not prove against him that the Scriptures are the Word of God Pop. God forbid but that I should be able to defend the truth of the Scriptures against any adversary whatsoever Prot. How then I pray you would you prove it Pop. I need not tell you the Arguments which in this case our Doctors use and I stand by them in it they alledge for the truth of the holy Scriptures the testimony of all ages and all sorts of persons the miracles wrought for it acknowledged even by the Enemies of it the martyrdom that so many thousands and many of them wise and learned men did run upon in the defence of them who living so near the time of the writing of them were best able do discern the truth and the wonderful power that goes along with them in convincing converting and comforting or terrifying sinners Prot. Do you believe these are solid Arguments
discern the true from the false Pop. I altogether approve of Bellarmin 's Rule which is this That saith he is a true Tradition which all former Doctors have successively in their several Ages acknowledged to come from the Apostles and by their Doctrine or Practices have approved and which the Universal Church owneth as such and the reason is because the Universal Church cannot erre Prot. I see all depends upon this Foundation that the Catholick Church in your sense cannot erre which having disproved I need not trouble my self further But to wave that How I pray you do you know what former Doctors have successively owned by word or practice I presume none of your Popes have so good a memory as to remember all that hath been said or done in former Ages though in my opinion when your inventions were upon the wheel and you did confer upon the Pope an infallible judgment you should have given him also an all-sufficient memory and then you had done your work Pop. No Sir we pretend no such thing but we know this from the Writings which the Doctors have left It is true Bellarmine mentions another rule which is the continual usage of the Church in all ages but to deal candidly with you I cannot know what their use was but by their Writings so all must come to that Prot. First then I note you forsake your cause and it seems a writing is now made a rule for your unwritten Traditions if it may be so let me beg your favourable opinion of the Apostles writings Besides those Writers which record these Traditions were they infallible Pop. No we do not hold any particular Writers Infallible especially not in matters of Fact such as reporting a Tradition or use of the Church undoubtedly is Prot. Then they might mistake false Traditions for true Besides how can I tell what the Antient Doctors did agree in since most of them never wrote and many of their writings are lost and yet all of them had equal liberty of voting in this case besides I have heard that divers of the Antient Fathers did report several things to be Apostolical Traditions which your Church now rejecteth as that Infants should receive the Communion and that Christ should reign on earth a thousand years and many others I am told also that your great Baronius writing concerning the Apostles professeth He despairs to find out the truth even in those matters which true Writers have recorded because there was nothing which remained sincere and incorrupted Is it so Pop. You shall find me ingenuous it is so Baronius saith it Anno 44. sect 42. Prot. Then truly I shall bid Tradition in your sense good night For as to your Traditions I see there is no certainty in them Shall I forsake the certain and acknowledged verity of the Scripture for such trash God forbid Again I pray you tell me doth not every wise man that makes any thing make it sufficient for its end If you build an house to live in will not you make it sufficient for that end If a man makes a Sword to cut with a Coat of Male to defend him c. is he not a fool if he doth not if he can make them sufficient for their end and use Pop. That must needs be granted Prot. And was not our Instruction and Salvation the end for which God wrote the Scripture Pop. How do you prove that it was Prot. God himself tells me so Iohn 20. 31. These things are written that you may believe that Iesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you might have life through his Name Pop. S. John speaks there of Miracles not of doctrines and so that is nothing to the purpose Prot. He speaks of Miracles which were done in confirmation of the Doctrine of Christ and so the Doctrine is not to be excluded besides I suppose you will not say that S. Iohn wrote the Doctrines of Christ for one end and the Miracles for another Moreover it plainly appears both that this was the end for which the Scripture was written and that it is sufficient for its end from that 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. he saith expresly The Scriptures are able to make a man of God wise unto salvation Pop. Well but if all these things be so yet since the Scripture is dark and doubtful and you can never apprehend the true meaning of it but from the Church you are never the nearer and the Scripture is not a convenient judge of Controversies Prot. Tell me I pray doth your Church understand the true meaning of the Scripture Pop. Yes doubtless because she hath the Spirit of God Prot. Then certainly she is most deeply guilty of uncharitableness or envy or cruelty to souls that she doth not put forth a clear and infallible Comment upon the whole Scripture but still suffers the whole world to live in contention about the true meaning of hundreds of Texts of Scripture Pop. She forbears that for reasons best known to her self But this is not much to the purpose Prot. Whereas you pretend your Church certainly knows the true sense of the Scripture and this Church you say is the Pope or a Council and if these be infallible you say they are so in their Decrees If this be so how comes it to pass that none do more grosly mistake and mis-apply Scripture than divers of your Popes and councils have done even in their Decrees and decretal Epistles which you reverence as the Gospel Your Pope Nicholas the first proves his Supremacy from that Text Arise Peter kill and eat small encouragement to us to become his sheep if he so use them and from hence that Peter drew to the shore his net full of Fishes your Pope Boniface the eighth proves it from Gen. 1. 1. In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth therefore the Pope hath power in Temporals and Spirituals and this saith he you must hold unless with the Manichees you hold two principles And your councils are not more happy Expositors The council of Lateran proves the Popes power from Psa. 72. which speaks of Solomon and Christ All Kings shall fall down before him The second council of Nice alledges these Scriptures for the Worship of Images that God created man in his own Image Gen. 1. Let me see thy countenance Cant. 2. No man when he hath lighted a Candle covereth it under a vessel Luk. 8. 16. In my opinion they spoke like a council expecting that the world should receive their Decrees not for any solidity of Argument that had been pedantick but meerly for the Churches Majesty and Authority Nay the jest is when their Adversaries had taken notice of these absurd impertinencies up steps Pater Noster Pope Adrian and he saith he will maintain it in spite of fate that they alledged them rightly and excellently So here we have a Pope and council joyning together and therefore undoubtedly infallible in these Expositions Nay
that do not please you they refer themselves to the Fathers for the first six hundred years till your abominations had leavened the world according to what was foretold Rev. 13. 8. II. My second consideration is this You do not only decline the Scriptures judgment but you infinitely disparage and vilifie it I meet with several passages quoted out of your Authors to that purpose Pop. Possibly you may out of some inconsiderable ones but not out of any of note and name in our Church Prot. Yes out of your prime Authors I read that Cardinal Hosius in his Advertisement to King Sigismund hath this expression If they that is the Hereticks say It is written that is the voice of the Devil speaking in his members But that it is below a Cardinal to read the Bible he would have found the words also in Christs mouth I read that Costerus calls the Scripture by way of contempt Paper and Parchment God saith he would noâ— have his Church by which always understand the Papists themselves now depend upon Paper and Parchment as Moses made the carnal Israelites And again That which is written in the heart of the Church doth by many degrees excel the Scriptures First because that was written by the finger of God but this by the Apostles as if the Writings of the Apostles were only a device of man I read that Cardinal Pool writing to Henry the Eighth saith thus What an absurd thing is this that thou dost attribute more authority to the Scripture than to the Church since the Scripture hath no authority but for the decree of the Church He means the Roman Church I see we are highly concerned to please your Church else we are like to have no Scriptures I read that Pighius saith The Apostles did never intend to subject our faith to their writings but rather their writings to our faith And afterward he saith The Scriptures are as one said not more pleasantly than truly a nose of wax which suffers it self to be drawn hither or thither as a man pleaseth I read that your Bullenger saith The Scripture is the Daughter the Church the Mother which gives being and sufficiency to her she begets No wonder then the Church makes bold with the Scripture to add or alter or dispense with it We all know the Mother may correct the Daughter I confess when I read those passages produced by our Writers I suspected they wronged them Are these things true Pop. I acknowledge it and it is a vain thing for me to deny it for the Books and those passages in them are extant under their own hands And I must confess these Authors are as considerable and approved as any we have But you ought to put a favourable sense upon them Prot. I would not strain them nor make them worse than they are Take them as you will they are abominable expressions and to me a great evidence that the Scripture is no friend to your Church And I conclude this to be one accomplishment of what Christ hath said Every one that doth evil hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved John 3. 20. And if this be the spirit by which your Church is guided I am sure it is not the Spirit of God and of Truth for that teacheth men reverence and love to the Scriptures You seem to do like Herod who being convinced that he was not of the Royal race of the Iews did burn their Genealogies and Records that his false pretences might not be confuted by them And just so do you endeavour to do by the Scriptures III. My third Consideration against your Religion is this That your Cause is such as dares not abide tryal This is the honour and happiness of our Religion We are allowed to examine all that our Ministers say and we have a Rule which we may peruse to try them by viz. the holy Scriptures which you dare not suffer your people to read And this I take to be a secret confession of your guilt and I am told your Alphonsus de Castro saith That from the reading of the Scripture all Heresies come Pop. I think your experience hath justified that expression You see what you get by the reading of the Scriptures even this that you are crumbled into a thousand Sects Prot. Our Saviour was not of your mind for he thought not acquaintance with but ignorance of the Scriptures was the cause of Error Ye erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22. 29. Nor did he only allow but command the Iews to search the Scriptures without any fear of this inconvenience Iohn 5. 39. Had S. Paul been of your mind he would not have commended but reproved the Beraans for searching the Scriptures and examining his Doctrine by them Act. 17. 11. If any of your people should do as the Beraeans did they would be sent to the Inquisition I do not deny but too many make a bad use of the Scripture and wrest it to wicked purposes which is to me no better an argument than this Wine makes many men drunk therefore no Wine must be sold. The Doctrine of Free Grace was abused by thousands as we read therefore S. Paul did ill in preaching of it The light of the Sun hurts sore eyes therefore Solomon was mistaken when he said It is a pleasant thing to behold the Sun But since you speak of this I pray you let me ask you one question Were not most of the Heresies that ever were in the Church brought in by learned men Pop. I cannot deny that for it is notoriously known Prot. Then you shut up the wrong door for it seems it is not the unlearned mans reading but the learned mans perverting the Scripture which is the true cause and fountain of Heresies And besides you must not do evil that good may come out of it nor defraud people of their greatest treasure nor keep them from their duty for fear of some inconveniencies This is to make your selves wiser than God Pop. But indeed you slander us in this point We do not absolutely forbid reading of the Scriptures The Council of Trent allows it provided you can get the Bishops leave Prot It is true that Council pretends to give some such liberty but they take away with one hand what they gave with the other for in their Index of forbidden Books they have this passage Since experience sheweth that the promiscuous reading of the Bible brings more evil than good therefore if any man shall dare to read or have a Bible without license from the Bishop or Inquisitor he shall not be capable of absolution unless he part with his Bible But in truth this pretended License is but an handsome blind For in that very place there is this Observation added to that Rule That the power of giving such Licenses of reading or keeping the vulgar Bibles is taken away from such Bishops and Inquisitors by
the command and usage of the Roman and universal Inquisition At best it seems I must not obey Christs command of searching the Scriptures unless the Bishop give me leave But I pray you tell me Do your people use to ask and the Bishops to give them leave to read the Bible Pop. I will not dissemble with you They do not And the truth is an approved Writer of ours Ledesima puts the question What if a man should come to the Bishop and desire liberty to read the Bible and that with a good intention to which he replies that the Bishop should answer him in the words of Christ Matt. 20. 20. Ye know not what ye ask and Indeed saith he and he saith it truly the root of this demand is an heretical disposition Prot. Then I perceive in this as well as in other things you are more careful to deceive people with pretences than to inform them But indeed you tell me no more than I had read or heard out of your own Authors It was the speech of your Pope Innocent That the Mountain which the Beasts must not touch is the high and holy Scriptures which the unlearned must not read and your Doctors commonly affirm that people must not be suffered to read the Scriptures because we must not give holy things to Dogs nor cast Pearls before swine My fourth General consideration against your Religion is this That it grosly contradicts the great designs and ends of the Christian Religion which all confess to be such as these the glorifying of God and his Son Jesus Christ and the humbling and abasing of men the beating down of all sin and the promoting of serious holiness Are not those the chief ends of Religion Pop. I do freely acknowledge they are and our Religion doth most answer these ends Prot. That you and I will now try And for the first Your Religion doth highly dishonour God sundry ways What can be a greater dishonour to God than to make the holy Scriptures which you confess to be the Word of God to depend upon the Testimony and Authority of your Pope or Church and to say that the Word of God is but a dead letter and hath no authority over us without their Interpretation and Approbation By which means malefactors for such all men are Rom. 3. 9 10. your Pope not excepted are made Judges of and superiour to that Law whereby they are condemned Tell me would not the French King take it for a great dishonour if any of his Subjects should say That his Edicts and Decrees had no Authority over his People without their approbation Pop. Yes doubtless he would Prot. Just so you deal with God and what can be a fouler dishonour to God than that which your great Stapleton affirmed and Gretser and others justified and your Church to this day have never disowned it That the Divinity of Christ and of God in respect of us depends upon the Authority of the Pope And what more dishonourable to God than what your great Champion Bellarmine saith That if the Pope should erre in forbidding Virtues which God hath commanded and commanding Vices which God hath forbidden And that he may so erre divers of your most famous and approved Authors confess the Church were bound to believe Vices to be good and Vertues bad unless she would sin against Conscience that is in plain terms the Pope is to be obeyed before God Again is it not highly dishonorable to God to give the Worship which is proper to God unto the Creature I confess the Prophet Isaiah hath convinced me of it Isa. 42 8. I am the Lord that is my Name and my glory will I not give to another neither my praise to graven Images Pop. I also am of the same mind but it is a scandal of your Ministers to say we give Gods honour to the Creature I know where about you are you mean it of Images whereas we worship them with a lower kind of Worship Prot. You worship them with such a kind of worship as neither Angels nor Saints durst receive Cornelius did not worship Peter with a Divine Worship as God for he knew he was but Gods Minister yet Peter durst not receive it It was an inferiour Worship which the Devil required of Christ for he acknowledges at the same time God to be his Superiour and the giver of that power he claimeth Luke 4. 6. And yet that was the Worship which Christ saith God hath forbidden to be given to any Creature You are a valiant man that dare venture your immortal soul upon a nice School distinction I pray you do you not worship the Bread in the Sacrament with that worship which you call Latria which is proper to God Pop. We do so and that upon very good reason because it is not Bread but the very Body of Christ into which the Bread is turned Prot. But what if the Bread be not converted in Christs Body Is it not then an high dishonour to God and indeed damnable Idolatry Pop. Yes our Fisher the famous Martyr and Bishop of Rochester saith No man can doubt if there be nothing in the Eucharist but Bread that the whole Church hath been guilty of Idolatry for a long time and therefore must needs be damned but we are well assured that it is no longer Bread and yet I must add this If peradventure it should still remain Bread yet for as much as we believe it to be the Body of our Lord our ignorance I hope would excuse us from Idolatry and God would not impute it to us Prot. Tell me I beseech you Will all kind of ignorance excuse a man Pop. No certainly There is a wilful and affected ignorance which because it is against clear light will not excuse Prot. Tell me farther Did this excuse the Iews from their sin of crucifying Christ and the damnation due to it that they did it ignorantly Act. 3. 17. Pop. No because they shut their eyes against the plain light and clear evidence of that truth that Christ was the Messias Prot. No less do you in the doctrine of the Sacrament for they had no greater evidences against them than Sense and Reason and Scripture all which you reject as I shall prove by Gods help And as your Religion dishonours God so doth it also highly dishonour Jesus Christ whom he hath sent who is expresly called the one Mediatour 1 Tim. 2. 5. But you have conferred that honour upon many others Saints and Angels Pop. True there is but one chief Mediatour but there may be other secondary Mediatours Prot. In like manner to that which the Apostle there saith there is but one God it might be said there are other secondary gods and so we might introduce the Heathen gods into the Church It is the great Prerogative of Jesus Christ that he is the Redeemer of the World yet your Bellarmine was not afraid to communicate this honour to
Our great Argument is John 20. 23. Whosesoever sins ye remit they are remitted and whosesoever sins ye retain they are retained Answer me this Argument and I will yield up this Cause Prot. What Argument do you draw from these words Pop. Hence it appears that Ministers are made judges and intrusted with full power and authority of binding and loosing so as Christ doth not loose or forgive a sinner by himself but only by the Priest as Bellarmin saith And to speak properly as our most learned Vasquez affirmeth God doth not properly loose a sinner but only approves of the Priests loosing of him Prot. Now in my opinion it were good manners to make the Priest come after God and not to make God depend upon the Priest It seems then if the Priest should grow surly or envious and deny me a Pardon Christ cannot help me for he hath given the power out of his hands So you make the Priest the Judge and God only the Approver The Lord rebuke this spirit of Blasphemy Again nothing is more familiar in Scripture than for Gods Ministers to be said to do that which they do only authoritatively declare that God will do Thus God saith to Ieremy I have set thee over Kingdoms to root out and pull down and destroy that is by declaring that God would do it In like manner Gods Ministers are said to bind and loose because they have from God authority to declare a Sinner to be bound by his Sins or loosed from them which if they declare truly and according to Gods word God in heaven doth and will make it good As for this Text it saith nothing but this that every one whom they bind or loose that is proceeding according to their rule which is always to be understood shall be bound or loosed in heaven but it doth not say that no man is bound or loosed but they whom the Priest bindeth and looseth But besides if all these things were granted how doth this Text prove that the Priest or Pope can absolve or release any souls out of Purgatory if there were such a place I pray you tell me can the Pope binde any soul and keep him in Purgatory Pop. No we do not pretend to that Prot. Then he cannot loose a soul neither out of Purgatory for I am sure binding and loosing are of the same extent But upon second thoughts I must own your discretion for the binding of souls in Purgatory was an invidious and unprofitable work and would have bound up mens hearts and purses It is only the loosing of them out which opens their purse strings tends to the edification of the Church that is the Pope and Priests as they always understand that word In sober sadness it is enough to make any serious Christian abhor your Church that your Pope should not be content to usurp a power over the whole visible world but that he should extend his Authority to the other world even to Purgatory In my opinion he had done more wisely to have extended his empire to Hell for there are many of his Predecessours so far as can be judged by any mans life whom he might have appointed his Deputies but there is never a Pope in Purgatory for they who can release others at pleasure will certainly deliver themselves But now I speak of that I pray you tell me if it be true that I have heard that the Pope when he dies receives Absolution from his Confessor and that after his death the Cardinals give him Absolution and give order for the singing of abundance of Masses Pop. It is true I was at Rome when the last Pope died and it was so then and our Books justifie it Prot. I am much pleased with your ingenuity so the Pope gives the Priest a power to pardon himself methinks he might save the charges of a Confessor it were enough to say I absolve my self But tell me do you say Masses for any that are in Heaven or in Hell Pop. No we utterly disclaim that Prot. Then I perceive the Pope goes into Purgatory I see your Popes are not self-seeking men as they are slandered to be that help so many thousands out of Purgatory and leave themselves in But really this is to me a convincing Argument that you do not believe your selves but deceive poor silly people against your Consciences For else you might be assured the Pope would never come into Purgatory for you say he can keep himself out and no man doubts of his will to do it Besides your Doctrine usurps upon God's Prerogative I had thought it was only my Father in Heaven to whom I should have prayed Forgive us our Trespasses Now it seems we must pray so to one of these Padre's upon earth You make Subjects the supream Judges of all Offences committed against their Soveraign and your Priests sit as Umpires between God and the Sinner and determine what Satisfaction God shall have and what Penance the Sinner shall undergo Methinks they are brave fellows and I now see it was not without ground that Father Cotton bragged That he could do any thing when he had his God in his hand that was the Sacrament and his King upon his knees in Confession I think you will bring Christ upon his knees too for it seems you have resolved that he shall stand to your Priests Arbitration I might add to this that you leave the souls of people to endless perplexities you confess that Indulgences profit not If a man be not in the state of grace which you say a man cannot certainly know or if a man have not made a free and full Confession after sufficient examination and who knows when he hath done these things sufficiently or if the Priest do not intend to pardon him and who knows another mans intentions and yet you would have me so desperate to venture my soul upon such sandy foundations that your selves are afraid and ashamed of But to leave this I perceive that this and divers of your other Doctrines are grounded upon that of the merit of good works which because I judge a very pernicious and dangerous Doctrine let me hear what you can say for it but first let me understand your Doctrine for I have heard some of you cry out that our Divines slandered them and profess that they did not hold Merit strictly but cast the honour of all upon Christ and the grace of God therefore I pray you inform me Pop. I will be plain and candid with you I do not like such Artifices The Council of Trent in plain terms affirms That our good works do truly merit increase of grace and eternal life and our famous Bellarmiue disputes and proves That good works do not only merit in respect of Gods gracious Covenant but in regard of the worthiness of the works themselves and that eternal life is not only due from Gods liberality but from his just judgment
no less than murder all your people by robbing them of that which is necessary to their life Pop. Not so for as I shall shew you you have the blood in the body or bread Prot. If it be so yet my taking it in that manner cannot be called a drinking it unless you will say that every man that eats rawish meat may be said to drink the blood which he eats in it but further I think we have as great right to the cup as your Priests we have Christs do this and you pretend no more in short we have both the legacy and command of Christ fortified with this strong reason this cup is the new Testament in my blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins whereby it sufficiently appears that the signe belongs to all that have interest in the thing and are capable of discerning the Lords body and this command of Christ is express and positive Mat. 26. Drink ye ALL of it it is remarkable that he doth not say eat ye all though they were to do so but drink ye all of it as foreseeing the sacriledge of your Church what can you say to this Pop. First I say here is no command but an institution only Prot. I understand no subtilties but if you say this was no command of drinking then it was no command of eating to say take eat and so the Sacrament is not commanded but people may receive or refuse it as they please and Christs do this is no more than do as you list for my part I shall never know when Christ commands any thing if this be not a command for no command can run in more express words Pop. If this be a command it concerns only Priests for such the Apostles were and they only were present Prot. Since it is evident that eating and drinking belong to the same persons if the one be restrained to the Apostles so is the other and because you confess the eating belongs to the people by vertue of this precept Eat of it by the same reason also doth the drinking reach to them also by vertue of that precept Drink of it Besides the Apostles though they were Ministers yet in this act they were in the peoples stead and Christ was the Minister or dispenser of the Sacrament and they only the receivers of it at this time Besides as they were Ministers he bad them do this that is take and distribute bread and wine to the people as he had to them If Ministers be under any command of administring and giving the Sacrament certainly it is here for no command can be more express and if they are commanded to give the bread to the people they are commanded to give the wine also for here is no difference at all Adde to this that St. Paul hath put this out of doubt and he expounds this of and applies it to the people for thus he writes to all the Corinthians Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that Cup 1 Cor. 11. 28. in four verses together viz. 26 27 28 29. eating and drinking are inseparably joyned together which you have so wickedly divided If it be a Command Let a man examine himself which none will deny then it is a Command which immediately follows so let him eat this Bread and drink this Cup. Pop. It doth not appear that there is an absolute command of drinking but only that as oft as they do drink it they should drink it in remembrance of Christ. Prot. If this be so then here is no command for the Priest either to Consecrate the Cup or to Receive it And further then here is no command for his Consecrating or receiving the Bread neither for there is no more than a Do this and that is for the Wine as well as for the Bread Pop. Here is a difference for he saith of the Body simply Do this in remembrance of me but of the Cup This do ye as oft as you drink it Prot. If you lay any stress upon these words as oft as you do it I beseech you make use of your eyes and you shall read that it is said of the Bread as well as of the Cup Vers. 26. For as oft as ye eat this Bread and drink this Cup. Well I am sorry to see that you dare oppose such plain Scripture upon such pitiful pretences But I pray you let me ask you I have been told that your famous Council of Censtance in their Canon for the receiving the Sacrament in one kind have these expressions Although Christ did Minister this Sacrament undâ—r the forms of Bread and Wine And although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament was received by the faithful under both kinds Yet they make a Canon that it shall be received under one kinde only Is this so Pop. It is true they are the very words of the Council Prot. This was a wise Council indeed wiser than Christ and all his Apostles but I should think we are on the safest side having Christ and all the Primitive Churches for our patterns and by this I see what to judge of your glorious pretences that yours is the Antient and Apostolical Faith and ours forsooth but a new Religion But I pray let me hear what you have to say for this fact of yours in taking away the Cup I see Scripture is against you and the Antient Church at least so far that for 1400. years together the people might drink of the Cup if they would as I am told your Becanus confesseth Pop. You are greatly mistaken we have Scripture for us we have examples there of receiving the Sacrament in one kind Acts 2. 42. They continued in the Apostles Doctrine and breaking of Bread and Acts 20. 17. They came together to break Bread Prot. It is usual to express an whole Feast by this one thing Christ went into the Pharisees house to eat bread Luk. 14. 2. I suppose you think it was not a dry feast Ioseph's Brethren sat to eat Gen. 37. 25. so Act. 27. 35. Paul and the rest took bread and eat it yet none doubts but they had drink with it Besides here is as much said of the People as of the Ministers drinking of the Cup that is neither is here mentioned and if the silence concerning the Cup be a good Argument it proves that neither did partake of it if it be not then both might partake of it But what have you more to say Pop. You need not be troubled so much at the loss of the Cup since the blood is contained in the Bread that is in the Body by concomitancy Prot. This is in effect to tell Christ the Cup was a superfluous device Besides we are commanded to drink the Cup If I should dip bread in drink and eat it no man will say I drink the bread Again this destroys the main end of the Sacrament which is to shew forth Christs
death and the shedding of his blood and this was the reason why Christ appointed the Bread and Wine apart as the fittest means to bring to our memories the pouring of his blood out of his body for us and as God would have us to remember the thing so he commanded us to use this sign of drinking the Cup. Pop. But there are many weighty reasons why it is not fit you should partake of the Cup. Prot. I dare not forsake plain Scripture for any subtil pretences of Humane Reason but let me hear them Pop. 1. In some Countries Wine is not to be had 2. Some there are who have an antipathy against Wine and cannot drink any 3. There is great danger of spilling the Wine which is the Blood of Christ. Prot. Are these your weighty Reasons I see the Reason and Religion of Rome are both of a Complexion But I pray you how came it to pass that Christ and his Apostles and all the Primitive Christians for so many hundreds of years should prescribe and use the Cup notwithstanding those reasons surely if these reasons are strong now they were so 1660. years ago Wine was as scarce then as now it is in some Countries abstemious persons were then as well as now the Wine might be spilled then as much as now But they feared none of these things either they were all stupid that did not see these things or your Church is audacious that dare in effect teach Christ and his Apostles what they should have done It might peradventure be added that in such places where Wine cannot be had or for some persons who cannot drink Wine some other thing proportionable to it may be allowed but if it might not or if in such special cases they were confined to one kind I am sure it is a ridiculous consequence that because they must be content with the Bread that cannot drink of the Cup therefore they that can shall go without it and because it may be omitted where it cannot be had therefore it shall be omitted where it may be enjoyed And for the danger of spilling of the Wine there is also danger in dropping some of the Bread and so that should be denied By this Argument also the Priest should not meddle with the Wine for he may spill it but indeed such phantastical Reasons as these deserve no Answer they make me almost sick to hear them There is only one point more I would be informed in what you can pretend for it and that is That your Publick Prayers are performed in a Language unknown to most of your people Pop. What have you to say against it Prot. What can be said more plainly and fully against it by us than what S. Paul saith 1 Cor. 14. there I find some who having the Gift of speaking with divers Languages did use it without interpreting them in the Publick Assembly those the Apostle informs that there is a better gift and more desirable than that of Tongues namely Prophesie and he useth divers reasons which are so many undeniable Arguments against your Latine Prayers He tells them it is their duty to manage Publick Worship so as the Church may be edified verse 4 5 12. I hope you will not deny this Pop. None can deny that Prot. Well then he tells us that what is spoken in an unknown Language doth not edifie the Church vers 4 11 12 14. 2. Yet again the Apostle commands that if any do speak in an unknown Tongue it must be interpreted vers 27. you disobey this command 3. He argues that Publick Prayers are so to be made by the Minister that the People may say Amen v. 16. And he also tells us that no man can say Amen to that which he doth not understand vers 15. so the Apostle stops all your starting holes Pop. The very word men is Hebrew Prot. You dispute not only against me but against the Apostle himself but Amen though an Hebrew word is by common use sufficiently known to us all to express our consent to his Prayers and confidence that God will hear them 4. Yet again he argues that strange Tongues are designed only for the Conviction of Unbelievers not to be used be Believers amongst themselves unless interpreted v. 22. What can or dare you say against such clear places Pop. S. Paul speaks not of the ordinary service of the Church but of extraordinary Hymnes and Songs Prot. That is false he speaks of the ordinary service of the Church though at that time there was something extraordinary in it and besides his reasons reach to all times and services ordinary or extraordinary must we not look to the Edification of the Church in the one as well as the other Must not the people say Amen in one as well as the other Let me hear therefore what you have to say for your selves Pop. Preaching ought to be in a known language for the end of that is the peoples Edification but Prayers are made to God Prot. Though they are made to God yet they are made by the Church who are to joyn in those Prayers and to signifie their consent by saying Amen which requires their understanding And moreover that Chapter speaks as expresly of Praying as it doth of Prophesying in the Church Surely the people went not to Church to sit there like senseless Images but to offer up a reasonable service and to tender their Prayers and Praises unto God by the mouth of the Minister as they did Act. 4. 24 They lift up their voice with one accord And if we pray with you we must understand else we cannot pray in faith as it is our duty to do and we shall fall into their error to ask we know not what Pop. You need not concern your self about that you may rely upon the wisdom and fidelity of the Church who takes care that your prayers be right Prot. I confess there is this great encouragement for it that your Church it seems is wiser than St. Paul but as a friend I advise you to give this Counsel of relying upon your Church to the Indians or some remote places for they that know her will never trust her For my part my Saviours words make me cautious If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch If I had no other argument of your Churches Fallibility and Apostacy this one point were a sufficient evidence of them both But what have you more to say Pop. I will give you then a Scripture instance The Priests prayed in the Temple when the People waited without Luke 1. 21. Prot. What is this to the purpose I do not read that the Priest prayed at all but only went in to offer Incense but if he did pray he did it alone not with and before the people as your prayers are you might as well plead thu Those Priests said nothing at all and therefore your Priests need only make a dumb shew and may serve their Latin
as well as their English which may be good counsel for many of them that have so little to spare But seriously can you or any rational man think these reasons of sufficient weight to oppose against that great Scripture rule of Edification and the express words and plain arguments of St. Paul God deliver me from such a besotting Religion Besides what I have said I shall leave this with you at parting that you do not only oppose Scripture but also that Antient Church which you pretend to reverence and to follow her steps and your practice is contrary to the Church in all antient times The Prayers of the Iews in publick were alwayes made in the Hebrew tongue and in that Tongue God gave them those forms of Prayer and blessing which were then used Numb 6. 10. God gave the gift of Languages to that end that the Apostles might establish the Worship of God in every Nation in their own Language And I am told that Origen reports this to be the practice of the Church in this time as well as his own Judgment That every one did pray to God in his own dialect Greeks in Greek and Latines in Latin c. Besides I am told that your own Authors Lyra Aquinas and Harding and others confess this was the practice of the antient Church and that one of your own Councils that of Lateran in the year 1215. did make this order that Whereas in many places there were mixed people of divers Languages and customs the Bishops should take care to provide fit men that should perform divine Service amongst them according to this difference of Rites and Languages Moreover that your great Cardinal Cajetan confesseth that Prayers ought to be in a known tongue Are these things so Pop. I cannot deny it Their Books are extant Prot. Then by this I see how far your Church is not only from Infallibility but from common honesty that dare pretend they hold nothing But what hath been by constant Tradition conveyed to them from the Apostles times until this day And by this I shall judge of all your other brags of Antiquity in your Doctrine So I see you are obstinate and incorrigible and therefore I shall trouble my self no further to talk with you FINIS * Concil Trident. †See my Nullity of Romish Faith Chap. 2. Sect. 4. * De Pontifice l. 4. c. 2. * Cressy in Exomolog In the Appendix Chap. 4. num 7. Holden de Resolutione fidei l. 2. c. 1. * Lib. 5. Cap. 1. * See Potter and Chillingworth * De Pontific l. 4. c. 2. * De Eccl siâ militante l. 3. c. 16. †Chron. l. 4. * De Pontif. l. 3. c. 7. Denique quod * De verbo Dei l. 1. c. 10. Itaque non dicimus * See Nullity of Rom. faith ch 2. †Hist. l. 310. b Contra Appionem lib. 1. c In Annot. adversus Cajet de libris Maccab. d Enchir. c. de scrip de num lib. e In Scholiis ad Epist. 116. Hieronymi f De Verbo Dei l. 1. c. 10. In principio g Loc. Theol. l. 2. c. 11. * Rainoldus in his Praelections concerning the Apocryphal Books proves this out of their own words see Praelect 40 41 42 43. * See Rainoldus Spanhem de libris Apocryphis * De Tradit cap. 9. * Of which see Nulliâ—y Append. p. 92. * Sixtus the Fifth Pope tells us in his Preface to his Translation of the Bible that He pickt out of the Cardinals and almost out of all Nations a Colledge of most learnned men who advised him in that work They saith he consulted and I chose that which was best And he adds these remarkable words It is most evident that there is no surer nor stronger Argument than the comparing of ancient and approved Copies And he tells us that he carefully corrected it with his own hands And then the Pope imposeth this Translation upon all the world to be followed without adding or diminishing or altering under pain of Excommunication And yet that you may see how they abuse the peoples credulity to make them believe the Popes Infallibility which themselves do not in earnest believe About two years after comes Clement the Eighth and he puts forth another Edition and Translation of the Bible differing from and contrary to the former Edition in two thousand places as Doctor James hath proved by producing the places as they are in both Editions And which is more than all this in the Preface to his last Bible of Clement the Eighth we have these words Receive Christian Reader this old and vulgar Edition of the Scripture corrected with all possible diligence which though in respect of humane weakness it be hard to affirm that it is every way compleat yet it is not to be doubted but it is more pure and corrected than all that hath gone before it I think this were sufficient evidence if there were no other how great a cheat it is that you pretend the Pope to be the infallible Interpreter of Scripture For here we have one of those infallibles directly contradicting and overturning the other and besides instead of that Divine or after a sort divine infallibility which you ascribe to the Pope we have here a publick acknowledgment of his imbecillity nor dare he affirm his work to be perfect which it must needs have been if he had been infallibly guided in it as you pretend he was nor would he have said so if he had believed his own infallibiliy * In his Bellum Papale and defence of it a De expresso Dei Verbo a Enchiridion cap. 1. b De primatu Romanae Ecclesiae fol 92. c Eccles. Hierarch lib. 2. cap. 2. d Ibid. l. 3. c. 3. fol. 103. * Contra haereses l. 5. c. 6. * In fine Concil Trident. Reg. 4. * De Sacris vernaculis * Cap. cum ex injuncta Extra de haeres * Triplicatio contra Whitak c. 17. * See Nullity †De Pont. l. 4. c. 5. * Roffensis contra Oecolampadiam c. 2. fol. 3. * De indulgentiis cap. 4. sub finem * See Nullity Chap 5. * Greg. de Valentiâ a Diligenter nota quod eujusmodi gratia non dantur pauperibus quia non sunt ideo non possunt consolari Taxa Cancellariae Apostolicae Tit. De Matrimoniali b Nam Indulgentiae fiunt ad relevandam indigentiam Ecclesiae quae non relevatur per solam voluntatem dandi sed per datum De Potestate Papoe quest 30. art 3. c Quantum ad remissionem poenae quae acquiritur per indulgentiam in tali causa non est inconveniens quod dives sit melioris conditionis quâm pauper Ibi enim non dicitur Venite emite sine pecuniâ Ibid. * Maulin Reinolds against Hart and others * Ses. 22. cap. 9. Can. 2 3 * De Missâ l. 6. 1. 12. Sextum * In part 3.