ignorant but of some few Priests authority among thousands am I cut off from all the rest and the Church His answer is It is not all Priests but all Pastors in relation to their flocks Ans. 1. But if my Parish-priest be but one of twenty or an hundred thousand doth my culpable ignorance of his authority cut me off from all the Church It may be I believe Pope Nicolas Decrees that a man must not hear Mass of a Priest that hath a Concubine Or that a Simonical Pope or Bishop is no true Pope or Bishop 2. And remember that my Parish-Priest and my Bishop Metropolitan Patriarch and Pope can never make a General Council Either I may be safely ignorant of the Priesthood of all the rest in such a Council or not If not then I must know the certain Priesthood of all others as well as of my own Pastors contrary to what you say If yea then I have no certainty of the Priestly authority of Councils I next argued That it is not the rejecting of a Constables authority which maketh him no subject thâ—… owns the Soveraign To this he rejoineth That yet if I reject the Constable and with him all superior Magistrates and at last the Sovereign I am a rebell And so if I reject the authority first of a Parish-priest and then the Bishop of the Diocess and after of all his Superiors to the highest I am a rebel to the visible Church and cast out and reject Christs authority Ans. 1. Do you see what all our dispute is come to at last All this while it was the rejecting of any one Pastor that cut us off and now it is the rejecting of him and all above him to the bighest Is it not lost labour to dispute with these men 2. When you have proved that Christ hath such a thing as you call the visible Church that is all the world obliged to obey any one man or Governour besides Christ when he is naturally as uncapable of it as of being the Universal Physician even at the Antipodes and where he can never send then we will take it for rebellion to reject that Head Till then we shall take it to be Treason against Christ to claim and own that which is his prerogative How cometh it to pass that no one yet learned to call himself the Universal King of the Earth or the Universal Iudg Physician School-master c. as well as the Universal Priest and Teacher of Religion Next I craved his answer to much which I had written on this subject before in my Safe Relig. which he refuseth and tells me That I make a visible body with an invisible head to the Church which Government is internal and invisible abstracting from visible supreme authority Ans. 1. Christ was seen on Earth 2. He is seen in the Court of Heaven 3. He hath left a visible Universal Law by which he governeth 4. He hath appointed visible Officers over the world though no Head which is the way that the Pope pretendeth to govern even per alios when he never sent to a quarter of the world 5. His subjects are men visible known by audible profession and visible worship 6. He will visibly judg the world in Glory and be seen by all his Church for ever And when you prove that he hath a Church that is otherwise visible we will hear you They that assert an Anima Mundi and they that think one Intelligence or Angel ruleth all the Earth say that which is possible though they can never prove it But to talk of a Governour of all the World that never heard who dwelleth on a third part of it and that can get no Ships to sail about the Earth in many ages and when they do come not near the hundredth part of the world this is a prodigious claim for a waking man My fourth Question about his definition of the Church was Why exclude you the chief Pastors that depend on none He answereth I include them Ecclesia est plebs Episcopo unita Ans. 1. But he had defined the Church as those that depend on the Pastors which seemed to exclude the Popes that depend on none 2. Hierome defineth a particular Church and not the universal 3. They oft call the Clergy the Church He rejoineth That Terms have different acceptions Ans. But by all this ado I can have no reasonable satisfaction from you what you mean by the Church or what that Church is which you call us to unite with and which you accuse us as separating from We are like to dispute well with men that cannot or will not explain the terms of the question CHAP. II. Of their sense of the Word HERESIE W. J. HERESIE is an obstinate intellectual opposition against Divine Authority revealed when it is sufficiently propounded R. B. Q. 1. Is the obstinacy that maketh Heresie in the Intellect or the will W. J. In the Will by an imperate act restraining the understanding to that R. B. Still your descriptions signifie just nothing you describe it to be an Intellectual Obstinate opposition and now say that it is in the will He replieth that the error is in the Understanding but the obstinacy in the Will Ans. Indeed the obstinacy is in both but radically in the Will but did Intellectual opposition notifie this R. B. And you contradict your self by saying that it is an imperate act For no imperate act is in the will but of or from the Will The imperant act is in the Will but the imperate as Intelligere in the commanded faculty To this he replieth That 1. he meant not the act was in the Will though he said it was an act of the Will 2. That all Philosophers are against me and say that the Will may command Charity and other acts in it self Ans. 1. Who could conjecture that by an act of the Will you meant not an act in the Will but from it 2. It 's true that Volo velle is a proper speech and one act of the Will may be the object of another and a good man willeth nothing more here than to will better and if you will call this commanding I will not contend about the word But certainly all these Volitions are such acts as they call elicite which they usually distinguish from imperate and thus you confound them Otherwise every act of the will which is willed by a former act should be called imperate and so none but the first should be elicite And who knoweth when that first act was in being seeing the will doth still will its own future action R. B. 2. I hence noted that if wilful obstinacy be essential to Heresie their Church cannot know a Heretick while they burn them For they know not the heart and many that they burn would take their oaths that they are not willing to err He answereth W. J. We enter not into mens hearts that we leave to God only the Church presumes
the Leprosie of some Christians he must know whether all the Church was not Leprous then 2. And whether men could with a safe Conscience have Communion with any Answ. 1. He that saith he hath no sin is alyar saith St. Iohn All Christians and therefore all Churches are defiled with sin 2. All are not equally defiled I have told you that the Papists are not the third part of the Christian world and for many hundred years there were none 3. We must not separate from all Churches that have sin but we must not willfully sin for their Communion and we must joyn locally with the best we can and in spirit joyn with all as far as they joyn with Christ is not this plain and sufficient to your cavills § 5. He saith p. 423. that our external profession in the particulars of our Belief or rather Disbelief against the Roman Church sheweth our general profession of Christianity to be false as the Arrian was Answ. What is easier than to say so But where 's your proof § 6. After a repetition of his talk against Christ as no visible Head he cavills at the form of my first Argument which was this The body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head hath been in it's parts visible ever since the dayes of Christ on Earth But the body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ their Head is the Church of which the Protestants are members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are members hath been visible ever since thâ—… daies of Christ on Earth And first he saith that it 's out of form because it hath never an universal proposition Answ. This is the man that would not dispute but in meer Syllogism what need I an universal proposition If you be to prove that Cephas was Peter or Peter was an Apostle of the first place must you have an universal proposition What Universal must there be above The Body of Christians c. 2. He saith that the word Those Form requireth should have been All those when as there is never a Those at all in the argument Is not this an accurate reformer of Syllogisms that amendeth termes that were not written and talketh like a dreamer of he knoweth not what but what is the All that the man would have had is it all those bodies of Christians when we are all agreed that Christ hath but one political body if I had been to prove that the world that Protestants are parts of hath been visible since Adam or that the God the Protestants worship is Almighty must I have said All those worlds and all those Gods Nay had I said but whatsoever worlds or whatsoever God it had sounded ill among men that are agreed that there is but one sure an expository medium that was but notius was enough Next he saith that I put more in the medium of the major than in the medium of the minor and so it hath four terms Answ. Wonderful This is the man that disputed with our two great Logicians and publick professors of Cambridge Bishop Gunning and Bishop Peirson and as a triumpher printed the dispute and challenged men in London to Syllogistical combats And now see how he talketh 1. He calls that my medium that is no medium at all but the Praedicate 2. He saith it is not in my Minor where that Praedicate was not nor ought to be but another 3. He takes an expository parenthesis which is no part of the proposition for an addition that maketh â—…our termes When I prove the Church visible to prevent his cavils I put in a parenthesis as a margin in it's parts because the whole world or Church is not seen by any mortal man no not by the Pope that pretends to rule it all and this no man controverteth If he had said that there is less in the conclusion than in the premises he had spoken sence though impertinet while there is as much as was in the question 2 He saith I make the praedicate of the minor the subject of the conclusion and then saith This is a hopeful beginning Answ. O rare triumphant disputer why should I not make the praedicate of the Minor the subject of the conclusion What Law or Reason is against it when iâ—… is the subject of the question My Argument is a re definitâ ad rem denominatam as questioned the definition or res quà definita is my medium How ridiculoâ—…s hath this Aristarchus made himself in his Logick would not this disputing have been very edifying to such as the Lady that he and I were once to deal with when he would have bargained that never a word should be spoken by me nor written but in a Syllogism as bad as Popery is I hope it hath some men of more ingenuity and honesty then wilfully to delude the ignorant at these low and sordid rates § 7. But from his play he turneth in earnest to deny my Major and saith that Protestants are no parts of that Church on Earth of which Christ is Head And yet many of their Doctors say that they that have no explicite belief that Iesus is the Christ but believe only a God the rewarder of works are members of the Church but no Christians are save Papists Just the Donatists and worse than the Quakers and Anabaptists My Argument Those that profess the true Christian Religion in all it's Essentials are members of that Church which is the Body of Christians on Earth subjected to Christ the Head But Protestants profess c. Here 1. he wanteth form also All is wanting as if a definition were not Universal or equipollent But if All be in he denyeth it because they may destroy the faith by an Error Answ. He that so erreth as to deny any one Essential part doth not truly profess to hold that Essential part and so not the Essence as he that denyeth Christ to be God or Man and yet will say in general that he is the Messiah his meaning is that one that is not God or not Man is the Messiah which is not a profession of all Essential to Christianity but if he truly profess all that is Essential and ignorantly think some error Consistent with those Essentials which by consequence crosseth some of them and would abhorr that error if he knew it inconsistent this man is still a Christian or else it 's doubt whether there be one in the world if those Doctors say true that say that Theology is so harmonious a frame that the least moral Error doth by consequence cross and subvert fundamental truthes Certainly abundance of such do so as are collected by Montaltus and Mr. Clarkson out of your Jesuites and school Doctors and as you find in one another But he bids me prove my Major mark Reader what I am put to prove 1. Either that Profession denominateth a professor it being only Christians as visible by profession in question 2. Or that all the Essential parts do
part that is there If the question be whether there be there fire water air earth gold silver or men or divels created by God I neither know nor believe that there is or is not A Sadducee or an Atheist may believe That all that is in heaven is good Is this an implicite actual belief that God Angels and Spirits are good when he believeth not that in heaven or any-where else there is any God or any Angel or Spirit A Protestant believeth that he can prove by the Bible that the Pope is a Traytor against Christ by claiming his prerogative Doth he also believe that he is Christs Vicar-General because he believeth that the Bible is true Protestants believe that all Tradition is true which really cometh down to us from Christ and his Apostles by credible evidence Doth it follow that they believe the Papists Traditions to be true when they believe multitudes of them to be novelties or fictions contrary to Scripture and to the Tradition of the greatest part of the Church The Papist woman mentioned by Dr. White believed the Creed but she knew and believed no more of Iesus Christ but that it was some good thing she knew not what or else it would not have been in the Creed But he goeth on You profess to believe that All men shall rise at the last coming of Christ and yet you have no actual knowledg of many thousands Ans. And what then If I know not that those thousands had a being and were men I cannot know or believe that they shall rise notwithstanding I believe that All shall rise and if the question be whether this or that or thousands that you may name shall rise I know not because I know not whether you feign not men that never were If any were so foolish as not to know that there ever were more men in the world than he hath seen he cannot believe that any more shall rise and yet may believe that All shall rise not all in true reality as signifying the whole that hath existed indeed but all as the subject-term in the proposition When I say all shall rise I do not only say that I believe that proposition but I know many individuals contained in the whole and I know that there are more than I personally know and that there have been more than I have heard of and by the word all I mean all these particulars inclusively and so the word being a General expressing A Totum some of whose parts I have known by sight and others by history and I know that other parts have been but some parts I know not at all that they have been accordingly my belief is according to the object partly singular partly particular partly indefinite and partly universal He proceeds Act. 24. 5 14. Credens omnibus quae in Lege Prophetis scripta sunt Yet Paul had not an actual understanding of every particular contained in them Ans. Then he had not an actual belief of those particulars He believed in general that all Gods word was true and he believed all in particular which he knew to be part of that word But when he thought that he ought to do many things against the Name of Jesus and persecuted and blasphemed him had he then an actual belief that This Iesus was the Messiah He addeth A Christian that hath forgotten some sin yet at death is sorrowful for all his sins Hath he no actual sorrow for that forgotten sin I answer No if he have no actual understanding of it There were some that Christ foretelleth would think that they did God service by killing his servants Do you think that if these repented of all sin in general and took this for a duty that this were an actual repentance for this sin Nay is a meer general repentance any actual repentance at all if it extend to no particulars If a man say I repent of all my sin but I think I have no sin but my hearing praying being a Christian c. doth he actually repent of any And as to your instance if you do but forget a sin it implieth that you did once remember it and perhaps repented of it then but if you know not or remember not that ever you committed any such thing or that it is any sin you have no actual repentance of that sin O but saith he What horrid Doctrine would this be Ans. What a childish exclamation is this It 's ten to one but if you were well examined your self you would confess that all this quarrel is but de nomine You confess that here is no particular repentance or faith of the thing in question nor are universals as containing the particulars known confusedly in themselves but with the bare name of an actual knowledg of Particulars you would cheat them that have only the knowledg of the universal Proposition That you may see it is no horrid Doctrine consider that 1. If this general repentance have also joined a particular repentance of all such sin as must be so repented of of necessity to Salvation then a virtual repentance of other forgotten particular sins will prove sufficient to pardon and salvation A general repentance which hath an actual hatred of sin as sin and a habit inclining the person unfeignedly to repent of all sin when he knoweth it joined with an actual repentance of all that he knoweth and a faithful endeavour to know all this is not an actual repentance of the unknown particulars but it may be called a virtual repentance of them because there is that cause that virtue that Grace which would produce an actual repentance if the impediment of forgetfulness were removed But even confused actual repentance hath not a total oblivion or ignorance of the particulars but only a confused knowledg and memory of them and is another thing than the knowledg of Universals He adds One that forgiveth all injuries and hath forgotten some doth he not forgive those forgotten Ans. Yes if the word forgiveness signifie the effect or his act as sufficient to that effect For it is in his power to discharge acquit or forgive another by a meer general remission or discharge though he remembred but one or no particular at all But if by forgiving you mean an act of his will whose object is the crime as well as the punishment and evil consequents remitted he so actually forgiveth in his own mental act no more than he knoweth But his general forgiveness sufficeth to all the ends without it and such a sufficient remission goeth commonly by the name of full forgiveness But instead of speaking to the point in hand you play with ambiguous words of another sense and subject Forgiving another is an act of the Will whose effect is extrinsecal and as a man may burn a house or give away or sell a house and all that is in it though he know not what is in it so a man may remit all debts or penalties
to him c. Answ. 1. Who can tell that Peter did preach his own Supremacy I prove he did not Because if he did it was as necessary to be believed or not If not he preached it not among things necessary If yea then had he so preached it that Text or some other would have mentioned it Peter or Paul or some Apostle would have express'd it on Record which they have not done yea have denyed it 2. Those that Paul preach'd to Act. 16. and other places address'd their Speech first to him But doth it follow that therefore he was Governour of all the Apostles How unhappy are great Conquerours that must fight many bloody Battels to win one Kingdom of another Mans in Comparison of the Pope who without a blow or a word of good reason can hope by such gross Sophismes as these to get the Monarchy of the whole Earth To my Instance of those converted by the English and Dutch in the Indies he bids me prove them to be instructed in the true Faith Answ. They that are instructed in the Baptismal Covenant the Creed and in general the truth of all the Sacred Scriptures and are devoted to God by the Baptismal Covenant and taught to conform their Desires to the Lord's-prayer and their Practice to the Decalogue to live soberly righteously and godly and in love to God and Man and in good works and hope of Heaven are instructed in the true Faith But such are they in question c. Do you so oft say that less than all the Creed is necessitate medii to be believed and many of you not so much as Christ himself and yet is not all that Protestants teach the true Faith O Impartiality Next to my Instance of the Abassian Empire he bids me also prove them to be Orthodox Catholick Christians Answ. 1. I must first know what you mean by Orthodox and Catholick which your ill faculty of expounding makes me despair of If by Orthodox you mean such as have no errours I cannot prove it but it 's shame for such erroneous Men as you to demand it But if you mean but such as hold all the Essentials of Christianity and much more the former Argument joyned with all just Testimonies of them such as you have in Damianus a Goes Alvarez Godignus c. prove it So if by Catholick you mean a Papist I cannot prove it but the eontrary But if you mean Parts of the Universal Church it 's proved as afore Note here what vafritious Men these are that save or â—…amn Empires to and fro as the interest of their arguing requireth When we prove that the rest of the Christian Church is twice or thrice as great as all the Papal Church then they tell us that Greeks Abassines c. are of their mind and they feign that the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. are all subject to the Pope and have submitted to him Godignus wrote to confute one of their own Writers that affirmeth the Abassines to be for the Pope But when their Cause bids them say otherwise then we are challenged to prove them Catholick Christians and Orthodox Had you put me to prove the Papists such you had put me harder to it Our next Point is of the Visibility of Christ as Head of the Church where he saith p. 65. He is most certainly an invisible Pastor both in Heaven and on Earth For though his Person may be seen there yet the Exercise of his Pastorship consisting only in spiritual Influences and internal Graces cannot be seen by any Corporal Eye whatsoever Therefore as a Pastor of the Militant Church he is wholly invisible so you put a visible Body without a visible Head all that is visible in the Pastoral Function being performed by visible Pastors and all that is invisible by our Saviour So you by a strange piece of Novelty constitute a visible Body without a visible Head you destroy the visible Church and frame a Monster Answ. What abundance of Heresies must I charge on such Men if I judged them according to their terms and rigour of judging 1. Christ as a visible Head of the Church is here denyed Whereas 1. It is not that he is Visus but Visibilis that we assert 2. And he was seen till about thirty three years of Age on Earrh He was seen to do Miracles suffer rise ascend 3. He was seen of Paul and Stephen after his Ascension 4. The poor scattered Flock on Earth is but a Handful to the Church Triumphant that see him still in Heaven and it is the same Body 5. He will come visible in Glory to Judgment 6. Every Believer after a few hasty hours passeth to the sight of him 7. And we shall all see him in Heaven for ever Compare this now with the Visibility of the greatest Earthly Monarchs who are never seen to the thousandth Person of their Empires and rarely to any but their Courtiers and some of them rarely to the most of them but to some very few and quickly die and are seen here no more And yet may not Christ be called a Visible Head And yet we say but that he is visible in tantum and not every-where nor to every one 2. But it is not his Person that he saith is invisible but worse than that it is the Exercise of his Pastorship which he erroneously that I say not heretically affirmeth to consist only in spiritual Influxes and internal Graces So that here 1. He denyeth all Christ's visible teaching and government while he was on Earth were his words to be strictly understood and all his Mission and Commissioning of his Apostles c. 2. He denyeth all the Sacred Scriptures which are Christ's visible Doctrine Laws and Promises and so the visible Exercise of his Office as the King's Laws are of his 3. He denyeth all Christ's visible Administrations by his Officers Princes and Pastors as if it were a good Argument that Christ doth it not because they do it whereas it is he that visibly ruleth as to the effect here questioned by them as it is the visible Government of the King which is exercised all abroad the Kingdom by his Command 4. He denyeth Christ's visible Mercies Provision Protection Deliverances of many sorts which are all parts of the Exercise of his Office 5. He denyeth all the visible Miracles which Christ hath wrought by others whilst yet their Church so boasteth of them as if they were their very Foundation as I shewed out of Knot against Chillingworth who ultimately resolveth their Faith into them and they would have us think that they are costant things If you say that Christ is not seen here I answer It is not Christ's Person now whose Visibility he speaks of but the Exercise of his Office 6. He denyeth all the visible punishments which Christ himself inflicteth on his sinning People and on his Enemies though they are many and notorious and as God is known by the
on the 6th of Ianuary till after the middle of Chrysostom's time and so in the present case had it been as ancient as they pretend it was not Universal 2. But he saith that at least as Patriarch of the West by the Churches grant they were in full quiet possession of that Right or Power which we confess was lawful Ans. No such matter We make no such Confession Those Protestants who think that the superiority of Patriarchs is lawful do hold that it is by humane Laws and that if any such Laws were made by that which you call the Church that is by Councils it was by such Councils as in such matters received their Power from the Emperours without which they might not set up one City above another nor distribute Provinces and Diocesses and as was done and therefore that while the Imperial Laws enforced them they had the Law to bind Subjects to obey them but when any Kingdom was cut off from the Empire it was from under those Laws and under the Laws of their own Prince and the former decrees of Councils were no Laws to them any longer though they might by voluntary contract still associate with Forraign Lands So that such hold 1. That while Britain was under the Roman Empire they owed some respect or obedience to the Pope as Patriarch of the West as English-men do the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury 2. That before and after they owed him no more obedience than to the Bishop of Rhemes or Arles 3. That when the Saxon Kings permitted the first English Bishops voluntarily to subject themselves to the Patriarch of Rome they made themselves Debtors of all lawful obedience which they promised 4. That when the Saxon and Danish Kings Commanded their Subjects such lawful obedience to the Bishop of Rome they owed it him by the obligation of their Soveraigns Laws 5. And when those Laws ceas'd their obligation ceased and when those Laws forbad it it became unlawful And so the Roman Patriarch had no power in England when the King and Law did deny it him or cease to give it him This is the judgment of those Protestants that think such Patriarchs lawful The other that think them a sinful Usurpation think that they were never lawful yet he urgeth us with what Conscience we ceased to obey them Pag. 74. he saith Prove that any Church which now denyeth it hath been always visible and I am satisfied whether that Church always denyed it or no. Ans. This hath some moderation in it 1. There hath no Church but that of Ierusalem been always visible from the beginning of Christianity for no other was at first existent 2. And that was not visible from the beginning of the World 3. This Church of Ierusalem as it consisteth of the most Christians there now denyeth your Papal Power 4. The Churches of Alexandria Antioch and Abassia now deny it and have been always visible 5. The Church of Ephesus and many others of Greeks that now deny it have been always visible since Paul's time and Constantinople since the first planting 6. And I pray you note that the Church of Rome hath not been always visible for it did not exist till some years after that at Ierusalem Yea note that you cannot pretend that the Bishop of Rome was the Universal Bishop from the beginning for you confess Peter was first Bishop of Antioch and all that while Rome was not the Mistress Church And so if you should have the Supremacy it must be by a change from the first State Though indeed Peter himself never claimed nor exercised any such thing much less did he ever leave it to a Successor and least of all as fixed to one City any more than St. Iohn's power was to the Bishop of Ephesus And indeed Bellarmine himself dare not deny but that the Seat of the Universal Bishop may possibly be removed from Rome to some other place And then suppose it were to Avignion or to Constantinople where is St. Peter's Successor How must he be chosen or how shall his power above others be known when all the old pretensions faile Pag. 78. till then there 's nothing but vain words When I noted that They that make Christ corporally present in every Church in the Eucharist should not say that the King of the Church is absent He replyeth We dispute of a proper visible presence such as is not in the Eucharist Ans. You affirm that Christ is there corporally present under the Forms of Bread and Wine and that the Bread which we see is the Body of Christ and no Bread and yet that we see not the Body of Christ Sure we see something or nothing and if it be something and not Bread nor Christs Body what is it But suppose that it be not Christs Body which we see yet while the Bread is turned into his Body that which you do see is nearer to him than a Kings Crown or Clothing is to the King and yet if you see the King only in his Cloths his â—…ace being vailed will you say that he is not a visible King Doth clothing make Kings or the species of the Consecrated Bread make Christ to become invisible 2. Do you not bow towards him on the Altar Do you not carry him in procession about the Streets and do you not constrain all that meet you to kneel down and adore sure you do not think him to be out of sight or hearing or far off to whom you pray and whom you so honour as present As Paul said to the Iews God is not far from every one of us so that Christ who is adorably present in his Body on the Altar and corporally present in every Receivers hand and mouth surely hath not yet forsaken the Earth so far as to be uncapable of constituting a visible Kingdom without a Pope Pag. 79. I told him that When they prove 1. That Christ is so absent from his Church that there is need of a Deputy to essentiate his Kingdom and 2. that the Pope is so deputed they will have done their work He replyeth I have proved that Christ instituted St. Peter and his Successors to govern visibly his wholly Universal Church in all Ages Ans. Wonderful when was it and where Let the Reader find any such thing in your writing for I cannot no not a word Had that been done I had contradicted you no longer but if it be by an Invisible Proof that your Visible Head reigneth I cannot judge of it He next addeth I press you therefore once more to give an instance of something which hath been ever in the visible Church by Christs institution and yet is accidental to the Church Ans. 1. If I have not given you such Instances and Reasons also to prove that all that Christ instituted to continue is not essential let the Reader say that I have failed you 2. But if I had not what is it to your cause will it thence follow that