his sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so why not against her errors in doctrine if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospell of Christ and consequently against her doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospell of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawfull in the Church of Rome for any Lay man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from error and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation then that of a Christian to doe a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of Charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without an unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out of a false unto a true way of eternall happinesse Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soule from death and shall hide a multitude of sinnes Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as well as the Cardinalls doe the Pope Whether the King or Queen of England or they that have the government in their hands in the minority of the Prince may not lawfully commend one to them to be consecrated against whom there is no Canonicall exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Iudah the first Christian Emperors were of the Iewish and Christian Church be any new found doctrine Whether it may not be true that Bishops being made Bishops have their authority immediatly from Christ though this or that man be not made Bishop without the Kings authority as well as you say the Pope being Pope has authority immediatly from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the authority of the Cardinalls Whether you doe well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more authority in ordering the affaires of the Church then the great Turk or the Pagan Emperors Whether the King may not give authority to a Bishop to exercise his function in some part of his Kingdome and yet not be capable of doing it himselfe as well as a Bishop may give authority to a Physitian to practise Physick in his Diocesse which the Bishop cannot doe himselfe Whether if Ner◠the Emperour would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to preach the Gospell of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have question'd his Authority to doe so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. IAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to doe any thing that is lawfull Whether a casuall irregularity may not be lawfully dispenc'd with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incurre any be indispensable And if not who is he or who are they whom the Pope is so subject unto that they may dispense with him Whether that be certain which you take for granted That your Ordination imprints a character and ours doth not Whether the power of consecrating and ordaining by imposition of hands may not reside in the Bishops and be derived unto them not from the King but God and yet the King have authority to command them to apply this power to such a fit person whom he shall commend unto them As well as if some Architects only had the faculty of architecture and had it immediatly by infusion from God himselfe yet if they were the Kings subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortresse for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himselfe yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his subjects that has this power to ordaine any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it doe not follow that whensoever the King commands an house to be built a message to be delivered or a murtherer to be executed that all these things are presently done without intervention of the Architect messenger or executioner As well as that they are ipsofacto ordain'd and consecrated who by the Kings authority are commended to the Bishops to be ordained and consecrated Especially seeing the King will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to doe what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should doe so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himselfe nor any body else would esteeme the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not consecrated Bishops by any temporall Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopall function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants doe indeed pretend that their Reformation is universall Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you doe not forget your selfe and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of divine institution be Schismaticall and Hereticall for thinking so Whether your forme of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essentiall to the constitution of a true Church Whether the formes of the Church of England differ essentially from your formes Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these externall formes and orders and government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives
Ordination or Succession in the Protestants Church because the Fathers alleaged in the last reason assigne Succession as one mark of the true Church I must not omit to say that according to the grounds of Protestants themselves they can neither pretend personall Succession of Bishops nor Succession of doctrine For whereas Succession of Bishops signifies a never-interrupted line of Persons endued with an indelible Quality which Divines call a Character which cannot be taken away by deposition degradation or other meanes whatsoever and endued also with Iurisdiction and Authority to teach to preach to govern the Church by lawes precepts censures c. Protestants cannot pretend Succession in either of these For besides that there was never Protestant Bishop before Luther and that there can be no continuance of Succession where there was no beginning to succeed they commonly acknowledge no Character and consequently must affirme that when their pretended Bishops or Priests are deprived of Iurisdiction or degraded they remain meer lay Persons as before their Ordination fulfilling what Tertullian objects as a mark of Heresie To â—ay a Priest to morrow a Lay-man For if here be no immoveable Character their power of Order must consist only in Iurisdiction and authoritie or in a kinde of morall deputation to some function which therefore may be taken away by the same power by which it was given Neither can they pretend Succession in Authority or Iurisdiction For all the Authority or Iurisdiction which they had was conferred by the Church of Rome that is by the Pope Because the whole Church collectively doth not meet to ordain Bishops or Priests or to giue them Authority But according to their own doctrine they believe that the Pope neither hath or ought to haue any Iurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiassicall or Spirituall within this Realme which they sweare even when they are ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons How then can the Pope giue Iurisdiction where they sweare he neither hath nor OVGHT to haue any Or if yet he had how could they without Schisme withdraw themselves from his obedience Besides the Roman Church never gaue them Authority to oppose Her by whom it was given But grant their first Bishops had such Authority from the Church of Rome after the decease of those men who gaue Authority to their pretended Successours The Primate of England But from whom had he such Authority And after his decease who shall confer Authority upon his Successours The temporall Magistrate King Henry neither a Catholique nor a Protestant King Edward a Child Queen Elizabeth a Woman An Infant of one houres Age is true King in case of his Predecessours decease But shall your Church lye fallow till that Infant-King and green Head of the Church come to yeares of discretion Doe your Bishops your Hierarchy your Succession your Sacraments your being or not being Heretiques for want of Succession depend on this new-found Supremacy-doctrine brought in by such a man meerly upon base occasions and for shameful ends impugned by Calvin and his followers derided by the Christian world and even by chiefe Protestants as D. Andrewes Wotton c. not held for any necessary point of faith And from whoÌ„ I pray you had Bishops their Authority when there were no Christian Kings Must the Greeke Patriarchs receiue spirituall Iurisdiction from the Greek Turk Did the Pope by the Baptisme of Princes loose the spirituall Power he formerly had of conferring spirituall Iurisdiction upon Bishops Hath the temporall Magistrate authority to preach to assoile from sinnes to inflict excommunications and other Censures Why hath he not Power to excommunicate as well as to dispense in Irregularity as our late Soveraign Lord King Iames either dispensed with the late Archbishop of Canterbury or else gaue commission to some Bishops to doe it and since they were subject to their Primate and not he to them it is cleer that they had no Power to dispense with him but that power must proceed from the Prince as Superiour to them all and head of the Protestants Church in England If he haue no such authority how can he giue to others what himselfe hath not Your Ordination or Consecration of Bishops and Priests imprinting no Character can only consist in giving a Power Authority Iurisdiction or as I said before some kind of Deputation to exercise Episcopall or Priestly functions If then the temporall Magistrate conferres this Power c. he can nay he cannot chuse but Ordain and consecrate Bishops Priests as often as he confers Authority or Iurisdiction and your Bishops as soone as they are designed confirmed by the King must ip so facto be Ordained and Consecrated by him without intervention of Bishops or Matter and Form of Ordination Which absurdities you will bee more unwilling to grant then well able to avoid if you will be true to your own doctrines The Pope from whom originally you must beg your Succession of Bishops never received nor will nor can acknowledge to receiue any Spiriâ—uall Iurisdiction from any Temporall Prince and therefore if Iurisdiction must be derived from Princes he hath none at all and yet either you must acknowledge that hee hath true spirituall Iurisdiction or that yourselves can receiue none from him 21 Moreover this new Reformation or Reformed Church of Protestants will by them be pretended to be Catholique or Vniversall and not confined to England alone as the Sect of the Donatists was to Africa and therefore it must comprehend all the Reformed Churches in Germany Holland Scotland France c. In which number they of Germany Holland and France are not governed by Bishops nor regard any personall succession unlesse of such fat-benefiâ—ed Bishops as Nicolaus Amsfordius who was consecrated by Luther though Luther himselfe was never Bishop as witnesseth Dresserus And though Scotland hath of late admitted some Bishops I much doubt whether they hold them to be necessary or of divine Institution and so their enforced admitting of them doth not so much furnish that kingdome with personall Succession of Bishops as it doth convince them to want Succession of Doctrine since in this their neglect of Bishops they disagree both from the milder Protestants of England and the true Catholique Church And by this want of a continued personall Succession of Bishops they retaine the note of Schisme and Heresy So that the Church of Protestants must either not be Vniversall as being confined to England Or if you will needs comprehend all those Churches which want succession you must confesse that your Church doth not only communicate with Schismaticall and Hereticall Churches but is also compounded of such Churches and your selves cannot avoid the note of Schismatiques or Heretiques if it were but for participating with such hereticall Churches For it is impossible to retain Communion with the true Catholique Church and yet agree with them who are divided from her by Schisme or Heresy because that were to affirme that for the
event was what effect was wrought in me by the perusall and consideration of it To deal truly and ingenuously with you I fell somewhat in my good opinion both of your sufficiency syncerity but was exceedingly confirm'd in my ill opinion of the cause maintained by you I found every where snares that might entrap and colours that might deceive the simple but nothing that might perswade and very little that might move an understanding man and one that can discerne between discourse and sophistry In short I was verily perswaded that I plainly saw and could make it appear to all dis-passionate and unprejudicate Iudges 〈◊〉 a vein of sophistry and calumny did run clean through it from 〈◊〉 begining to the end And letting some friends understand so much 〈◊〉 my selfe to be perswaded by them that it would not be either unproper for me nor un-acceptable to God nor peradventure altogether unserviceable to his Church nor justly offensive to you if you indeed were a lover of Truth and not a maintainer of a Faction if setting aside the second Part which was in a manner wholly employed in particular disputes repetitions and references and in wranglings with D. Potter about the sense of some super-numerary quotations and whereon the main question no way depends I would make a faire and ingenuous Answer to the first wherein the substance of the present Controversy is confessedly contained and which if it were clearly answered no man would desire any other answer to the second This therefore I undertook with a full resolution to be an adversary to your errors but a friend and servant to your person and so much the more a friend to your person by how much the severer and more rigid adversary I was to your errors 4 In this work my conscience beares me witnesse that I have according to your advice proceeded alwayes with this consideration that I am to give a most strict account of every line and word that passeth under my pen and therefore have been precisely carefull for the matter of my book to defend truth only and only by Truth And then scrupulously fearefull of scandalizing you or any man with the manner of handling it From this rule sure I am I have not willingly swerved in either part of it and that I might not doe it ignorantly I have not only my self examined mine owne work perhaps with more severity then I have done yours as conceiving it a base and unchristian thing to goe about to satisfie others with what I my self am not fully satisfied But have also made it passe the fiery tryall of the exact censures of many understanding judges alwaies heartily wishing that you your selfe had been of the Quorum But they who did undergoe this burthen as they wanted not sufficiencie to discover any heterodoxe doctrine so I am sure they have been very carefull to let nothing flip dissonant from truth or from the authorized doctrine of the Church of England and therefore whatsoever causelesse and groundlesse jealousy any man may entertain concerning my Person yet my book I presume in reason and common equity should be free from them wherein I hope that little or nothing hath escap'd so many eyes which being weighed in the ballance of the Sanctuary will be found too light And in this hope I am much confirm'd by your strange carriage of your selfe in this whole businesse For though by some crooked and sinister arts you have got my Answer into your hands now a yeare since and upwards as I have been assured by some that know it and those of your own party though you could not want every day faire opportunityes of sending to me and acquainting me with any exceptions which you conceived might be justly taken to it or any part of it then which nothing could have been more welcome to me yet hitherto you have not been pleased to acquaint mee with any one Nay more though you have been at sundry times and by severall waies entreated and sollicited nay press'd and importun'd by me to joyne with me in a private discussion of the Controversy between us before the publication of my Answer because I was extremely unwilling to publish any thing which had not passed all manner of tryals as desiring not that I or my Side but that truth might overcome on which Side soever it was though I have protâ—sted to you and set it under my hand which protestation by Gods help I would have made good if you or any other would undertake your cause would give me a faire meeting and choose out of your whole Book any one argument wherof you were most confident and by which you would be content the rest should be judged of and make it appeare that I had not or could not answer it that I would desist from the work which I had undertaken and answer none at all though by all the Arts which possibly I could devise I have provoked you to such a tryall in particular by assuring you that if you refus'd it the world should be inform'd of your tergiversation notwithstanding all this you have perpetually and obstinately declined it which to my understanding is a very evident signe that there is not any truth in your cause nor which is impossible there should bee strength in your arguments especially considering what our Saviour hath told us every one that doth evill hateth the light neither commeth to the light least his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth commeth to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 5 In the meane while though you despaired of compassing your desire this honest way yet you have not omitted to tempt me by base and unworthy considerations to desert the cause which I had undertaken letting me understand from you by an acquaintance common to us both how that in case my work should come to light my inconstancy in religion so you miscall my constancy in following that way to heaven which for the present seemes to me the most probable should bee to my great shame painted to the life that my owne writings should be producâ—d against my selfe that I should bee urged to answer my owne motives against Protestantisme and that such things should be published to the world touching my beliefe for my painter I must expect should have great skill in perspective of the doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all supernaturall verities as should endanger all my benefices present or future that this warning was given me not out of feare of what I could say for that Catholiques if they might wish any ill would beg the Publication of my booke for respects obvious enough but out of a meer charitable desire of my good and reputation and that all this was said upon a supposition that I was answering or had a minde to answer Charity maintained If not no harme was done To which coâ—â—â—â—us premonition as I remember I desired
the Gentleman who dealt between us to return this answer or to this effect that I believed the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all other super-naturall verities revealed in Scripture as truly and as heartily as your self or any man and therefore herein your Charity was very much mistaken but much more and more uncharitably in conceiving me a man that was to be wrought upon with these Terribiles visu formae those carnall and base fears which you presented to me which were very proper motives for the Divell and his instruments to tempt poor spirited men out of the way of conscience and honesty but very incongruous either for Teachers of truth to make use of or for Lovers of truth in which Company I had been long agoe matriculated to hearken to with any regard But if you were indeed desirous that I should not answer Charity maintained one way there was and but one whereby you might obtain your desire and that was by letting mee know when and where I might attend you and by a fair conference to be written down on both sides convincing mine understanding who was resolv'd not to be a Recusant if I were convicted that any one part of it any one argument in it which was of moment and consequence and whereon the cause depends was indeed unanswerable This was the effect of my answer which I am well assur'd was delivered but reply from you I received none but this that you would have no conference with me but in Print and soone after finding me of proof against all these batteries and thereby I fear very much enâ—aged you tooke up the resolution of the furious Goddesse in the Poet madded with the unsuccessefulnesse of her malice Flectere si nequeâ— superos Acherontamovebo 6 For certainly those indigne contumelies that masse of portentous and execrable calumnies wherewith in your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my person in particular but all the learned and moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in generall nay all wise men of all Religions but your own could not proceed from any other fountain 7 To begin with the last you stick not in the beginning of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheisme irreligion upon all wise and gallant men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of irreligion and Atheisme I am sure I could make my assertion much more probable then you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8 For to passe by first that which experience justifies that where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheisme hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspitious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies ridiculous observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorne of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheisme and impiety if they have this perswasion setled in them which is too rise among you and which you account a peece of Wisdome and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the points contested makes apparently for the temporall ends of the teachers of it which yet I feare is a great scandall to many Beaâ—x Esprits among you Onely I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their religion no not of those points wherein they agree whether you doe not that which so magisterially you direct me not to doe that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptique may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyn'd with your fore-mention'd perswasion of no Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himselfe to Averroes his resolution QuandoquideÌ„ Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Whether your requiring men upon only probable and Prudentiall motives to yield a most certaine assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you doe too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorne your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some texts of Scripture be not a faire way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9 Your calumnies against Protestants in generall are set downe in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it bee followed closely and with coherence to it selfe must of necessity induce Socinianisme This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one errror which may well be tearmed the Capitall and mother Heresy from which all other must follow at ease I mean their heresy in affirming that the perpetuall visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the infallibility of such a publique Authority be once impeached what remaines but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse And talke not here of holy Scripture For if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private spirit a foolery now exploâ—ed out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianisme or else upon naturall wit and judgement for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected
men and deducing according to the never failing rules of Logick consequent deductions from them if this be it which you mean by discourse it is very meet reasonable necessary that men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happinesse should be left unto it and he that followes this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seeme to doe so followes alwaies God whereas he that followeth a Company of men may oftimes follow a company of beasts And in saying this I say no more then S. Iohn to all Christians in these words Dearly beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God or no and the rule he gives them to make this tryall by is to consider whether they confesse Iesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions no◠whether they acknowledge the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more then S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good then S. Peter in cōmanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them then our Saviour himselfe in forewarning all his followers that if they blindly followed blind guides both leaders and followers should fall into the ditch and again in saying even to the people Yea why of your selves iudge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or preiudice by want of reason or not using that they have men may be and are oftentimes led into error and mischiefe yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your selfe have given them security For what is discourse but drawing conclusions out of premises by good consequence Now the principles which we have setled to wit the Scriptures are on all sides agreed to be infallibly true And you have told us in the fourth chap. of this Pamphlet that from truth no man can by good consequence inferre falshood Therefore by discourse no man can possibly be led to error but if he erre in his conclusions he must of necessity either erre in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seeme to doe so 13 You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the privat Spirit or else naturall wit and iudgement and by them examine what Scriptures containe true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or reiected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proofe of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly erre in her judgement touching this matter yet have we other directions in it besides the privat spirit and the examination of the contents which latter way may conclude the negative very strongly to wit that such or such a book cannot come from God because it containes irreconcileable contradictions but the affirmative it cannot conclude because the contents of a book may be all true and yet the book not written by divine inspiration other direction therefore I say we have besides either of these three that is the testimony of the Primitive Christians 14 You say Fourthly with convenient boldnesse That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assur'd that any parcell of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proofe is pretended and besides void of modesty and full of impiety The first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assur'd that the Scripture is divinely inspir'd and yet deny the infallible authority of your Church or any other The second because if◠I cannot have ground to be assur'd of the divine authority of Scripture unlesse I first believe your Church infallible then I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church infallible unlesse I first beleeve the Scripture divine 15 Fiftly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the infallible authority of your Church but he must abandon all infus'd faith and true religion if he doe but understand him selfe Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of your hearts you speak very often That all Christians besides you are open Fooles or conceal'd Atheists All this you say with notable confidence as the manner of Sophisters is to place their confidence of prevailing in their confident manner of speaking but then for the evidence you promised to maintaine this confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible 16 Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you doe Protestants that they lead men to Socinianisme I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence then you have done For I would not tell you you deny the infallibility of the Church of England ergo you lead to Socinianisme which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the infallibility of the Roman Church ergo they induce Socinianisme Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes infallibility you submit your selfe to that capitall and Mother Heresy by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianisme and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianisme to Turcisme nay to the Divell himselfe if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers waies the Doctors of your Church doe the principall and proper work of the Socinians for the undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the ancient Doctors 17 For Scripture your men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinall Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18 And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the world that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinall Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. Iames Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any error in this matter in or
truth discretion and honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gain'd with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I can not tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your selfe did never believe it 21 For did you indeed conceive or had any probable hope that such men as you describe men of worth of learning and authority too were friends and favourers of your Religion inclinable to your Party can any man imagine that you would proclaim it and bid the world take heed of them Sic notus Vlysses Doe we know the lesuites no better then so What are they turned prevaricators against their own Faction Are they likely men to betray and expose their own Agents and instruments and to awaken the eyes of jealousy and to raise the clamor of the people against them Certainly your Zeal to the Sea of Rome testified by your fourth Vow of speciall obedience to the Pope proper to your Order and your cunning carriage of all affairs for the greater advantage and advancement of that Sea are clear demonstrations that if you had thought thus you would never have said so The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull downe your infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your tyranny and exercise it themselves over otheres are the Adversaries that give you greatest advantage and such as you love to deale with whereas upon men of temper moderatiō such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as neere to you that they may draw you to them as the truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will damne no man nor Doctrine without expresse and certaine warrant from gods word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weaknesse of your cause laid open to all men And this I verily believe is the true reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other Adversaries gave you no more advantage then they doe 22 In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the sillynesse and poornesse of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked calumny For what if out of devotion towards God out of a desire that he should be worshipped as in Spirit and truth in the first place so also in the beauty of holinesse what if out of feare that too much simplicity and nakednesse in the publique Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward state and glory of it being well dispos'd and wisely moderated may ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Soveraign Majesty and power what if out of a perswasion and desire that Papists may be wonne over to us the sooner by the removing of this scandall out of their way and out of an holy jealousy that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the magnificence and pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late then formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods honour dwells and to make them as heavenly as they can with earthly ornaments Is this a signe that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that shee is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every man will grant had no inclination that way yet he forty years since highly commended this part of devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants Litle thinking that they who would follow his counsell and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this glorying of Papists should have been censur'd for it as making way and inclining to Popery His words to this purpose are excellent words and because they shew plainly that what is now practis'd was approv'd by Zealous Protestants so long agoe I will here set them down 23 This one thing I cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest pompe and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much basenesse and childishnesse is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward state and glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Soveraign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many men well reputed have embraced the thrifty opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confesse it will never sink into my heart that in proportion of reason the allowance for furnishing out of the service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meere necessity a proportion so low that nature to other most bountifull in matter of necessity hath not fayled no not the most ignoble creatures of the world and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost pompe we list Or that God himself had so inrich'd the lower parts of the world with such wonderfull varieties of beauty and glory that they might serve only to the pampering of mortall man in his pride and that in the Service of the high creator Lord and giver the outward glory of whose higher pallace may appear by the very lamps that we see so farre of burning gloriously in it only the simpler baser cheaper lesse noble lesse beautifull lesse glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes courts so in the service of God also this outward state and glory being well dispos'd doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due to so Soveraign majesty and power Which those whom the use there of cannot perswade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confesse for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose
rather to commend the vertue of an enemy then to flatter the vice and imbecility of a friend And so much for this matter 24 Again what if the names of Priests and Altars so frequent in the ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resum'd and more commonly used in England then of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominall with the ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominall may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a state in this regard more justifiable against the Roman then formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these names are objected we also use the names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the corporall Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25 What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with syncerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsely said by you that you know that to some Protestants I cleerly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or went about to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censur'd somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affrming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two hundred yeares Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proofe of this scandalous calumny Certainly if you can make no better arguments then these and have so little judgement as to think these any you have great reason to decline conferences and Signior Con to prohibite you from writing books any more 26 As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them alwaies have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of faith though not the infallibility of it That there is Inherent Iustice though so imperfect that it cannot justify That there are Traditions though none necessary That charity is to be preferr'd before knowledge That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that faith alone justifies though that faith justifies not which is alone And secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been anciently without breach of charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist The lawfulnesse of some kind of prayers for the dead the Estate of the Fathers souls before Christs ascention Freewill Predestination Vniversall grace The Possibility of keeping Gods commandements The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion amongst Protestants it is justifyed to my hand by a witnesse with you beyond exception even your great friend M. Brerely whose care exactnesse and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9. 10. 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your selfe prov'd an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine beginnes of late to be altered in these points Whereas M. Brerely will informe you they have been anciently and even from the begining of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the stream and current of their Doctors runne one way and only some brooke or rivulet of them the other 27 And thus my Friends I suppose are cleerely vindicated from your scandalls and calumnies It remaines now that in the last place I bring my selfe fairely off from your foule aspersions that so my person may not be as indeed howsoever it should not be any disadvantage or disparagement to the cause nor any scandall to weake Christians 28 Your injuries then to me no way deserved by me but by differing in opinion from you wherein yet you surely differ from me as much as I from you are especially three For first upon heereâ—ay refusing to give me oportunity of begetting in you a better understanding of me you charge me with a great number of false and impious doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so farre in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The summe of them all cast up by your selfe in your first chap. is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther then it may be proved by evidence of Naturall reason where I conceive Naturall reason is oppos'd to supernaturall Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my selfe once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with deniall of Supernaturall Verities I professe syncerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonicall to be the Infallible word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresy which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declar'd to be so only to be so And though in such points which may he held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any mans liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfy any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to salvation either by the Catholique Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measur'd by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholique Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I doe verily believe and embrace 29 Another great and manifest injury you have done me in charging me to have forsaken your Religion because it condus'd not to my temporall ends and suted not with my desires and designes Which certainly is a horrible crime whereof if you could convince me by just and strong presumptions I should then acknowledge my selfe to deserve that opinion which you would faine induce your credents unto that I chang'd not your Religion for any other but for none at all But of this great fault my conscience acquits me and God who only knowes the hearts of all men knowes that I am innocent Neither doubt I but all they who know me and amongst them many Persons of place and quality will say they have reason in this matter to be my compurgators And for you though you are very
and for disturbing the Churches peace and dividing Vnity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismaticall 35 Grant this sixtly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Heretiques seeing they believe all things evidently contain'd in Scripture which are suppos'd to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixt Chapter is cleerly confuted 36 Grant this lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your seaventh Chapter that no man can shew more charity to himself then by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are suppos ' to believe and therefore may accordingly practise at least by their Religion are not hindred from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37 So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the corner stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firme and unmoveable cannot but bee the supporter of my Book and the certain ruine of yours is so farre from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of confessions unanimously professe and maintain it And you your selfe C. 6. § 30. plainly confesse as much in saying The whole Edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonicall Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38 And thus your venome against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two litle impertinencies whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induc'd mee to forsake Protestantisme and hitherto have not answered them 39 By the former of which objections it should seeme that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very grosse mistakes And yet why hee who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet bee fit enough to maintain that those who doe subscribe them are in a saveable condition I doe not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absoluetly true which with reason cannot bee requir'd of mee while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancie destroies not Salvation For the Church of England I am perswaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodoxe that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturbe the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive mee not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40 Your other objection against me is yet more impertinent and frivolous then the former Vnlesse perhaps it be a just exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recover'd himself from that disease which he undertakes to cure or against a guide in a way that at first before hee had experience himself mistook it and after wards found his error and amended it That noble writer Michael de Montai'gne was surely of a farre different mind for hee will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had pass'd through And a farre greater then Montai'gne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves beene in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engag'd and oblig'd unto and qualified for this charitable function 41 Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeale as you esteeme it which you impute to me for having been so long carelesse in removing this scandall against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a manner wholly imployed And besides though you Iesuits take upon you to have such large and universall intelligence of all state affaires and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an answer of mine to a litle peece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your observation The truth is I made an answer to them three yeares since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons one because the Motives were never publique untill you made them so the other because I was loath to proclaime to all the world so much weaknesse as I shewed in suffering my selfe to be abus'd by such silly Sophismes All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end The Motives then were these 1 Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so farre as concernes the points in contestation 2 Because Luther and his followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the world upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did faile of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the world and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3 Because if any credit may be given to as creditable records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholicks hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles 4 Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church 5 Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ
Of which ranke are those only which constitute and make up the Covenant between God and Man in Christ and then such as are necessary to be beleived not in themselues but only by accident because they were written Of which rank are many matters of History of Prophecy of mystery of Policy of Oeconomie such like which are evidently not intrinsecall to the Covenant Now to sever exactly punctually these Verities one trom the other what is necessary in it selfe antecedently to the writing from what is but only profitable in it selfe and necessary only because written is a businesse of extreame great difficultie and extreame little necessitie For first he that will goe about to distinguish especially in the Story of our Saviour what was written because it was profitable from what was written because necessary shall find an intricate peece of businesse of it almost impossible that he should be certaine he hath done it when he hath done it And then it is apparently unnecessary to goe about it seeing he that beleiues all certainly belieues all that is necessary And he that doth not beleiue all I meane all the undoubted parts of the undoubted Books of Scripture can hardly belieue any neither haue we reason to beleiue he doth so So that that Protestants giue you not a Catalogue of Fundamentalls it is not from Tergiversation as you suspect who for want of Charitie to them alwaies suspect the worst but from Wisdome and Necessity For they may very easily erre in doing it because though all which is necessary be plaine in Scripture yet all which is plaine is not therefore written because it was necessary For what greater necessity was there that I should know S. Paul left his Cloak at Troas then those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were never written And when they had done it it had been to no purpose There being as matters now stand as great necessitie of believing those truths of Scripture which are not Fundamentall as those that are You see then what reason we haue to decline this hard labour which you a rigid Taske-master haue here put upon us Yet insteed of giving you a Catalogue of Fundamentalls with which I dare say you are resolu'd before it come never to be satisfied I will say that to you which if you please may doe you as much service and this it is That it is sufficient for any mans salvation that he belieue the Scripture That he endeavour to beleiue it in the true sense of it as farre as concernes his dutie And that he conforme his life unto it either by Obedience or Repentance Hee that does so and all Protestants according to the Dictamen of their Religion should doe so may be secure that he cannot erre fundamentally And they that doe so cannot differ in Fundamentals So that notwithstanding their differences your presumption the same Heaven may receiue them All. 28 To the twentieth Your tenth last request is to know distinctly what is the doctrine of the Protestant English Church in these points and what my private opinion Which shall be satisfied when the Church of England hath expressed her selfe in them or when you haue told us what is the doctrine of your Church in the Question of Predetermination or the Immaculate Conception 29 To the 21 22. These answers I hope in the judgement of indifferent men are satisfactory to your Questions though not to you For I haue either answer'd them or given you a reason why I haue not Neither for ought I can see haue I flitted from things considered in their owne nature to accidentall or rare Circumstances But told you my opinion plainely what I thought of your Errours in themselues and what as they were qualified or malignified with good or bad circumstances Though I must tell you truly that I see no reason the Question being of the damnablenesse of Errour why you should esteeme ignorance incapacitie want of meanes to be instructed accidentall and rare Circumstances As if knowledge capacitie having meanes of Instruction concerning the truth of your Religion or ours were not as rare unusuall in the adverse part of either as Ignorance Incapacitie and want of meanes of instruction Especially how erroneous Conscience can be a rare thing in those that erre or how unerring Conscience is not much more rare I am not able to apprehend So that to consider men of different Religions the subject of this Contoversie in their owne nature and without circumstances must be to consider them neither as ignorant nor as knowing neither as having nor as wanting meanes of Instruction neither as with Capacity nor without it neither with erroneous nor yet with unerring conscience And then what judgement can you pronounce of them all the goodnesse and badnesse of an Action depending on the Circumstances Ought not a Iudge being to giue sentence of an Action to consider all the Circumstances of it or is it possible he should judge rightly that does not so Neither is it to purpose That Circumstances being various cannot be well comprehended under any generall rule For though under any generall rule they cannot yet under many generall rules they may be comprehended The Question here is you say whether men of different Religions may be saved Now the subject of this Question is an ambiguous terme and may be determined and invested with diverse and contrary Circumstances and accordingly contrary judgements are to be given of it And who then can be offended with D. Potter for distinguishing before he defines the want whereof is the cheife thing that makes defining dangerous Who can finde fault with him for saying If through want of meanes of instruction incapacitie invincible or probable ignorance a man dye in errour he may be saved But if he be negligent in seeking Truth unwilling to find it either doth see it and will not or might see it and will not that his case is dangerous without repentance desperate This is all that D. Potter saies neither rashly damning all that are of a different opinion from him not securing any that are in matter of Religion sinfully that is willingly erroneous The Author of this Reply I will abide by it saies the very same thing neither can I see what adversary he hath in the maine Question but his owne shaddow and yet I know not out of what frowardnesse findes fault with D. Potter for affirming that which himselfe affirmes and to cloude the matter whereas the Question is whether men by ignorance dying in errour may be saved would haue them considered neither as erring nor ignorant And when the question is whether The errors of Papists bee damnable to which we answer That to them that doe or might knowe them to be errours they are damnable to them that doe not they are not He tels us that this is to change the state of the Question whereas indeed it is to state the Question and free it
the Church to decide Controversies and who hath then so altered their nature and filled them with such jealousies as that now they cannot agree for fear of mutuall disparagement What greater wrong is it for the written Word to be compartner now with the unwritten then for the unwritten which was once alone to be afterward joyned with the written Who ever heard that sto commend the fidelity of a Keeper were to disauthorize the thing committed to his custody Or that to extoll the integrity and knowledge and to avouch the necessity of a Iudge in suits of Law were to deny perfection in the Law Are there not in Common wealths besides the Lawes written unwritten customes Iudges appointed to declare both the one the other as severall occasions may require 2 That the Scripture alone cannot be Iudge in Controversies of faith we gather very cleerly From the quality of a writing in generall From the nature of holy Writ in particular which must be beheved as true and infallible From the Editions and translations of it From the difficulty to understand it without hazard of Errour From the inconveniences that must follow upon the ascribing of sole Iudicature to it and finally from the Confessions of our Adversaries And on the other side all these difficulties ceasing and all other qualities requisite to a Iudge concurring in the visible Church of Christ our Lord we must conclude that she it is to whom in doubts concerning Faith and Religion all Christians ought to have recourse 3 The name notion nature and properties of a Iudge cannot in common reason agree to any meere writing which be it otherwise in its kind never so highly qualified with sanctity and infallibility yet it must ever be as all writings are deaf dumb and inanimate By a Iudge all wise men understand a Person endued with life and reason able to hear to examine to declare his mind to the disagreeing parties in such sort as that each one may know whether the sentence be in favour of his cause or against his pretence and he must be appliable and able to doe all this as the diversity of Controversies persons occasions and circumstances may require There is a great and plain distinction betwixt a Iudge and a Rule For as in a Kingdome the Iudge hath his rule to follow which are the received Lawes and Customes so are not they fit or able to declare or be Iudges to themselves but that office must belong to a living Iudge The holy Scripture may be and is a Rule but cannot be a Iudge because it being alwaies the same cannot declare it selfe any one time or upon any one occasion more particularly then upon any other and let it be read over an hundred times it will be still the same and no more fit alone to terminate controversies in faith then the Law would be to end suits if it were given over to the phancy and glosse of every single man 4 This difference betwixt a Iudge and a Rule D. Potter perceived when more then once having stiled the Scripture a Iudge by way of correcting that terme he addes or rather a Rule because he knew that an inanimate writing could not be a Iudge From hence also it was that though Protestants in their begining affirmed Scripture alone to be the Iudge of Controversies yet upon a more advised reflection they changed the phrase and said that not Scripture but the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture is Iudge in Controversies A difference without a disparity The holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us then the Scripture in which he speaks as a man speaking only Latin can be no better understood then the tongue wherein he speaketh And therefore to say a Iudge is necessary for deciding controversies about the meaning of Scripture is as much as to say he is necessary to decide what the Holy Ghost speakes in Scripture And it were a conceyt equally foolish and pernitious if one should seek to take away all Iudges in the Kingdome upon this nicety that albeit Lawes cannot be Iudges yet the Law-maker speaking in the Law may performe that Office as if the Law-maker speaking in the Law were with more perspicuity understood then the Law whereby he speaketh 5 But though some writing were granted to have a priviledge to declare it selfe upon supposition that it were maintained in being and preserved entire from corruptions yet it is manifest that no writing can conserve it selfe nor can complaine or denounce the falsifier of it and therefore it stands in need of some watchfull and not erring eye to guard it by meanes of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it syncere and pure 6 And suppose it could defend it selfe from corruption how could it assure us that it selfe were Canonicall and of infallible verity By saying so Of this very affirmation there will remain the same Question still how it can prove it selfe to be infallibly true Neither can there ever be an end of the like multiplied demands till we rest in the externall Authority of some person or persons bearing witnes to the world that such or such a book is Scripture and yet upon this point according to Protestants all other Controversies in faith depend 7 That Scripture cannot assure us that it selfe is Canonicall Scripture is acknowledged by some Protestants in expresse words and by all of them in deeds M. Hooker whom D. Potter ranketh among men of great learning and Iudgement saith of things necessary the very chiefest is to know what books we are to esteem holy which point is confessed impossible for the Scripture it selfe to teach And this he proveth by the same argument which we lately used saying thus It is not the word of God which doth or possibly can assure us that we doe well to think it his word For if any one book of Scripture did give testimony of all yet still that Scripture which giveth testimony to the rest would require another Scripture to give credit â—nto it Neither could we come to any pause whereon to rest unlesse besides Scripture there were something which might assure us c. And this he acknowledgeth to be the Church By the way If Of things necessary the very chiefest cannot possibly be taught by Scripture as this man of so great learning and judgement affirmeth and demonstratively proveth how can the Protestant Clergy of England subscribe to their sixt Article Wherein it is said of the Scripture Whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of the faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation and concerning their belief and profession of this Article they are particularly examined when they be ordained Priests and Bishops With Hooker his defendant Covell doth punctually agree Whitaker likewise confesseth that the question about Canonicall Scriptures is defined to us
not by testimony of the private spirit which faith he being private and secret is unfit to teach and refell others but as he acknowledgeth by the Ecclesiasticall Tradition An argument saith he whereby may be argued and convinced what books be Canonicall and what be not Luther saith This indeed the Church hath that she can discerne the word of God from the word of men as Augustine confesseth that he believed the Gospell being moved by the authority of the Church which did preach this to be the Gospell Fulk teacheth that the Church hath judgement to discerne true writings from counterfeit and the word of God from the writing of men and that this iudgement she hath not of her selfe but of the Holy Ghost And to the end that you my not be ignorant from what Church you must receive Scriptures hear your first Patriarch Luther speaking against them who as he saith brought in Anabaptisme that so they might despight the Pope Verily saith he these men build upon a weak foundation For by this means they ought to deny the whole Scripture and the Office of Preaching For all these we have from the Pope otherwise we must go make a new Scripture 8 But now in deeds they all make good that without the Churches authority no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonicall while they cannot agree in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Of the Epistle of S. Iames Luther hath these words The Epistle of Iames is contentious swelling dry strawy and unworthy of an Apostolicall Spirit Which censure of Luther Illyricus acknowledgeth and maintaineth Kemnitins teacheth that the second Epistle of Peter the second and third of Iohn the Epistle to the Hebrewes the Epistle of Iames the Epistle of Iude and the Apocalyps of Iohn are Apocryphall as not having sufficient Testimony of their authority and therefore that nothing in controversy can be proved out of these Bookes The same is taught by divers other Lutherans and if some other amongst them be of a contrary opinion since Luther's time I wonder what new infallible ground they can alleage why they leaue their Master and so many of his prime Schollers I knâ—w no better ground then because they may with as much freedome abandon him as hee was bold to alter that Canon of Scripture which he found receaved in Gods Church 9 What Bookes of Scripture the Protestants of England hold for Canonicall is not easie to affirme In their sixt Article they say In the name of the holy Scripture who doe understand those Canonicall Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church What meane they by these words That by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonicall This were to make the Church Iudge and not Scriptures alone Doe they only understand the agreement of the Church to be a probable inducement Probability is no sufficient ground for an infallible assent of faith By this rule of whose authority was NEVER any doubt in the Church the whole book of Esther must quit the Canon because some in the Church haue excluded it from the Canon as Melito Asianus Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen And Luther if Protestanis will be content that he be in the Church saith The Iewes place the book of Esther in the Canon which yet if I might be Iudge doth rather deserve to bee put out of the Canon And of Ecclesiastes he saith This book is not full there are in it many abrupt things he wants boots and spurres that is he hath no perfect sentence hee rides upon a long reed like me when I was in the Monastery And much more is to be read in him who saith further that the said book was not written by Salomon but by Syrach in the time of the Machabees and that it is like to the Talmud the Iewes bible out of many bookes heaped into one worke perhaps out of the Library of king Ptolomeus And further he saith that he doth not belieue all to haue been done as there is set downe And he reacheth the booke of Iob to be as it were an argument for a fable or Comedy to set before us an example of Patience And he delivers this generall censure of the Prophets Books The Sermons of no Prophet were written whole and perfect but their Disciples and Auditors snatched now one sentence and then another and so put them all into one book and by this meanes the Bible was conserved If this were so the Books of the Prophets being not written by themselues but promiscuously and casually by their Disciples will soone be called in question Are not these errours of Luther fundamentall and yet if Protestants deny the infallibility of the Church upon what certaine ground can they disproue these Lutherian and Luciferian blasphemies ô godly Reformer of the Roman Church But to returne to our English Canon of Scripture In the New Testament by the aboue mentioned rule of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books of the New Testament must be discanonized to wit all those of which some Ancients haue doubted and those which divers Lutherans haue of late denied It is worth the observation how the before-mentioned sixt Article doth specify by name all the Books of the Old Testament which they hold for Canonicall but those of the New Testament as they are commonly receaved we doe recieue and account them Canonicall The mystery is easily to be unfolded If they had descended to particulars they must haue contradicted some of their chiefest Brethren As they are commonly recieued c. I aske By whom By the Church of Rome Then by the same reason they must receiue divers Books of the Old Testament which they reject By Lutherans Then with Lutherans they may deny some Books of the New Testament If it bee the greater or lesse number of voices that must cry up or down the Canon of Scripture our Roman Canon will prevaile and among Protestants the Certainty of their Faith must be reduced to an Vncertaine Controversie of Fact whether the number of those who reject or of those others who recieue such and such Scriptures bee greater Their Faith must alter according to yeares and daies When Luther first appeared he and his Disciples were the greater number of that new Church and so this claime Of being commonly received stood for them till Zuinglius and Calvin grew to some equall or greater number then that of the Lutherans and then this rule of Commonly received will canonize their Canon against the Lutherans I would gladly know why in the former part of their Article they say both of the Old and New Testament In the name of the holy Scripture we doe understand those Canonicall Books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church and in the latter part speaking againe
back reiected it as the Protestant Writers Hospinianus and Lavatherus witnesse The translation set forth by Oecolampadius and the Divines of Basil is reproved by Beza who affirmeth that the Basil Translation is in many places wicked and altogether differing from the mind of the Holy Ghost The translation of Castalio is condemned by Beza as being sacrilegious wicked and Ethnicall As concerning Calvins translation that learned Protestant Writer Carolus Molineus saith thereof Calvin in his Harmony maketh the text of the Gospell to leap up and down he useth violence to the letter of the Gospell and besides this addeth to the Text. As touching Bezas translation to omit the dislike had thereof by Selneccerus the German Protestant of the Vniversity of Iena the foresaid Molinaeus saith of him de facto mutat textum he actually changeth the text and giveth farther sundry instances of his corruptions as also Castalio that learned Calvinist and most learned in the tongues reprehendeth Beza in a whole book of this matter and saith that to note all his errours in translation would require a great volume And M. Parkes saith As for the Geneva Bibles it is to be wished that either they may be purged from those manifold errors which are both in the text and in the margent or else utterly prohibited All which confirmeth your Maiesties grave and learned Censure in your thinking the Geneva translation to be worst of all and that in the Marginall notes annexed to the Geneva translation some are very partiall untrue seditious c. Lastly concerning the English Translation the Puritans say Our translation of the Psalmes comprized in our Book of Common Prayer doth in addition subtraction and alteration differ from the Truth of the Hebrew in two hundred places at the least In so much as they doe therefore professe to rest doubtfull whether a man with a safe conscience may subscribe thereunto And M. Carlile saith of the English Translators that they have depraved the sense obscured the truth and deceived the ignorant that in many places they doe detort the Scriptures from the right sense And that they shew themselves to love darknesse more then light falshood more then truth And the Ministers of Lincolne Diocesse give their publike testimony terming the English Translation A Translation that taketh away from the Text that addeth to the Text and that sometime to the changing or obscuring of the meaning of the Holy Ghost Not without cause therefore did your Majesty affirme that you could never yet see a Bible well translated into English Thus farre the Author of the Protestants Apology c. And I cannot forbear to mention in particular that famous corruption of Luther who in the Text where it is said Rom. 3. v. 28. We accompt a man to be justified by faith without the works of the Law in favour of Iustification by faith alone translateth Iustified by faith ALONE As likewise the falsification of Zuinglius is no lesse notorious who in the Gospels of S. Matthew Mark and Luke and in S. Paul in place of This is my Body This is my Blood translates This signifies my Body This signifies my bloâ—d And here let Prorestants consider duely of these points Salvation cannot be hoped for without true faith Faith according to them relies upon Scripture alone Scripture must be delivered to most of them by the Translations Translations depend on the skill and honesty of men in whom nothing is more certain then a most certain possibility to erre and no greater evidence of truth then that it is evident some of them imbrace falshood by reason of their contrary translations What then remaineth but that truth faith salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground How many poore soules are lamentably seduced while from preaching Ministers they admire a multitude of Texts of divine Scripture but are indeed the false translations and corruptions of erring men Let them therefore if they will be assured of true Scriptures fly to the alwaies visible Catholique Church against which the gates of hell can never so farre prevaile as that she shall be permitted to deceive the Christian world with false Scriptures And Luther himselfe by unfortunate experience was at length forced to confesse thus much saying If the world last longer it will be again necessary to receive the decrees of Councels and to have recourse to them by reason of divers interpretations of Scripture which now raigne On the contrary side the Translation approved by the Roman Church is commended even by our adversaries and D. Covel in particular saith that it was used in the Church one thousand three hundred yeares agoe and doubteth not to prefer that Translation before others In so much that whereas the English translations be many and among themselves disagreeing he concludeth that of all those the approved translation authorized by the Church of England is that which commeth nearest to the vulgar and is commonly called the Bishops Bible So that the truth of that translation which we use must be the rule to judge of the goodnesse of their Bibles and therefore they are obliged to maintain our Translation if it were but for their own sake 17 But doth indeed the source of their manifold uncertainties stop here No The chiefest difficulty remaines concerning the true meaning of Scripture for attaining whereof if Protestants had any certainty they could not disagree so hugely as they doe Hence M. Hooker saith We are right sure of this that Nature Scripture and Experience have all taught the world to seek for the ending of contentions by submitting it selfe unto some iudiciall and definitive sentence whereunto neither part that contendeth may under any pretence refuse to stand D. Fields words are remarkable to this purpose Seeing saith he the controversies of Religion in our times are grown in number so many and in nature so intricate that few have time and leasure fewer strength of understanding to examine them what remaineth for men desirous of satisfaction in things of such consequence but diligently to search out which among all the societies in the world is that blessed company of holy ones that houshold of Faith that Spouse of Christ and Church of the living God which is the Pillar and ground of Truth that so they may imbrace her communion follow her directions and rest in her iudgement 18 And now that the true Interpretation of Scripture ought to be received from the Church it is also proved by what we have already demonstrated that she it is who must declare what Bookes be true Scripture wherein if she be assisted by the Holy Ghost why should we not believe her to be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of them Let Protestants therefore either bring some proofe out of Scripture that the Church is guided by the Holy Ghost in discerning true Scripture and not in delivering the true sense thereof Or else give us leave to apply against
that these controversies about Scripture are not decidable by Scripture and have shewed that your deduction from it that therefore they are to be determin'd by the authority of some present Church is irrationall and inconsequent I might well forbeare to tire my selfe with an exact and punctuall examination of your premises 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which wether they be true or false is to the Question disputed wholly impertinent Yet because you shall not complaine of tergiverâ—ation I will runne over them and let nothing that is materiall and considerable passe without some stricture or animadversion 30 You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is Gods word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. Sect. 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall finde that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed that ordinarily the first introduction and probable motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it selfe is divine and sacred The Question then being by what meanes we are taught this some answere that to learne it we have no other way then tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that the first outward motive leading men to esteeme of the Scripture is the Authority of Gods Church For when we know the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary minde without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing somewhat with us before doth now much more prevaile when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it selfe hath setled may be proved a truth infallible In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to rely upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintaine the Authority of the bookes of God by arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kinde of proofes so to manifest and cleare that point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent principle such as all men acknowledge to be true By this time I hope the reader sees sufficient proofe of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelies great ostentation of exactnesse is no very certain argument of his fidelity 31 But seeing the beliefe of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be prov'd by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contain'd in Scripture 32 I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the materiall objects of our faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the meanes of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it selfe but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aimes at is the beliefe of the Gospell the covenant between God and man the Scripture he hath provided as a meanes for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last object of our faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the finall and ultimate objects of it and not the meanes and instrumentall objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covell and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33 But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. Iames. Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of Iohn The Epist. to the Heb. the Epist. of Iames of Iude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonicall 34 So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the authority of the very same bookes and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonicall or had they not If they had not it seemes there is no such great harme or danger in not having such a certainty whether some books be Canonicall or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35 You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these words In the name of the Holy Scripture we doe vnderstand those Bookes of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church you demaund what they meane by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonicall I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you inferre from hence This is to make the Church Iudge I haue told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Iudge but not the present Church much lesse the present Roman Church but the consent and testimony of the
Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet me thinks you should not denie but it may be a sufficient ground of faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudentiall Motives 36 But by this Rule the whole booke of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should thinke he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian heresies for doing that which you in this very place confesse that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partiall and a Iudge of evill thoughts 37 Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Iob and the Prophets though you make such tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any fundamentall heresie He that condemnes him for saying the booke of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemnes him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The booke of Iob may be a true History and yet as many true stories are and haue been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damne all for Heretikes that say some books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be call'd in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselues Was the Prophesie of Ieremie the lesse Canonicall for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospell and S. Marke the Scholler writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38 But leaving Luther you returne to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the new testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers books must be canoniz'd Not so For I may believe even those questioned bookes to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonicall but I cannot in reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damne any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justify or excuse such their doubting or deniall 39 You observe in the next place that our sixt Article specifying by name all the bookes of the Old Tstament shâ—ffles over these of the New with this generality All the books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we doe receive and account them Canonicall And in this you phansy to your selfe a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal â— pense For all the Bibles which since the composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England doe testify and even proclaime to the World that by CoÌ„monly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the paines to look in them and there you shall finde the bookes which the Church of England counts Apocryphall marked out and severed from the rest with this title in the begining The bookes called Apocrypha and with this close or seal in the end The end of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what bookes only shee esteemes Apocryphall I hope you will not put her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in her judgement Canonicall 40 But if by Commonly received shee meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must she receive divers books of the old Testament which she reiects 41 Certainly a very good consequence The Church of England receives the Bookes of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the bookes of the old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will doe as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us ye must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must doe so when we have no reason 42 The discourse following is but a vaine declamation No man thinks that this Controversie is to be tryed by most voices but by the Iudgement and Testimony of the ancient Fathers and Churches 43 But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Bookes that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the bookes of the new Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answere When they say of whose authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not universall yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonicall In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and authority was not so great as to prevaile against the contrary suffrages 44 But if to be commonly received passefor a good rule to know the Canon of the new Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you doe so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by Have you been train'd up in Schooles of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the bookes of the new Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule then you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The bookes of the New Testament we receive for Canonicall as they are received by the Church of England 45 You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against
things Take the alleaged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austine in this sense which is your own and they will not presse us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only foure Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholique Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon haue so determined 54 We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not belieue the Gospell unlesse the Authority of the Catholique Church did moue us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himselfe and his Apostles Neither would Zwinglius haue needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now doe that by the Catholique Church the Church of all Ages since Christ was to be understood As for the Councell of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonicall and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were onely profitable and lawfull to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the book is Canonicall where every body knowes that Apocryphall books are read as well as Canonicall But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospell but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonicall is to be so esteem'd Though in the application of it to this or that particular book they may happily erre and think that Book received as Canonicall which was only received as Profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55 But we cannot be certain in what language the Scriptures remaine uncorrupted Not so certain I grant as of that which wee can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will beare So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second book of Baptisme against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He meanes sure in matters of little moment such as concerne not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist. cleerly intimates That in his judgement the only preservatiue of the Scriptures integritie was the translating it into so many Languages and the generall and perpetuall use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kinde but the Canonicall Scripture being by this meanes guarded with universall care and diligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scripture's incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was that I hope was certain enough Yet if this does not satisfie you I say farther We are as certain hereof as your own Pope Sixtus Quintus was He in his Preface to his Bible tells us That in the pervestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more â—â—rme and certain to be relied upon then the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground wee haue to build upon as well as He had and therefore our certainty is as great and stands upon as certain ground as his did 56 This is not all I haue to say in this matter For I will adde moreover that we are as certaine in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was untill Clement the 8th set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar translation For you doe not nor cannot without extreme impudence deny that untill then there was great variety of Copies currant in divers parts of your Church and those very frequent in various lections all which Copies might possibly be false in some things but more then one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it lesse impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could untill Clement's time haue any certainty what that one true Copie and reading was if there were any one perfectly true Some indeed that had got Sixtus his Bible might after the Edition of that very likely think them selues cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholding to Clement but how fowly they were abused and deceived that thought so the Edition of Clemens differing from that of Sixtus in a great multitude of places doth sufficiently demonstrate 57 This certainty therefore in what language the Scripture remaines uncorrupted is it necessary to haue it or is it not If it be not I hope we may doe well enough without it If it be necessary what became of your Church for 1500 yeares together All which time you must confesse she had no such certainty no one man being able truly and upon good ground to say This or that Copy of the Bible is pure and perfect and uncorrupted in all things And now at this present though some of you are growne to a higher degree of Presumption in this point yet are you as farre as ever from any true and reall and rationall assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentique Translation which I suppose my selfe to haue prou'd unanswerably in divers places 58 In the sixteenth Division It is objected to Protestants in a long discourse transcrib'd out of the Protestants Apologie That their translations of the Scripture are very different and by each other mutually condemned Luthers Translation by Zwinglius and others That of the Zwinglians by Luther The Translation of Oecolampadius by the Divines of Basill that of Castalio by Beza That of Beza by Castalio That of Calvin by Carolus Molinaeus That of Geneva by M. Parks King Iames. And lastly one of our Translations by the Puritans 59 All which might haue been as justly objected against that great variety of Translations extant in the Primitive Church mâ—de use of by the Fathers and Doctors of it For which I desire not that my word but S. Austin's may be taken They which haue translated the Scriptures out of the Hebrew into Greek may be numbred but the Latine Interpreters are innumerable For whensoever any one in the first times of Christianity met with a Greek Bible and seem'd to himselfe to haue some ability in both Languages he presently ventur'd upon an Interpretation So He in his second book of Christian doctrine Cap. 11. Of all these that which was called the Italian Translation was esteemed best so we may learne from the same S. Austin in the 15. Chap. of the same book Amongst all these Interpretations saith he let the Italian be preferr'd for it keeps closer to the Letter and is perspicuous in the sense Yet so farre was the Church of that time
not so as if they did deny that some places might be translated more plainly some more properly whereof it were easy to produce innumerable examples And this he there professes to have learnt of Laines the then Generall of the Society who was a great part of that Councell present at all the Actions of it and of very great authority in it 77 To this so great authority he addes a reason of his opinion which with all indifferent men will be of a farre greater authority If the Councell saith he had purposed to approve an Edition in all respects and to make it of equall authority and credit with the Fountaines certainly they ought with exact care first to have corrected the errors of the Interpreter which certainly they did not 78 Lastly Bellarmine himselfe though he will not acknowledge any imperfection in the Vulgar Edition yet he acknowledges that the case may and does oft-times so fall out that it is impossible to discerne which is the true reading of the Vulgar Edition but only by recourse unto the Originalls and dependance upon them 79 From all which it may evidently be collected that though some of you flatter your selves with a vain imagination of the certain absolute purity and perfection of your Vulgar Edition yet the matter is not so certain and so resolved but that the best learned men amongst you are often at a stand and very doubtfull sometimes whether your Vulgar translation be true and sometimes whether this or that be your Vulgar Translatiō sometimes undoubtedly resolved that your Vulgar Translation is no true Translation nor consonant to the Originall as it was at first delivered And what thē can be alleadged but that out of your own grounds it may be inferred inforced upon you that not only in your Lay-men but your Clergy men Schollers Faith Truth and Salvation all depends upon fallible uncertain grounds And thus by ten severall retortions of this one Argument I have endeavoured to shew you how ill you have complyed with your own advise which was to take heed of urging arguments that might be return'd upon you I should now by a direct answer shew that it presseth not us at all but I have in passing done it already in the end of the second retortion of this argument and thither I referre the Reader 80 Whereas therefore you exhort them that will have assurance of true Scriptures to fly to your Church for it I desire to know if they should follow your advise how they should be assured that your Church can give them any such assurance which hath been confessedly so negligent as to suffer many whole books of Scripture to be utterly lost Again in those that remain confessedly so negligent as to suffer the Originalls of these that remain to be corrupted And lastly so carelesse of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originalls which also she pretends to be corrupted 81 But Luther himselfe by unfortunate experience was at length enforced to confesse thus much saying If the world last longer it will be again necessary to receive the Decrees of Councells by reason of divers interpretations of Scripture which now reigne 82 And what if Luther having a Pope in his belly as he was wont to say that most men had and desiring perhaps to have his own interpretations passe without examining spake such words in heat of Argument Doe you think it reasonable that we should subscribe to Luther's divinations and angry speeches will you oblige your selfe to answer for all the assertions of your private Doctors If not why doe you trouble us with what Luther saies and what Calvin saies Yet this I say not as if these words of Luther made any thing at all for your present purpose For what if he feared or pretended to feare that the infallibility of Councells being rejected some men would fall into greater errors then were impos'd upon them by the Councells Is this to confesse that there is any present visible Church upon whose bare Authority we may infallibly receive the true Scriptures and the true sense of them Let the Reader judge But in my opinion to feare a greater inconvenience may follow from the avoiding of the lesse is not to confesse that the lesse is none at all 83 For D. Covels commending your Translation what is it to the businesse in hand or how proves it the perfection of it which is here contested any more then S. Augustine's commending the Italian Translation argues the perfection of that or that there was no necessity that S. Hierome should correct it D. Covell commends your Translation and so does the Bishop of Chichester and so does D. Iames and so doe I. But I commend it for a good Translation not for a perfect Good may be good and deserve commendations and yet better may be better And though he saies that the then approved Translation of the Church of England is that which cōmeth nearest the Vulgar yet he does not say that it agrees exactly with it So that whereas you inferre that the truth of your Translation must be the Rule to judge of the goodnesse of ours this is but a vain florish For to say of our Translations That is the best which comes nearest the Vulgar and yet it is but one man that saies so is not to say it is therefore the best because it does so For this may be true by accident and yet the truth of our Translation no way depend upon the truth of yours For had that been their direction they would not only have made a Translation that should come neere to yours but such a one which should exactly agree with it and be a Translation of your Translation 84 Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confesse we are uncertaine of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods will had been we should haue understood him more certainly he would haue spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and obserue their various and dissonant interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85 But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature
That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infallibly assisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Bookes be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghosts assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot doe this without taking away their free will in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their freewill in believing and in professing their belief 97 To the place of S. Austine I answere That not the authority of the present Church much lesse of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone mov'd Saint Austine to believe the Gospell but the perpetuall Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your selfe have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is prov'd and which it selfe needs no proof and to which you have referred this very saying of S. Austine Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi c. p. 55. And in the next place which you cite out of his book De Vtil Cred. c. 14. he shewes that his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospell the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospell therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to disbelieve Manichaeus as to believe the Gospell Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Vniversall and Originall Tradition lyes against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may doe well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names in steade of Manichaeus unlesse you can shew the thing agrees to them as well as him 98 If you say that S. Austin speakes here of the authority of the Present Church abstracting from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99 I answer First that it is a vaine presumption of yours that the Catholique Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austine speake here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it its both Personall and Doctrinall succession from the Apostles His argument will be like a Buskin that will serve anylegge It will serve to keepe an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholique as well as a Catholique from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the title of Catholiques and the Church as much as the Papists now doe If then you should haue come to an ancient Goth or Vandall whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should haue mov'd him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not beleive the Gospell unlesse the authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying beleive the Gospell why should I not obey saying to me doe not beleive the Homoousians Choose what thou pleasest if thou shalt say beleive the Arrians they warne me not to give any credit to you If therefore I beleive them I cannot beleive thee If thou say doe not beleive the Arriās thou shalt not doe well to force me to the faith of the Homoousians because by the preaching of the Arrians I beleived the Gospell it selfe If you say you did well to beleive them commending the Gospell but you did not well to beleive them discommending the Homoousians Doest thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should beleive what thou wilt and not beleive what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethinke your selves what you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 100 Whereas you aske Whether Protestants doe not perfectly resemble those men to whom S. Austine spake when they will have men to believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther I demand againe whether you be well in your wits to say that Protestants would have men believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture whereas they accuse her to deliver many bookes for Scripture which are not so and doe not bid men to receive any book which she delivers for that reason because she delivers it And if you meant only Protestants will have men to believe some bookes to be Scripture which the Roman Church delivers for such may not we then aske as you doe Doe not Papists perfectly resemble these men which will have men believe the Church of England delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning the Church of Rome 101 And whereas you say S. Austine may seeme to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ Commanded any good thing I answer Vntill you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible expounder of Scriptures and judge of Controversies nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a member of the Church of England who received his baptisme education and Faith from the Ministery of this Church say just so to you as S. Austine here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose Authority I was mov'd to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief
thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Iesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Bookes of the New Testament I believed by Fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an universall and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damne all to the fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you professe it is lawfull for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulnesse and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramentall Cup the lawfulnesse and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c. so new I say in comparison of the undoubted bookes of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving Authority with wise and considerate men What madnesse is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damne all other parts of Christendome Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe in Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him at least then that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a faire way to make the faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confesse to be the word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerfull who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the sixe Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not usurpe the same authority upon the Authors of the sixe last Ages before them and so upwards untill we come to Christ himselfe Whose question'd Doctrines none of them came from the fountain of Apostolike tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streames by little and little some in one age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the shell as the Popes infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalties of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be impos'd upon Christians under the Title of Originall and Apostolike Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others somethings which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgement of those that have wisdome and experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so farre from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102 Ad. § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Iudge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Iudge and not the Scripture 103 To this I answere As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Iudge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Iudge otherwise you might make your selfe Iudge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Iudge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with sophistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to inferre in the end which indeed was more then you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Iudge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still runne upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Iudge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Iudge of Controversies that they have the authority of Fathers of warrant their manner of speaking as of Optatus 104 But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Iudge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both doe what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intelligible in things necessary to all that have
Therefore there was then an infallible Iudge Iust as if I should say Yorke is not my way from Oxford to London therefore Bristol is Or a dogge is not a horse therefore he is a man As if God had no other waies of revealing himselfe to men but only by Scripture and an infallible Church S. Chrysostome and Isidorus Pelusiota conceaved he might use other meanes And S. Paul telleth us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might be known by his workes and that they had the Law written in their hearts Either of these waies might make some faithfull men without either necessity of Scripture or Church 125 But D. Potter saies you say In the Iewish Church there was a living Iudge indowed with an absolute infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to divine Faith are And where was that infallible direction in the Iewish Church when they should have received Christ for their Messias and refused him Or perhaps this was not a case of moment D. Potter indeed might say very well not that the high Priest was infallible â—or certainly he was not but that his determination was to be of necessity obeyed though for the justice of it there was no necessity that it should be believed Besides it is one thing to say that the living judge in the Iewish Church had an infallible direction another that he was necessitated to follow this direction This is the priviledge which you challenge But it is that not this which the Doctor attributes to the Iewes As a man may truely say the wise men had an infallible direction to Christ without saying or thinking that they were constrained to follow it and could not doâ— otherwise 126 But either the Church retaines still her infallibility or it was devested of it upon the receiving of Holy Scripture which is absurd An argument me thinkes like this Either you have hornes or you have lost them but you never lost them therefore you have them still If you say you never had hornes so say I for ought appeares by your reasons the Church never had infallibility 127 But some Scriptures were received in some places and not in others therefore if Scriptures were the Iudge of Controversies some Churches had one Iudge and some another And what great inconvenience is there in that that one part of England should have one Iudge and another another especially seeing the bookes of Scripture which were received by those that received fewest had as much of the doctrine of Christianity in them as they all had which were received by any all the necessary parts of the Gospell being contained in every one of the four Gospells as I have prov'd So that they which had all the bookes of the New Testament had nothing superfluous For it was not superfluous but profitable that the same thing should be said divers times and be testified by divers witnesses And they that had but one of the four Gospells wanted nothing necessary and therefore it is vainly infer'd by you that with months and yeares as new Canonicall Scriptures grew to be published the Church altered her rule of Faith and judge of Controversies 128 Heresies you say would arise after the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures These cannot be discovered condemned avoyded unlesse the Church be infallible Therefore there must be a Church infallible But I pray tell me Why cannot Heresies be sufficiently discovered condemned avoided by them which believe Scripture to be the rule of Faith If Scripture be sufficient to Informe us what is the faith it must of necessity be also sufficient to teach us what is Heresy seeing Heresy is nothing but a manifest deviation from and an opposition to the faith That which is streight will plainly teach us what is crooked and one contrary cannot but manifest the other If any one should deny that there is a God That this God is omnipotent omniscient good just true mercifull a rewarder of them that seek him a punisher of them that obstinatly offend him that Iesus Christ is the Sonne of God and the Saviour of the World that it is he by obedience to whom men must look to be saved If any man should deny either his Birth or Passion or Resurrection or Assention or sitting at the right hand of God his having all power given him in Heaven and Earth That it is he whom God hath appointed to be judge of the quick and the dead that all men shall rise again at the last day That they which believe and repent shall be sav'd That they which doe not believe or repent shall be damned If a man should hold that either the keeping of the Mosaicall Law is necessary to Salvation or that good works are not necessary to Salvation In a word if any man should obstinatly contradict the truth of any thing plainly delivered in Scripture who does not see that every one which believes the Scripture hath a sufficient meanes to discover and condemne and avoid that Heresy without any need of an infallible guide If you say that the obscure places of Scripture contain matters of Faith I answere that it is a matter of faith to believe that the sense of them whatsoever it is which was intended by God is true for he that does not doe so calls Gods Truth into question But to believe this or that to be the true sense of them or to believe the true sense of them and to avoid the false is not necessary either to Faith or Salvation For if God would have had his meaning in these places certainly known how could it stand with his wisdome to be so wanting to his own will and end as to speak obscurely or how can it consist with his justice to require of men to know certainly the meaning of those words which he himselfe hath not revealed Suppose there were an absolute Monarch that in his own absence from one of his Kingdomes had written Lawes for the government of it some very plainly and some very ambiguously and obscurely and his Subjects should keep those that were plainly written with all exactnesse and for those that were obscure use their best diligence to find his meaning in them and obey them according to the sense of them which they conceived should this King either with justice or wisdome be offended with these Subjects if by reason of the obscurity of them they mistook the sense of them and faile of performance by reason of their errour 128 But It is more usefull fit you say for the deciding of Controversies to haue besides an infallible rule to goe by a living infallible Iudge to determine them from hence you conclude that certainly there is such a Iudge But why then may not another say that it is yet more usefull for many excellent purposes that all the Patriarchs should bee infallible then that the Pope only should Another that it would bee yet more usefull that all the
of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and privat men may erre in points not Fundamentall A pretty sophisme depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may erre he cannot be certain that he doth not erre And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentalls that even the Fundamentalls of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Iudge may possibly erre in judgement can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A travailer may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an egge to an egge or milke to milke 161 And for the selfe same reason you say we are not certain that the Church is not Iudge of Controversies But now this selfe same appears to be no reason and therefore for all this we may be certain enough that the Church is no Iudge of Controversies The ground of this sophisme is very like the former viz. that we can be certain of the falshood of no propositions but these only which are damnable errors But I pray good Sir give me your opinion of these The Snow is black the Fire is cold that M. knot is Archbishop of Toledo that the whole is not greater then a part of the whole that twise two make not foure In your opinion good Sir are these damnable Haeresies or because they are not so have we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir to consider seriously with what strange captions you have gone about to delude your King and your Country and if you be convinced they are so give glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which stands upon such deceitfull foundations 162 Besides you say among publique conclusions defended in Oxford the yeare 1633. to the Questions Whether the Church have authority to determine controversies of Faith And to interpret holy Scripture The answere to both is affirmative But what now if I should tell you that in the year 1632. among publique Conclusions defended in Doway one was That God predeterminates men to all their Actions good bad and indifferent Will you think your selfe obliged to be of this opinion If you will say so If not doe as you would be done by Again me thinkes so subtil a man as you are should easily apprehend a wide difference between Authority to doe a thing and Infallibility in doing it againe between a conditionall infallibility an absolute The former the Doctor together with the Article of the Church of England attributeth to the Church nay to particular Churches and I subscribe to his opinion that is an Authority of determining controversies of faith according to plain and evident Scripture and Vniversall Tradition and Infallibility while they proceed according to this Rule As if there should arise an Heretique that should call in Question Christs Passion and Resurrection the Church had Authority to decide this Controversy and infallible direction how to doe it and to excommunicate this man if he should persist in errour I hope you will not deny but that the Iudges have Authority to determine criminall and Civill Controversies and yet I hope you will not say that they are absolutely Infallible in their determinations Infallible while they proceed according to Law and if they doe so but not infallibly certain that they shall ever doe so But that the Church should be infallibly assisted by Gods spirit to decide rightly all emergent Controversies even such as might be held diversly of divers men Salva compage fidei and that we might be absolutely certain that the Church should never faile to decree the truth whether she used meanes or no whether she proceed according to her Rule or not or lastly that we might be absolutely certain that she would never fail to proceed according to her Rule this the defender of these conclusions said not and therefore said no more to your purpose then you have all this while that is just nothing 163 Ad § 27. To the place of S. Austin alleaged in this paragraph I Answer First that in many things you will not bee tried by S. Augustines judgement nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints soules before the day of judgement not touching the Virgin Maries freedome from actuall and originall sinne not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to hell that dye without Baptisme not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councells even generall Councells not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the halfe Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgement and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to doe so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmely and mode rately where he saies In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent â—idem mores'que vivendi 3 Wee say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholique Church of farre greater extent and therefore of farre greater credit and authority then the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5 He saies not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witnesse of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practise of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practises of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practise of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it selfe undeniable that upon this ground of beleiving all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himselfe and therefore without controversy this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as
knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to doe that which you cannot doe your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or doe you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can yee or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnatioÌ„ are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot goe then vaunt your Church for the only Watchfull Faithfull Infallible keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Primitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodnesse of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written Saint Chrysostomes counsell therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withall that we are perswaded you cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good plea to be the unwritten word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonicall Scripture to be the written word of God 47 You conclude this Parag. with a sentence of S. Austin's who saies The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor doe these things which are against Faith or good life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor ever can doe so But though the argumâ—â—â— hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à no nesse ad non posse The Church cannot doe this therefore it does it not followes with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never doe it nor can never doe it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Ianuarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remaines that the things you enquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore doe that which he findes done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why doe you not inferre from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custome that is against faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austine of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austine according to you thought approve or dissemble or doe any thing against faith or good life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely then the commandements of God himselfe This S. Austine himselfe professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I doe infinitely grieve at that many most wholsome precepts of the divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the earth with his naked foot then he that shall bury his soul in drunkennesse Of these he saies that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councells nor corroborated by the Custome of the Vniversall Church And though not against faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian liberty which made the condition of the Iewes more tolerable then that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facult as tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so farre through the indiscreet devotion of the people alwaies more prone to superstition then true piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their birth that himselfe though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnuâ—aruÌ„ vel sanctaruÌ„ vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare noâ— audeo Many of these things for fear of scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely dâ—sallow Nay the Catholique Church it selfe did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently saies after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholique Church placed between Chaffe Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the holy spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her selfe to be brought in bondage to these servile burdens Our Saviour tels the Scribes and Pharises that in vain they worshipped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandements For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of pots and cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austine complaines of as the generall fault of Christians of his time was paralell to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours words The commandements of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censur'd who in the time of his Octaves touched the earth with his naked feet then hee which drâ—wned and buried his soul in drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandements I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Phraises And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers places This is plain from these words
know any rationall discourse but out of grounds agreed upon by both parts Therfore it is not impossible but absolutely certain that the same man at the same time may believe contradictions Fiftly It is evident neither can you without extream madnesse and uncharitablenesse deny that we belieue the Bible those Books I mean which we believe Canonicall Otherwise why dispute you with us out of them as out of a common Principle Either therefore you must retract your opinion and acknowledge that the same man at the same time may believe coÌ„tradictions or else you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forc'd to confesse that no part of our Doctrine contradicts the Bible Sixtly I desire you to vindicate from contradiction these following Assertions That there should be Length and nothing long Breadth nothing broad Thicknesse and nothing thick Whitenesse nothing white Roundnesse and nothing round Weight and nothing heavy Sweetnesse and nothing sweet Moisture and nothing moist Fluidnesse and nothing flowing many Actions and no Agent Many Passions and no Patient That is that there should be a Long broad thick white round heavy sweet moist flowing active passive nothing That Bread should be turned into the substance of Christ and yet not any thing of the Bread become any thing of Christ neither the matter not the form not the Accidents of Bread be made either the matter or the Forme or the Accidents of Christ. That Bread should be turned into nothing and at the same time with the same action turn'd into Christ and yet Christ should not be nothing That the same thing at the same time should haue its just dimensions and just distance of its parts one from another and at the same time not haue it but all its parts together in one the selfe same point That the body of Christ which is much greater should be contained wholly and in its full dimensions without any alteration in that which is lesser and that not once only but as many times over as there are severall points in the Bread and Wine That the same thing at the same time should bee wholly aboue it selfe and wholly below it selfe within it selfe and without it selfe on the right hand and on the left hand and round about it selfe That the same thing at the same time should moue to and from it selfe and lye still Or that it should be carried from one place to another through the middle space and yet not move That it should be brought from heaven to earth and yet not come out of Heaven nor be at all in any of the middle space between Heaven and Earth That to be one should be to be undivided from it selfe and yet that one and the same thing should be divided from it selfe That a thing may be yet be no where That a Finite thing may be in all places at once That a Body may be in a place and haue there its dimensions colour all other qualities and yet that it is not in the power of God to make it visible and tangible there nor capable of doing or suffering any thing That there should be no certainty in our senses and yet that we should know something certainly yet know nothing but by our seÌ„ses That that which is and was long agoe should now begin to be That that is now to be made of nothing which is not nothing but something That the same thing should be before and after it selfe That it should bee truly and really in a place and yet without Locality Nay that hee which is OmnipoteÌ„t should not be able to give it Locality in this place where it is as some of you hold or if he can as others say he can that it should be possible that the same man for example You or I may at the sametime be awake at London and not awake but asleep at Rome There run or walk here not run or walk but stand still sit or lye along There study or write here doe neither but dine or sup There speak here be silent That he may in one place freez for cold in another burn with heat That he may be drunk in one place and sober in another Valiant in one place and a Coward in another A theef in one place honest in another That he may be a Papist and goe to Masse in Rome A Protestant and goe to Church in England That he may dye in Rome and liue in England or ' dying in both places may goe to Hell from Rome and to Heaven from England That the Body and Soule of Christ should cease to be where it was yet not goe to another place nor be destroyed All these and many other of the like nature are the unavoidable most of them the acknowledged consequences of your doctrine of Transubstantiation as is explained one where or other by your School-men Now I beseech you Sir to try your skill if you can compose their repugnance and make peace between them Certainly none but you shall be Catholique Moderator But if you cannot doe it and that after an intelligible manner then you must give me leave to believe that either you doe not believe Transubstantiation or else that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their understandings to the belief of contradictions 47 Lastly I pray tell me whether you have not so much Charity in store for the Bishop of Armach and D. Potter as to think that they themselves believe this saying which the one preacht and printed the other reprinted and as you say applauded If you think they doe then certainly you have done unadvisedly either in charging it with a foul contradiction or in saying it is impossible that any man should at once believe contradictions Indeed that men should not assent to contradictions and that it is unreasonable to doe so I willingly grant But to say it is impossible to be done is against every mans experience and almost as unreasonable as to doe the thing which is said to be impossible For though perhaps it may be very difficult for a man in his â—ight wits to believe a contradiction expressed in termes especially if he believe it to be a contradiction yet for men being cowed and awed by superstition to perswade themselves upon slight and triviall grounds that these or these though they seem contradictions yet indeed are not so and so to believe them or if the plain repugnance of them be veil'd and disguis'd a little with some empty unintelligible non-sense distinction or if it be not exprest but implyed not direct but by consequence so that the parties to whose faith the propositions are offerd are either innocently or perhaps affectedly ignorant of the contrariety of them for men in such cases easily to swallow and digest contradictions he that denies it possible must be a meer stranger in the world 48 Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest untruths obtruded upon us without
the foundation is strong enough to support all such unnecâ—ssary additions as you terme them And if they once weighed so heavy as to overthrow the foundation they should grow to fundamentall errors into which your selfe teach the Church cannot fall Hay and stubble say you and such unprofitable stâ—ff laid on the roofe destroies not the house whilest the main pillars are standing on the foundatioâ— And tell us I pray you the precise number of errors which cannot be tolerated I know you cannot doe it and therefore being uncertain whether or no you have cause to leave the Church you are certainly obliged not to forsake her Our blessed Saviour hath declared his will that we forgive a private offender seaventy seaven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of trespasses and why then dare you alleadge his command that you must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall What excuse can you faine to your selves who for points not necessary to salvation have been occasions causes and authors of so many mischiefes as could not but unavoidably accompany so huge a breach in kingdomes in commonwealths in private persons in publique Magistrates in body in soul in goods in life in Church in the state by Schismes by rebellions by war by famine by plague by bloudshed by all sorts of imaginable calamities upon the whole face of the earth wherein as in a map of Desolation the heavinesse of your crime appeares under which the world doth pant 24 To say for your excuse that you left not the Church but her errors doth not extenuate but aggravate your sinne For by this devise you sow seeds of endles Schismes and put into the mouth of all Separatists a ready answere how to avoid the note of Schisme from your Protestant Church of England or from any other Church whatsoever They will I say answer as you doe prompt that your Church may be forsaken if she fall into errors though they be not fundamentall and further that no Church must hope to be free from such errors which two grounds being once laid it will not be hard to infer the consequence that she may be forsaken 25 From some other words of D. Potter I likewise prove that for Errors not fundamentall the Church ought not to be forsaken There neither was saith he nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more then from Christ himselfe To depart from a particular Church and namely from the Church of Rome in some doctrines and practises there might be just and necessary cause though the Church of Rome wanted nothing necessary to salvation Marke his doctrine that there can be no iust cause to depart from the Church of Christ and yet he teacheth that the Church of Christ may erre in points not fundamentall Therefore say I we cannot forsake the Roman Church for points not fundamentall for then we might also forsake the Church of Christ which your selfe deny and I pray you consider whether you doe not plainly contradict your selfe while in the words aboue recited you say there can be no iust cause to forsake the Catholique Church and yet that there may be necessary cause to depart from the Church of Rome since you grant that the Church of Christ may erre in points not fundamentall and that the Roman Church hath erred only in such points as by and by we shall see more in particular And thus much be said to disprove their chiefest Answer that they left not the Church but her corruptions 26 Another evasion D. Potter bringeth to avoid the imputation of Schisme and it is because they still acknowledge the Church of Rome to be a Member of the body of Christ and not cut off from the hope of salvation And this saith he cleeres us from the imputation of Schisme whose property it is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of salvation the Church from which it separates 27 This is an Answere which perhaps you may get some one to approve if first you can put him out of his wits For what prodigious doctrines are these Those Protestants who believe that the Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others who believed that she had no damnable errors did very well yea were obliged to forsake her and which is more miraculous or rather monstrous they did well to forsake her formally and precisely because they iudged that she retained all meanes necessary to salvation I say because they so iudged For the very reason for which he acquitteth himselfe and condemneth those others as Schismatiques is because he holdeth that the Church which both of them forsooke is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvations whereas those other Zelots deny her to be a member of Christs body or capable of salvation wherein alone they disagree from D. Potter for in the effect of separation they agree only they doe it upon a different motive or reason were it not a strange excuse if a man would think to cloak his rebellion by alledging that he held the person against whom he rebelled to be his lawfull Soveraign And yet D. Potter thinks himselfe free from Schisme because he forsook the Church of Rome but yet so as that still he held her to be the true Church and to have all necessary meanes to Salvation But I will no further urge this most solemne foppery and doe much more willingly put all Catholiques in mind what an unspeakeable comfort it is that our Adversaries are forced to confesse that they cannot cleere themselves from Schisme otherwise then by acknowledging that they doe not nor cannot cut off from the hope of Salvation our Church Which is as much as if they should in plain termes say They must be damned unlesse we may be saved Moreover this evasion doth indeed condemne your zealous brethren of Heresy for denying the Churches perpetuity but doth not cleere your selfe from Schisme which consists in being divided from that true Church with which a man agreeth in all points of faith as you must professe your selfe to agree with the Church of Rome in all fundamentall Articles For otherwise you should cut her off from the hope of salvation and so condemne your selfe of Schisme And lastly even according to this your own definition of Schisme you cannot cleere your selfe from that crime unlesse you be content to acknowledge a manifest contradiction in your own Assertions For if you doe not cut us off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation how come you to say in another place that you judge a reconciliation with us to be damnable That to depart from the Church of Rome there might be iust and necessary canse That they that have the understanding and meanes to discover their error and neglect to use them we dare
those who goe out to be Schismatiques but not those from whom they depart That to forsake the Chaire of Peter is Schisme yea that it is Schisme to erect a Chaire which had no origen or as it were predecessouâ— before it self That to continue in a division begun by others is to be Heires of Schismatiques and lastly that to depart from the Communion of a particular Church as that of S. â—yprian was is sufficient to make a man incur the guilt of Schisme and consequently that although Protestants who deny the Pope to be supreme Head of the Church doe think by that Heresy to cleere Luther from Schisme in disobeying the Pope Yet that wâ—ll not serve to free him from Schisme as it importeth a division from the obedience or Communion of the particular Bishop Diocesse Church and Country where he lived 36 But it is not the Heresy of Protestants or any other Sectaries that can deprive S. Peter and his Successours of the authority which Christ our Lord conferred upon them over his whole militant Church which is a point confessed by learned Protestants to be of great Antiquity and for which the judgement of divers most ancient holy Fathers is reproved by them as may be seen at large in Brerely exactly citing the places of such chiefe Protestants And we must say with S. Cyprian Heresies have sprung and Schismes been bred from no other cause then for that the Priest of God is not obeyed nor one Priest and Iudge is considered to be for the time in the Church of God Which words doe plainely condemne Luther whether he will understand them as spoken of the Vniversall or of every particular Church For he withdrew himselfe both from the obedience of the Pope and of all particular Bishops and Churches And no lesse cleere is the said Optatus Milevitanus saying Thou caust not deny but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopall Chaire placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of all the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chaire Vn was to be kept by all least the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular chaire and that he should be a Schismatique and sinner who against that one single Chaire should erect another Many other Authorities of Fathers might be alleaged to this purpose which I omit my intention being not to handle particular controversies 37 Now the arguments which hitherto I have brought prove that Luther and his followers were Schismatiques without examining for as much as belongs to this point whether or no the Church can erre in any one thing great or small because it is universally true that there can be no just cause to forsake the Communion of the Visible Church of Christ according to S. Augustine saying It is not possible that any may have just cause to separate their Communion from the Communion of the whole world and call themselves the Church of Christ as if they had separated themselves from the Communion of all Nations upon just cause But since indeed the Church cannot erre in any one point of doctrine nor can approve any corruption in manners they cannot with any colour avoid the just imputation of eminent Schisme according to the verdict of the same holy Father in these words The most manifest sacriledge of Schisme is eminent when there was no cause of separation 38 Lastly I prove that Protestants cannot avoid the note of Schisme at least by reason of their mutuall separation from one another For most certain it is that there is very great difference for the outward face of a Church and profession of a different faith between the Lutherans the rigid Calvinists and the Protestants of England So that if Luther were in the right those other Protestants who invented Doctrines far different from his and divided themselues from him must be reputed Schismatiques and the like argument may proportionably be applyed to their further divisions subdivisions Which reason I yet urge more strongly out of D. Potter who affirmes that to him and to such as are convicted in conscience of the errors of the Roman Church a reconciliation is impossible and damnable And yet he teacheth that their difference from the Roman Church is not in fundamentall points Now since among Protestants there is such diversity of beliefe that one denieth what the other affirmeth they must be convicted in conscience that one part is in errour at least not fundamentall and if D. Potter will speak consequently that a reconciliation between them is impossible daÌ„nable what greater division or Schisme can there be then when one part must judge a reconciliation with the other to be impossible daÌ„nable 39 Out of all which premisses this Conclusion followes That Luther his followers were Schismatiques from the universall visible Church from the Pope Christs Vicar on earth Successour to S. Peter from the particular Diocesse in which they received Baptisme from the Countrey or Nation to which they belonged from the Bishop under whom they lived many of them from the Religious Order in which they were professed from one another And lastly from a mans selfe as much as is possible because the selfe same Protestant to day is convicted in conscience that his yesterday's Opinion was an error as D. Potter knows a man in the world who from a Puritan was turned to a moderate Protestant with whom therefore a reconciliation according to D. Potters grounds is both impossible and damnable 40 It seemes D. Potters last refuge to excuse himselfe and his Brethren from Schisme is because they proceeded according to their conscience dictating an obligation under damnation to forsake the errours maintained by the Church of Rome His words are Although we confesse the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnableâ— yet for us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those errors 41 I answer It is very strange that you judge us extreamly Vncharitable in saying Protestants cannot be saved while your selfe avouch the same of all learned Catholiques whom ignorance cannot excuse If this your pretence of conscience may serue what Schismatique in the Church what popular seditious brain in a kingdome may not alledge the dictamen of conscience to free themselves from Schisme or Sedition No man wishes them to doe any thing against their conscience but we say that they may and ought to rectifie and depose such a conscience which is easie for them to doe even according to your own affirmation that wee Catholiques want no meanes necessary to salvation Easie to doe Nay not to doe so to any man in his right wits must seem impossible For how can these two apprehensions stand together In the Roman Church I enjoy all meanes necessary to
malice If these mens conceits were true the Church might come to be wholly divided by wicked Schismes and yet after some space of time none could be accused of Schisme nor be obliged to returne to the visible Church of Christ and so there should remaine no One true visible Church Let therefore these men who pretend to honour reverence and believe the Doctrine and practise of the visible Church and to condemne their forefathers who forsooke her and say they would not have done so if they had lived in the daies of their Fathers and yet follow their example in remaining divided from her Communion consider how truly these words of our Saviour fall upon them Woe be to you because you build the Prophets sepulchers and garnish the monuments of just men and say If we had been in our Fathers daies we had not been their fellowes in the blood of the Prophets Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves that you are the sonnes of them that killed the Prophets and fill up the measure of your Fathers 46 And thus having demonstrated that Luther his Associates and all that continue in the Schisme by them begun are guilty of Schisme by departing from the visible true Church of Christ it remaineth that we examine what in particular was that Visible true Church from which they departed that so they may know to what Church in particular they ought to returne and then we shall have performed what was proposed to be handled in the fift Point 47 That the Roman Church I speak not for the present of the particular Diocesse of Rome but of all visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chaire of Peter whether that Sea were supposed to be in the City of Rome or in any other place That I say the Church of Rome in this sense was the visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed is proved by your own confession who assigne for notes of the Church the true Preaching of Gods word and due administration of Sacraments both which for the substance you cannot deny to the Roman Church since you confesse that she wanted nothing fundamentall or necessary to salvation and for that very cause you think to cleare your selfe from Schisme whose property as you say is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates Now that Luther and his fellowes were born and baptized in the Roman Church and that she was the Church out of which they departed is notoriously known and therefore you cannot cut her off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation unlesse you will acknowledge your selfe to deserve the just imputation of Schisme Neither can you deny her to be truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not fundamentall For your selfe avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may erre in such points Moreover I hope you will not so much as goe about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrines and you cannot deny but that England in those daies agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirme the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church doe by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintaine that the Roman Church is free from fundamentall and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the Hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelots amongst us haue proceeded to heavier censures their zeale may be excused but their Charity and wisdome cannot be justified 48 And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismaticall Grecians doe in most points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which point D. Potter also confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrisme Extream unction All the seaven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Almes for the dead Monachisme That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Iâ—remiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana confessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirme that the Doctrines debated between the Protestants and Rome are only the partiall and particular fancies of the Roman Church unlesse happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudiâ—s a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresy of the Grecians that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Some I suppose that Protestants dissvow them in that error as we doe 49 D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiccliffe Husse or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knowes that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Ages not in all Countries But confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselues and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held doctrines manifestly absurd and damnable heresies 50 The Waldenses began not before the year 1218 so farre were they from Vniversality of all Ages For their doctrine first they denied all Iudgements which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this meanes to make their Master Waldo a meere lay man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes nor Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a barne Fiftly that men ought not to take an oath in any case Sixtly
And presently after these two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawfull certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye judges 11 Irenaeus also saies not simply which only would doe you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justify a separation from them who will not reforme But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousnesse of a Schisme Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seene that what Irenaeus saies falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make warre such as straine at gnatts swallow Camels And these faith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervaile the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justify because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruell Tyranny both upon the bodies and soules of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmâ—te sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharpely and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies and as Cardinall Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Ierenaeus himselfe in particular admonished that for so small a cause propter tam modicam causam he should not have cut off so many Provinces from the body of the Church and lastly seeing the Ecclesiasticall story of those times mentions no other notable example of any such Schismaticall presumption but this of Victor certainly we have great inducement to imagine that Irenaeus in this place by you quoted had a speciall aime at the Bishop and Church of Rome Once this I am sure of that the place fits him and many of his successors as well as if it had been made purposely for them And this also that he which finds fault with them who separate upon small causes implies cleerely that he conceived there might be such causes as were great and sufficient And that then a Reformation was to be made notwithstanding any danger of division that might insue upon it 12 Lastly S. Denis of Alexandria saies indeed and very well that all things should be rather indured then we should consent to the division of the Church I would adde Rather then consent to the continuation of the division if it might be remedied But then I am to tell you that he saies not All things should rather be done but only All things should rather be indured or suffered wherein he speaks not of the evill of sinne but of Pain and Misery Not of tolerating either Error or Sinne in others though that may be lawfull much lesse of joyning with others for quietnesse sake which only were to your purpose in the profession of Errour and practise of sinne but of suffering any affliction nay even martyrdome in our own persons rather then consent to the division of the Church Omnia incommoda so your own Christophorson enforced by the circumstances of the place translates Dionysius his words All miseries should rather be endured then we should consent to the Churches division 13 Ad § 9. In the next Paragraph you affirme two things but prove neither unlesse a vehement Asseveration may passe for a weake proofe You tell us first that the Doctrine of the totall deficiency of the visible Church which is maintained by divers chiefe Protestants implies in it vast absurdity or rather sacrilegious Blasphemy But neither doe the Protestants alleaged by you maintain the deficiency of the Visible Church but only of the Churches visibility or of the Church as it is Visible which so acute a man as you now that you are minded of it I hope will easily distinguish Neither doe they hold that the visible Church hath failed totally and from its essence but only from its purity and that it fell into many corruptions but yet not to nothing And yet if they had held that there was not only no pure visible Church but none at all surely they had said more then they could justify but yet you doe not shew neither can I discover any such Vast absurdity or Sacrilegious Blasphemy in this Assertion You say secondly that the Reason which cast them upon this wicked Doctrine was a desperate voluntary necessity because they were resolved not to acknowledge the Roman to be the true Church and were convinced by all manner of evidence that for diverse ages before Luther there was no other But this is not to dispute but to divine and take upon you the property of God which is to know the hearts of men For why I pray might not the Reason hereof rather be because they were convinced by all manner of evidence as Scripture Reason Antiquity that all the visible Churches in the world but aboue all the Roman had degenerated from the purity of the Gospell of Christ and thereupon did conclude there was no visible Church meaning by no Church none free from corruption and conformable in all things to the doctrine of Christ. 14 Ad § 10. Neither is there any repugnance but in words only between these as you are pleased to stile them exterminating Spirits and those other whom out of Curtesy you intitle in your 10. § more moderate Protestants For these affirming the Perpetuall Visibility of the Church yet neither deny nor doubt of her being subject to manifold and grievous corruptions and those of such a nature as were they not mitigated by invincible or at least a very probable ignorance none subject to them could be saved And they on the other side denying the Churches Visibility yet plainly affirme that they conceive very good hope of the Salvation of many of their ignorant
and honest Fore-fathers Thus declaring plainly though in words they denyed the Visibility of the true Church yet their meaning was not to deny the perpetuity but the perpetuall purity and incorruption of the Visible Church 15 Ad § 11. Let us proceed therefore to your 11. Sect. where though D. Potter and other Protestants granting the Churches perpetuall Visibility make it needlesse for you to prove it yet you will needs be doing that which is needlesse But you doe it so coldly and negligently that it is very happy for you that D. Potter did grant it 16 For what if the Prophets spake more obscurely of Christ then of the Church What if they had foreseen that greater contentions would arise about the Church then Christ Which yet he that is not a meere stranger in the story of the Church must needs know to be untrue and therefore not to be fore-seene by the Prophets What if we have manifestly received the Church from the Scriptures Does it follow from any or all these things that the Church of Christ must be alwaies Visible 17 Besides what Protestant ever granted that which you presume upon so confidently that every man for all the affaires of his soule must have recourse to some congregation If some one Christian lived alone among Pagans in some country remote from Christendome shall we conceive it impossible for this man to be saved because he cannot have recourse to any congregation for the affaires of his soule Will it not be sufficient for such a ones Salvation to know the doctrine of Christ and live according to it Such fancies as these you doe very wisely to take for granted because you know well t is hard to prove them 18 Let it be as unlawfull as you please to deny and dissemble matters of faith Let them that doe so not be a Church but a damned Crew of Sycophants What is this to the Visibility of the Church May not the Church be Invisible and yet these that are of it professe their faith No say you Their profession will make them visible Very true visible in the places where and in the times when they live and to those persons unto whom they have necessary occasion to make their profession But not visible to all or any great or considerable part of the world while they live much lesse conspicuous to all Ages after them Now it is a Church thus illustriously and conspicuously visible that you require by whose splendour all men may be directed drawn to repaire to her for the affaires of their soules Neither is it the Visibility of the Church absolutely but this degree of it which the most rigid Protestants deny which is plaine enough out of the places of Napper cited by you in your 9. Part. of this chapt Where his words are God hath withdrawne his visible Church from open Assemblies to the hearts of particular godly men And this Church which had not open Assemblies he calls The latent and Invisible Church Now I hope Papists in England will be very apt to grant men may be so farre Latent and Invisible as not to professe their faith in open Assemblies nor to proclaime it to all the world yet not deny nor dissemble it nor deserve to be esteemed a damned crew of dissembling Sycophants 19 But preaching of the word and administration of the Sacraments cannot but make a Church visible and these are inseparable notes of the Church I answer they are so far inseparable that wheresoever they are there a Church is But not so but that in some cases there may bee a Church where these notes are not Againe these notes will make the Church visible But to whom certainly not to all men nor to most mē But to them only to whom the word is preached and the Sacraments are administred They make the Church visible to whom themselves are visible but not to others As where your Sacraments are administred and your doctrine preached it is visible that there is a Popish Church But this may perhaps be visible to them only who are present at these performances and to others as secret as if they had never beene performed 20 But S. Austine saith it is an impudent abominable detestable speech and so forth to say the Church hath perished I answer 1. All that S. Austine sayes is not true 2. Though this were true it were nothing to your purpose unlesse you will conceive it all one not to be not to be conspicuously visible 3. This very speech that the Church perished might be false and impudent in the Donatists and yet not so in the Protestants For there is no incongruity that what hath lived 500. yeares may perish in 1600. But S. Austin denyed not only the Actuall perishing but the possibility of it and not only of it's falling to nothing but of it's falling into corruption I answer though no such thing appeares out of those places yet I believe heare of disputation against the Donatists and a desire to over-confute them transported him so farre as to urge against them more then was necessary and perhaps more then was true But were he now revived did but confront the doctrine of after-ages with that his owne experience would enforce him to change his opinion As concerning the last speech of S. Austine I cannot but wonder very much why he should thinke it absurd for any man to say There are sheepe which he knowes not but God knowes and no lesse at you for obtruding this sentence upon us as pertinent proofe of the Churches visibility 21 Neither doe I see how the Truth of any present Church depends the Perpetuall Visibility nay nor upon the perpetuity of that which is past or future For what sense is there that it should not be in the power of God Almighty to restore to a flourishing estate a Church which oppression hath made Invisible to repaire that which is ruined to reforme that which was corrupted or to reviue that which was dead Nay what Reason is there but that by ordinary meanes this may be done so long as the Scriptures by Divine Providence are preserved in their integrity and Authority As a Common-wealth though never so farre collapsed and overrunne with disorders is yet in possibility of being reduc'd unto its Originall state so long as the Ancient Lawes and Fundamentall Constitutions are extant and remain inviolate from whence men may be directed how to make such a Reformation But S. Austine urges this uery Argument against the Donatists and therefore it is good I answer that I doubt much of the Consequence and my Reason is because you your selves acknowledge that even generall Councels and therefore much more particular Doctors though infallible in their determinations are yet in their Reasons and Arguments where upon they ground them subject to like Passions and Errours with other men 22 Lastly whereas you say That all Divines define Schisme a Division from the true Church and from
Church or her Communion should be corrupted And therefore that they are Schismatiques who leave the externall Communion of the Visible Church because she cannot be corrupted And that hereafter you will prove that corruptions in the Churches communion though the belief and profession of them be made the condition of her communion cannot justify a separation from it And therefore that they are Schismatiques who leave the Churches communion though corrupted I Answer that I have examined your proofes of the former found that a veine of Sophistry runs cleane through them And for the latter it is so plain and palpable a falsehood that I cannot but be confident whatsoever you bring in proofe of it will like the Apples of Sodom fall to Ashes upon the first touch And this is my first and main exception against your former discourse that accusing Protestants of a very great and horrible crime you have proved your accusation only with a fallacy 26 Another is that although it were granted Schisme to leave the externall Communion of the visible Church in what state or case so ever it be and that Luther his followers were Schismatiques for leaving the externall Communion of all visible Churches yet you faile exceedingly of cleering the other necessary point undertaken by you That the Roman Church was then the Visible Church For neither doe Protestants as you mistake make the true preaching of the word and due administration of the Sacraments the notes of the visible Church but only of a visible Church now these you know are very different things the former signifying the Church Catholique or the whole Church the Latter a Particular Church or a part of the Catholique And therefore suppose out of curtesy we should grant what by argument you can never evince that your Church had these notes yet would it by no meanes follow that your Church were the Visible Church but only a Visible Church not the whole Catholique but only a part of it But then besides where doth D. Potter acknowledge any such matter as you pretend Where doth he say that you had for the substance the true Preaching of the word or due Administration of the Sacraments Or where does he say that from which you collect this you wanted nothing Fundamentall or necessary to Salvation He saies indeed that though your Errors were in themselves damnable and full of great impiety yet he hopes that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their soules saved And this is all he saies and this you confesse to be all he saies in diverse places of your book which is no more then you your selfe doe and must affirme of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferre from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamentall or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should doe you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have meanes to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these meanes may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27 Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrine or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Pauls similitude the head should say to the foot either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confesse that there is no body To which the foot might answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gratious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confesse that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your selfe in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greekes Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the Visible Church For all this dicourse proceeds from a false and vain supposition and beggs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greeke c. must be alwaies exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be alwaies some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrine might be wrought upon and prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to goe to yours rather then the Greeke Church or any other which pretends to perpetuall succession as well as yours that I doe not understand Vnlesse it be for the reason which Aeneas Syluius gave why more held the Pope above a Councell then a Councell above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councells gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meere favour that there must be alwaies some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errors in doctrine and that Protestants had not alwaies such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence then this If you will leave England you must of necessity goe to Rome And yet with this wretched fallacy have I been sometimes abused my selfe and known many other poore soules seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not alwaies be held captive under such miserable delusions 28 We see then how unsuccessefull you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kinde which you build upon D. Potters own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schisme 29 But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or foure short remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only
forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and thou how dare we alleage his command that we must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall Ans. He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sinne with him so much as once He will have us doe any thing but sinne rather then offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather then sinne in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the errors of an erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should erre with the Church or if we doe not that we should against conscience professe the errors of it 71 Ad § 24. But Schismatiques from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schisme Ans. True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we doe as a murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can bee proved by Schismatiques They may object errors to other Churches as well as we doe to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appeares not To the Priests and elders of the Iewes imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Iohn answered they must obey God rather then men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes religion the pretence and cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himselfe in those very formall words which the holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be abused by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismatiques may make use of this Answer therefore all that doe make use of it are Schismatiques But moreover it is to be observed that the chiefe part of our defence that you deny your communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72 But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schismes and therefore it must not be forsaken Ans. We must not doe evill to avoid evill neither are all courses presently lawfull by which inconveniences may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chiefe Mufty of the Turkes it is apparent there would be no divisions yet unity is not to be purchased at so deare a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen then unanimous concord in damned errors As it is better for men to goe to heaven by diverse waies or rather by divers paths of the same way then in the same path to goe on peaceably to hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas 73 But there can be no iust cause to forsake the Church so the Doctor grants who notwithstanding teacheth that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall therefore neither is the Roman Church to be forsaken for such errors Ans. There can be no just cause to forsake the Church absolutely and simply in all things that is to cease being a member of the Church This I grant if it will doe you any service But that there can be no just cause to forsake the Church in some things or to speak more properly to forsake some opinions and practices which some true Church retaines and defends this I deny and you mistake the Doctor if you think he affirmes it 74 Ad § 26. 27. What prodigious doctrines say you are these Those Protestants who belieue that your Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others c. Prodigious doctrines indeed But who I pray are they that teach them Where does D. Potter accuse those Protestants of damnable Schisme who left your Church because they hold it erroneous in necessary points What Protestant is there that holds not that you taught things contrary to the plaine precepts of Christ both Ceremoniall in mutilating the Communion and Morall in points of superstition Idolatry and most bloody tyranny which is without question to erre in necessary matters Neither does D. Potter accuse any man of Schisme for holding so if he should he should call himselfe a Schismatique Only he saies such if there be any such as affirm that ignorant soules among you who had no means to know the truth cannot possibly be saved that their wisdome and charity cannot be justified Now you your selfe haue plainly affirmed That ignorant Protestants dying with contrition may bee saved and yet would be unwilling to be thought to say that Protestants erre in no points necessary to salvation For that may be in it selfe and in ordinary course where there are meanes of knowledge necessary which to a man invincibly ignorant will proue not necessary Again where doth D. Potter suppose as you make him that there were other Protestants who believed that your Church had no errours Or where does hee say they did well to forsake her upon this ridiculous reason because they judged that she retained all means necessary to salvation Doe you think us so stupid as that wee cannot distinguish between that which D. Potter sayes and that which you make him say He vindicates Protestants from Schisme two waies The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismatiques never haue because they that haue it are no Schismatiques For schisme is alwaies a causelesse separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismatiques is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motiue to it And whereas he saies though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the body of Christ and therefore are not Schismatiques You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we iudged you a member of the body of Christ. Iust as if a brother should leaue his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say
not approved there but reprehended and confuted or because being of impious conversation they are impatient of their Churches censure I would know I say whether all or any of these may with any face or without extreme impudency put in this plea of Protestants and pretend with as much likelihood as they that they did not separate from others but only reforme themselves But suppose they were so impudent as to say so in their own defence falsely doth it follow by any good Logick that therefore this Apology is not to be imployed by Protestants who may say so truly We make say they no Schisme from you but only a reformation of our selves This you reply is no good justification because it may be pretended by any Schismatique Very true any Schismatique that can speak may say the same words as any Rebell that makes conscience the cloake of his impious disobedience may say with S. Peter and S. Iohn we must obey God rather then men But then the question is whether any Schismatique may say so truly And to this question you say just nothing but conclude because this defence may be abused by some it must be used by none As if you should haue said S. Peter and S. Iohn did ill to make such an answer as they made because impious Hypocrites might make use of the same to palliate their disobedience and Rebellion against the lawfull commands of lawfull Authority 81 But seeing their pretended Reformation consisted in forsaking the Churches corruptions their Reformation of themselves and their dividivision from you falls out to be one and the same thing Iust as if two men having been a long while companions in drunkenesse one of them should turne sober this Reformation of himselfe and disertion of his companion in this ill custome would be one and the same thing and yet there is no necessity that he should leave his love to him at all or his society in other things So Protestants forsaking their own former corruptions which were common to them with you could not choose but withall forsake you in the practice of these corruptions yet this they might and would have done without breach of Charity towards you and without a renunciation of your company in any act of piety and devotion confessedly lawfull And therefore though both these were by accident joyned together yet this hinders not but that the end they aimed at was not a separation from you but a reformation of themselves 82 Neither doth their disagreement in the particulars of the Reformation which yet when you measure it without partiality you will find to be farre short of infinite nor their symbolizing in the generall of forsaking your corruptions prove any thing to the contrary or any way advantage your designe or make for your purpose For it is not any signe at all much lesse an evident signe that they had no setled designe but only to forsake the Church of Rome for nothing but malice can deny that their intent at least was to reduce Religion to that originall purity from which it was fallen The declination from which some conceiving to have begunne though secretly in the Apostles times the mystery of iniquity being then in worke and after their departure to have shewed it selfe more openly others again believing that the Church continued pure for some Ages after the Apostles then declined And consequently some aiming at an exact conformity with the Apostolique times Others thinking they should doe God and men good service could they reduce the Church to the condicion of the fourth fifth ages Some taking their direction in this work of Reformation only from Scripture others from the writings of Fathers and the Decrees of Councells of the first five Ages certainly it is no great marveile that there was as you say disagreement between them in the particulars of their Reformation nay morally speaking it was impossible it should be otherwise Yet let me tell you the difference between them especially in comparison of your Church and Religion is not the difference between good and bad but between good and better And they did best that followed Scripture interpreted by Catholique written Tradition which rule the reformers of the Church of England proposed to themselves to follow 83 Ad § 30. 31. 32. To this effect D. Potter p. 81. 82. of his book speaks thus If a Monastery should reforme it selfe and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not In this case could it be charged with Schisme from others or with Apostacy from its rule and order So in a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from it could they be therefore said to separate from the society He presumes they could not and from hence concludes that neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schisme that is separating from the Church and making themselves no members of it if all they did was as indeed it was to reforme themselves Which cases I believe any understanding man will plainly see to have in them an exact parity of Reason and that therefore the Argument drawn from them is pressing and un-answerable And it may well be suspected that you were partly of this mind otherwise you would not have so presum'd upon the simplicity of your Reader as pretending to answer it to put another of your own making in place of it and then to answer that 84 This you doe § 31. 32. of this Chapter in these words I was very glad to find you in a Monastery c. Where I beseech the Reader to observe these things to detect the cunning of your tergiversation First That you have no Reason to say That you found D. Potter in a Monastery and as little that you find him inventing waies how to forsake his vocation and to maintaine the lawfulnesse of Schisme from the Church and Apostacy from a Religious Order Certainly the innocent case put by the Doctor of a Monastery reforming it selfe hath not deserved such grievous accusations Vnlesse Reformation with you be all one with Apostacy and to forsake sinne and disorder be to forsake ones vocation And surely if it be so your vocations are not very lawfull and your Religious orders not very religious Secondly that you quite pervert and change D. Potters cases and in stead of the case of a whole Monastery reforming it selfe when other Monasteries of their Order would not and of some men freeing themselves from the common disease of their society when others would not you substitute two others which you thinke you can better deale with of some particular Monkes upon pretence of the neglect of lesser monasticall observances going out of their Monastery which Monastery yet did confessedly observe their substantiall Vowes and all Principall Statutes And of a diseased Person quitting the company of those that were infected with the same disease though in their company there was no danger from his
communicating with the Bishop of Rome to communicate with whom was ever taken by the Ancient Fathers as an assured signe of being a true Catholique They had also as S. Augustine 〈◊〉 a pretended Church in the house and territory of a Spanish Lady called Lucilla who went flying out of the Catholique Church because she had been justly checked by Caecilianus And the same Saint speaking of the conference he had with Fortunius the Donatist saithâ— Here did he first attempt to affirme that his Communion was spread over the whole Earth c. but because the thing was evidently false they got out of this discourse by confusion of language whereby neverthelesse they sufficiently declared that they did not hold that the true Church ought necessarily to be confined to one place but only by meere necessity were forced to yield that it was so in fact because their Sect which they held to be the only true Church was not spread over the world In which point Fortunius and the rest were more modest then he who should affirme that Luther's reformation in the very beginning was spread over the whole Earth being at that time by many degrees not so farre diffused as the Sect of the Douâ—tists I have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with Donatists by remembring that the Sect of these men was begun and promoted by the passion of Lucilla and who is ignorant what influence two women the Mother and Daughter ministred to Protestancy in England Nor will I stand to observe their very likenes of phrase with the Donatists who called the Chaire of Rome the Chaire of pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot which is D. Potter's owne phrase wherein he is lesse excusable then they because he maintaineth her to be a true Church of Christ and therefore let him duely ponder these words of S. Augustine against the Dâ—â—atists If I persecute him iustly who detracts from his Neighbour why should I not persecute him who detracts from the Church of Christ and saith this is not she but this is an Harlot And least of all will I consider whether you may not be well compared to one Ticonius a Donatist who wrote against Pâ—rmenianus likewise a Donatist who blasphemed that the Church of Christ had perished as you doe even in this your Book writ against some of your Protestant Brethren or as you call them Zeloâ—s among you who hold the very same or rather a worse Heresie and yet remained among them even after Parmenianus had excommunicated him as those your Zealous Brethren would proceed against you if it were in their power and yet like Ticonius you remain in their Communion and come not into that Church which is hath been and shall ever be universall For which very cause S. Augustin complaines of Ticonius that although he wrote against the Donatists yet he was of an hart so extreamly absurd as not to forsake them altogether And speaking of the same thing in another place he observes that although Tiâ—onius did manifestly confute them who affirmed that the Church had perished yet he saw not saith this holy Father that which in good consequence he should have seen that those Christians of Africa belonged to the Church spread over the whole world who remained vnited not with them who were divided from the communion and vnity of the same world but with such as did communicate with the whole world But Parmenianus and the rest of the Donatists saw that consequence and resolved rather to settle their mind in obstinacy against the most manifest truth which Ticoâ—us maintained then by yeelding thereto to be overcome by those Churches in Africa which enioyed the Communion of that vnity which Ticonius defended from which they had divided themselves How fitly these words agree to Catholiques in England in respect of the Protestants I desire the Reader to consider But thesâ— and the like resemblances of Protestants to the Donatists I willingly let passe and only vrge the main point That since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was because so forsooth they will needs have it in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirme heretically with the Donatists that the true and unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O bâ—asphemy◠〈◊〉 Harlot Moreover the same heresy followes out of the doctrine of D. Potter and other Protestants that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall because we have shewed that every errour against any one revealed truth is Heresy and damnable whether the matter bee otherwise of it selfe great or small And how can the Church more truely be said to perish then when she is permitted to maintaine a damnable Heresy Besides we will hereafter prove that by any act of Heresy all divine faith is lost and to imagine a true Church of faithfull persons without any faith is as much as to fancy a living man without life It is therefore cleere that Donatist-like they hold that the Church of Christ perished yea they are worse then the Donatists who saâ—d that the Church remained at least in Africa whereas Protestants must of necessity be forced to grant that for along space before Luther she was no where at all But let us goe forward to other reasons 18 The holy Scripture and Ancient Fathers doe assigne Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie according to that of S. Iohâ— They went out from us And Some who went out from us And Out of you shall arise men speaking perverse things And accordingly Vincentius Lyrinensis saith Who ever began heresies who did not first separate himself from the Vniversality Antiquity and Consent of the Catholique Church But it is manifest that when Luther appeared there was no visible Church distinct from the Roman out of which she could depart as it is likewise well knowne that Luther and his followers departed out of her Therefore she is no way lyable to this Mark of Heresie but Protestants cannot possibly avoid it To this purpose S. Prosper hath these pithy words A Christian communicating with the universall Church is a Catholique and he who is divided from her is an Heretique and Antichrist But Luther in his first Reformation could not communicate with the visible Catholique Church of those times because he began his Reformation by opposing the supposed Errors of the then visible Church we must therefore say with S. Prosper that he was an Heretique c. Which like-likewise is no lesse cleerely proved out of S. Cypriâ—n saying Not we g departed from them but they from us and since Heresies and Schismes are bred afterwards while they make to themselves divers Conventicles they have forsakeâ— the head and origen of Truth 19 And that we might not remain doubtfull what separation it is which is the marke of Heresy the ancient Fathers tell us more in particular that it
will let it passe and desire you to give me some peece or shadow of reason why I may not doe all this without a perpetuall Succession of Bishops and Pastours that have done so before me You may judge as uncharitably and speak as maliciously of me as your blind zeale to your Superstition shall direct you but certainly I know and with all your Sophistry you cannot make me doubt of what I know that I doe beleeve the Gospell of Christ as it is delivered in the undoubted books of Canonicall Scripture as verily as that it is now day that I see the light that I am now writing and I beleeve it upon this Motive because I conceive it sufficiently abundantly superabundantly proved to be divine Revelation And yet in this I doe not depend upon any Succession of men that have alwayes beleeved it without any mixture of Errour nay I am fully perswaded there hath been no such Succession aud yet doe not find my self any way weakned in my faith by the want of it but so fully assured of the truth of it that not only though your divels at Lowden doe tricks against it but though an Angell from heaven should gainsay it or any part of it I perswade my self that I should not be moved This I say and this I am sure is true and if you will be so hyperscepticall as to perswade me that I am not sure that I doe beleeve all this I desire you to tell me how are you sure that you beleeve the Church of Rome For if a man may perswade himself he doth beleeve what he doth not beleeve then may you think you beleeve the Church of Rome and yet not beleeve it But if no man can erre concerning what he beleeves then you must give me leave to assure my selfe that I doe beleeve and consequently that any man may beleeve the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any Succession that hath beleeved it alwayes And as from your definition of faith so from your definition of Heresy this phancy may be refuted For questionlesse no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary Errour therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetuall Succession of Beleevers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in your power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides what is more certain then that he may make a streight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that beleeves the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently beleeve aright without much regarding what other men either will doe or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his words beleeved he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other meanes naturall or supernaturall it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to bee his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no errour against it certainly there is no more necessity then that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sinne against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgresse it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Barre doe find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they doe ignorantly it being in their power to suppresse or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroneous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alleaged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetuall Succession of men orthodoxe in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Hereticall 39 When therefore you have produced some proofe of this which was your Major in your former Syllogisme That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresy you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelible Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more then a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will marke him not to have taken it if hee has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Lay-man by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some make upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiasticall And if by Ecclesiasticall only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to loose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to loose it those that deprived him of it had power to take it from him Or if not whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it untill good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present government established be as unlawfull to goe about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore wee cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schisme a man may not withdraw obediēce from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawfull things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Iudge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Traian gave
Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I doe not understand by your Religion the doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other privat man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Iesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or professe to agree the Doctrine of the Councell of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I doe not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechisme of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherin they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the beliefe of it of others without most high and most Schismaticall presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe hope impartiall search of the true way to eternall happinesse doe professe plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councells against Councells some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of another age Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it selfe from the fountain but may be plainly prov'd either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ or that in such an age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will professe according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly loose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this book and require whether I believe it or no and seeme it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with hand and heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger then this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgement from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the lesse for differing in opinion from me And what measure I meat to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man then this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57 This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily perswaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely thē if I had guided my selfe according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secur'd by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to finde the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto mee And then all necessary truth being as I have prov'd plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his faith how is it possible he should faile of Salvation 58 Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been ancient The Scripture is more ancient Is your Church a meanes to keep men at vnity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and wil obey it in unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church universall for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more universall For all the Christians in the world those I mean that in truth deserve this name doe now and alwaies have believed the Scripture to be the word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God all Christians besides you deny it 59 Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confesse that your selves are surer of the truth of the Scripture then of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proofe then of the thing proved otherwise it is no proofe 60 Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61 Fiftly to follow the Scripture I have Gods expresse warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no cōmand at all much lesse an expresse cōmand Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to doe so in these words call no man Master on earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by faith Bee not high minded but feare The spirit of truth The world cannot receive 62 Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been reveal'd reason could never have discover'd but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not
Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himselfe though alone without a Councell Others in a Councell though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Councell and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Vniversall Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetuall Succession of the Church of all ages of which divided Company it is very evident and undeniable that every former may be and are obliged to hold many things defin'd and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to doe nay cannot doe so upon any firme and sure and infallible foundation THE CONCLVSION ANd thus by Gods assistance and the advantage of a good cause I am at length through a passage rather tireing then difficult arriv'd at the end of my undertaken voyage and have as I suppose made appear to all dis-interessed and unprejudicate readers what in the begining I undertook that a vein of Sophistry and Calumny runs clean through this first part of your book wherein though I never thought of the directions you have been pleas'd to give mee in your Pamphlet entitled a Direction to N. N. yet upon consideration of my answer I finde that I have proceeded as if I had had it alwaies before my eyes and steer'd my course by it as by a card and compasse For first I have not proceeded by a meere destructive way as you call it nor objected such difficulties against your Religion as upon examination tend to the overthrow of all Religion but have shewed that the truth of Christianity is cleerely independent upon the truth of Popery and that on the other side the arguments you urge and the courses you take for the maintenance of your Religion doe manifestly tend if they be closely and consequently followed to the destruction of all religion and lead men by the hand to Atheisme and impiety whereof I have given you ocular demonstrations in divers places of my book but especially in my answer to your direction to N. N. Neither can I discover any repugnance between any one part of my answer and any other though I have used many more judicious and more searching eyes then mine owne to make if it were possible such a discovery and therefore am in good hope that though the musicke I have made be but dull and flat and even downright plain-song yet your curious and criticall eares shall discover no discord in it but on the other side I have charg'd you frequently and very justly with manifest contradiction and retractation of your own assertions and not seldome of the main grounds you build upon and the principall conclusions which you endeavour to maintain which I conceive my selfe to have made apparent even to the â—ye c. 2. § 5. c. 3. § 88. c. 4. § .14 24. c. 5. § 93. c. 6. § 6. 7. 12. 17. c. 7. § 29. and in many other parts of my answer And though I did never pretend to defend D. Potter absolutely and in all things but only so farre as he defends truth neither did D. Potter desire me nor any law of God or man oblige me to defend him any farther yet I doe not finde that I have cause to differ from him in any matter of moment particularly not concerning the infallibility of Gods Church which I grant with him to be infallible in fundamentalls because if it should erre in fundamentalls it were not the Church Nor concerning the supernaturality of Faith which I know believe as well as you to be the gift of God and that flesh blood reveal'd it not unto us but our Father which is in Heaven But now if it were demanded what defence you can make for deserting Ch. Mistaken in the main question disputed between him and D. Potter Whether Protestancy without a particular repentance and dereliction of it destroy Salvation whereof I have convinc'd you I believe your answer would be much like that which Vlysses makes in the Meâ—amorphosis for his running away from his friend Nestor that is none at all For Opposing the Articles of the Church of England the Approbation I presume cleeres my book from this imputation And whereas you give me a Caution that my grounds destroy not the belief of diverse Doctrines which all good Christians believe yea and of all verities that cannot be prov'd by naturall reason I professe syncerely that I doe not know nor believe that any ground laid by me in my whole Book is any way inconsistent with any one such Doctrine or with any verity revealed in the word of God though neuer so improbable or incomprehensible to Naturall Reason and if I thought there were I would deale with it as those primitive converts dealt with their curious Books in the Acts of the Apostles For the Ep. of S. Iames and those other Books which were anciently controverted and are now received by the Church of England as Canonicall I am so farre from relying upon any Principles which must to my apprehension bring with them the deniall of the authority of them that I my selfe believe them all to be Canonicall For the overthrowing the Infallibility of all Scripture my Book is so innocent of it that the Infallibility of Scripture is the chiefest of all my grounds And lastly for Arguments tending to prove an impossibility of all Divine Supernaturall Infallible Faith and Religion I assure my self that if you were ten times more a spider then you are you could suck no poyson from them My heart I am sure is innocent of any such intention and the searcher of all hearts knowes that I had no other end in writing this Book but to confirm to the uttermost of my ability the truth of the Divine and Infallible Religion of our dearest Lord and Saviour Christ Iesus which I am ready to seale and confirm not with my arguments only but my bloud Now these are directions which you have been pleas'd to give me whether out of a fear that I might otherwise deviate from them or out of a desire to make others think so But howsoever I have not to my understanding swarved from them in any thing which puts me in good hope that my Answer to this first Part of your Book will give even to you your self indifferent good satisfaction I have also provided though this were more then I undertook a just and punctuall examination and refutation of your second Part But if you will give your consent am resolv'd to suppresse it and that for divers sufficient and reasonable considerations First because the discussion of the Controversies entreated of in the first Part if we shall think fit to proceed in it as I for my part shall so long as I have truth to reply will I conceive be sufficient employment for us though wee cast off the burden of those many lesser dispuâ—es which remain behind in the Second And perhaps
p. 122. Ninthly a very great part of his Chapter touching the dissensions of the Roman Church which he shewes against the pretences of Charity Mistaken to bee no lesse then ours for the importance of the matter and the pursuite of them to bee exceedingly uncharitable S. 6. p. 188. 189. 190. 191. 193. 194. 195. 196. 197. Tenthly his clear refutation and just reprehension of the Doctrine of implicite Faith as it is deliver'd by the Doctors of your Church which he proves very consonant to the Doctrine of Heretiques and Infidels but evidently repugnant to the word of God Ibid. p. 201. 202. 203. 204. 205. Lastly his discourse wherein hee shewes that it is unlawfull for the Church of after Ages to adde any thing to the Faith of the Apostles And many of his Arguments whereby hee proves that in the judgment of the Ancient Church the Apostles Creed was esteem'd a sufficient summary of the necessary Points of simple belief and a great number of great authorities to justifie the Doctrine of the Church of England touching the Canon of Scripture especially the Old Testament S. 7. p. 221 223. 228. 229. All these parts of Doctor Potter's book for reasons best known to your self you have dealt with as the Priest and Levite in the Gospell did with the wounded Samaritan that is only look't upon them and pass'd by But now at least when you are admonish't of it that my Reply to your second part if you desire it may be perfect I would entreat you to take them into your consideration and to make some shew of saying something to them least otherwise the world should interpret your obstinate silence a plaine confession that you can say nothing FINIS GOod reader through the Authors necessary absence for some weekes while this Book was printing and by reason of an uncorrected Copy sent to the Presse some errors have escap'd notwithstanding the Printers sollicitous and extraordinary care and the Correctors most assiduous diligence which I would intreat thee to correct according to this following direction Pag. Lin. Err. Corr. 6. 1. To the first and second Adde § 21. Vlt. To the ninth to the ninteenth To the ninteenth To the ninth 64. 21. Principall prudentiall 67. 29. Canoniz'd discanoniz'd 73. In marg posuit potuit 108. 21. ouâ— one 134. 9. In for 136. 9. some some thing 146. 6. a truth truths 150. 19. she there 157. 13. vowed avowed 158. Peâ—â—lt best least 168. 11 causa pro non causâ— non causa pro causa 176. 3. Atheists Antithâ—sis ib. 11. dele with  180. Antepen government communion 193. 19. that the. 198. 33. continue the immortall the 218. 44. profession pâ—â—fection 220. Post 53. scribd Ad § 19. Iâ— 11. Faire Faâ—ce Ib. 33. instruct mistrust 221. 38. which is which is the Church 225. 27. nay now 293. 43. so farre from farre from so 351. 11. exception exposition 361. Vlt. Canons Canon 372. 17. Foundation Fundation of 393. 32. dele whether  402 44. of themselves in the issue Survey of Religion Init. a See this acknowledg'd by Bellar de Script Ecclesâ—in Philastriâ— by Petavius Animad in Epiph de inscrip operis By S. Austin Lib. de Haeres Haer. 80 A generall consideration of D. Potters Answere Concerning my Reply Rules to be observed if D. Potter intend a Rejoynder a Mat. 5. 19. * I mean the Divines of Doway whose profession we have in your Belgick Expurgatorius p. 12. in censura Bertrami in these words Seeing in other ancient Catholiques we tolerate extenuate excuse very many errors and devising some shift often deny theÌ„ and put upon them a convenient sense when they are objected to us in disputations and conflicts with our adversaries we see no reason why Bertram may not deserve the same equity In the place above quoted This great diversity of opinions among you touching this matter if any maÌ„ doubt of it let him read Franciscus Picus Mirandula in l. Theorem in Exposit. Theor quarti and T h. Waldensis Tom. 3. De Sacramentalibus doct 3. fol. 5. andhee shall bee fully satisfied that I haue done you no injury Quiâ— tulerit Gracchum c. a Pag. 11. b Ibid. c Pag. 4. Edit 1. d Pag. 20. e Pag. 81. g Sleidan l. 6. fol. 84. h See pag. 39. i Art 28. k Art 31. l S. Greg. Hom. 7. in Ezec. a Pag. 131. b In his first book of Eccles Policy Sect. 1 â— p. 68. c Ibid. lib. 2. Sect. 4. p. 102. d l. 3. Sect. 8. pag. 1. 146. et alibi e Advers Stapl. l. 2. c. 6. Pag. 270. Pag. 357. f Adversus Stapl. l. 2. c. 4. pag. 300. g lib. de cap. Babyl tom 2. Wittemb f. 88. h In his answer to a couÌ„terfeit Catholique pag. 5. i Epist. cont Anabap. ad duos Parochos tom 2. Germ. Wittemb k Praefat. in epist. lac in edit Ieâ—ensi l In Euchirid pag. 63. m In examin Conc. Trid. part 1. pag. 55. n Ibid. o Apud Euseb l. 4. hist. c. 26. p In Synop. q ln carm de genuinis Scripturis r lib. de servo arbitrio cont Etas tom 2. Witt. fol. 471. s In latinis sermonibus convivialibus Francof in 8. impr Anno 1571. t In Germanicis colloq Lutheri ab Aurifabro editis Francosurt tit de libris veteris novi Test. fol. 379. u Ib. tit de Patriarchis Prophet fol. 282. w Tit. de lib. Veâ— Nov. Test. x Fol. 380. y Pag. 141. z Heb. v. 1 a Pag. 141 b Cont. Adimantn c. 17. c l. 2. haeretic fab d lib. 6. cap. 10. e lib. 6. cap. 11. f Dist. Can. Sancta Româ—na h In his defence art 4. Pag. 31. i Pag. 234. k In Synopsi l Can. 47. m Cont. â—p Fundam c. 5. n Tom. 1. fol. 135. o Instit. c. 6. §. 11. p Instit c. 7. §. 12. q lib. de sancta Scriptura p. 52. r Tast. 1. Sect. 10. subd 4 joyned with tract 2. cap. 2. Sect. 10. subd 2. s Lib. cont Zwingl deverit corp Christiin Euchar t In his answere unto M. Iohn Burges pag. 94. u Ibid. w In his Preface to his Bookes of Ecclesiastâ—call Pollicy Sect. 6. 26. x In his treatise of the Church In his Epistle dedicatory to the L. Archbishop y Cont. ep Fund cap. 5. z Lib. de util â—â—e cap. 14. a Tâ—m â— Wittemberg fol. 375. b In lib. de principiis Christian. dogm lib 6â— 13. c De Sacra Scriptura pag. 529. d In his true differâ—nce part 2. e Tract 2. cap 1. Sect. 1. f Lib. 32. cont Faust. g Pag. 247 h De test anim cap. 5. Pag. 24. k Heb. 13. l Cant. 2. m 1. Cor. 10. Ephes. 4. n Mat. 12. o Ioan. c. 10. p Lib. 5. c. 4. q In his defence of M. Hookers books art 4. p. â—1 r De unit Eccles c. 22. * Some answer so but he doth not a The first outward motive not the last