Readers before he hath brought any thing able to satisfy their Understandings 6. Yet though his Method have no particularity in it as to its quoting part who knows but it may be very particular as to its Rational part that is full of Proofs which conclude evidently or Demonstrations But I am so far from feeling the force of any one such Proof in his whole Book that I cannot discern its very Existence or even any Attempt of that kind and I dare affirm my Ld. of Downs never meant it or dream't of it If he have any such I request his Lp. would in his Reply single them out from all the Pious and Inconclusive Talk which swell his Book and I promise them very heartily to lend them a due and respectful Confideration But I am sure he will neither pretend he has any nor attempt the having any if he but reflect that a Demonstration is a Proof which has in it a virtue of obliging the Understanding to Assent and that it obtains this virtue by building on Intrinsecal Mediums that is on Proper Causes or Effects of which 't is impossible the one should be without the other This clearing Method onely the Champions of Truth dare take and the Defenders of Errour must avoid under penalty of having their Cause quite ruin'd and crush't to pieces And this severe Method of finding Truth relying on the Goodness of my Cause I fear not to take and stick to in Sure-Footing as appears there by my Transition which sufficiently shows the Particularity of my Method I expect now my Ld. of Downs would show me the particularity of his or renounce all right and Title to Dissuade 7. I have been something longer about laying open the Necessity of a Proper Method to dissuade ere one can in reason hope to perform that Effect because I see plainly that in the pursuit of Truth Method is in a manner ALL and that 't is impossible any Controversy should hover long in debate if a right Method of concluding evidently were carefully taken and faithfully held to I have told my Ld. of Downs where he may see mine and I desire him earnestly as he loves Truth either to admit it as Conclusive and follow it or show it Inconclusive and propose us a better to begin and proceed with Evidently And that I may more efficaciously endeavour to bring him nay provoke him as far as I may with Civility to a Method particular and proper to dissuade I declare here before all the world that I know his Cause to be so unable to bear it and hope himself is so prudent that he will never either venture to allow our Method competent to conclude evidently nor yet go about to establish a better of his own Fourth Way 8. THe fourth Way of disanulling my Lp's whole Endeavours is to speak ad hominem and challenge him thus Your Grounds allow neither Fathers to be Infallible in any Testimony you produce from them to dissuade with nor yet your self in interpreting Scripture nor I conceive will you say that you see with Infallible Certainty any Proposition you go about to deduce by Reason if there be any such in your Dissuasive to be necessarily consequent from any First or Self-evident Principle therefore You are Certain of nothing you alledge in your whole Book If then His Lordship would please to speak out candidly he ought to say I know not Certainly that any thing I say against your Religion is true yet notwithstanding I would fain dissuade you from holding the Faith of your Forefathers and to relinquish a Religion you judge unalterable and hope to be sav'd by holding it Which were it profest and deliver'd ingenuously as it lies at the very bottome of his heart his Lp's Dissuasive would be a pleasant piece and lose all power to move any Child of common Sence nay the vulgar Reason of the wild Irish would be too hard for it Now that this ought in due candour to be profest in case neither the Fathers nor Himself be Infallible in any saying or Proof of theirs is thus Evidene't For since to be Infallible in None hîc nunc taking in the whole Complexion of assisting Circumstances is the same as to be hîc nunc Fallible in All or Each and if they be Fallible or may be deceived in Each they can be Sure of None it follows that who professes the Fathers Himself though using all the means he can to secure him from Errour Fallible in Each must if he will speak out like an honest man confess he is Sure of None Let then my Ld. of Downs either vouch Infallible Certainty in himself reasoning or Interpreting or in the Authorities he cites I mean Infallible considering their endeavours in complexion with all the means on foot in the world to preserve them so or else confess that notwithstanding all means us'd by them they are in each Saying and Proof Fallible and so himself sure of never a Motive he brings to dissuade with Now to see so Eminent a Writer and chosen out on purpose as he professes by the whole Church of Ireland go about to combat a settled Persuasion held sacred unalterable descending from Christ by Attestation of Forefathers the Way to Bliss c. and bring no better Arguments to do it but such as are were he put to declare it and would speak out confessedly Uncertain is so far from being a competent Dissuasive from Catholick Faith that 't is when laid open which is here perform'd as good a Persuasive for the Generality of Catholicks to hold stedfastly to it as man's Wit can invent and far better to the weaker sort of Speculaters than to demonstrate the Infallibility of the Ground of Faith Such advantage Catholick Faith gains by the Opposition from her Adversaries if they be rightly handled and their Discourses brought to Grounds Fifth Way 9. THe Fifth Way is built on the fourth or indeed on the Protestants voluntary Concession For they granting they have no Demonstration for the Ground of their Faith must say they have onely Probability and consequently that Faith quoad nos is Uncertain or to use their own Expression that Faith in us is an Assent cui non subest dubium of which we have no doubt yet cui potest subesse falsum or possible to be false which amounts to this that Faith at large is but highly probable much lesse their Faith as contradistinguisht from ours Probabilities then being of such a Nature that they do not absolutely weigh down the scale of our Judgment I mean while they are seen to be but Probabilities as is my Ld's case it follows that if there be Probabilities for the other side the way to dissuade from It is to put all those probable reasons in the opposit ballance and then by comparing them show they have no considerable weight counterpos'd to those he brings for his Tenet Now that there is no Probability for our side is very hard
so qualify'd as is apt to convince to answer it and not at all by Protestant Grounds which yield them all Fallible yet I have that regard for any thing that tends though remotely to Solidity that I will even remit something of my own advantage to give it a respectful Consideration The Testimony is of Gennadius cited by my L. p. 58 59. thus For after Christ's Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and going from the body they go to Christ expecting the resurrection of their body with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss To which my Ld. subjoyns and this he delivers as the Doctrin of the Catholick Church I take this excellent Testimony as put down by himself to do which the usage of St. Greg. Nazianzen's immediately foregoing gives me small encouragement In answer then I affirm that this Testimony so insisted and rely'd on as against us is as plain a declaration of the Faith of our Church at present as any now-adayes Catholick could pronounce For since no Catholick holds that any goes to Purgatory but they who die Sinners to some degree and that all who are Saints are with Christ in Heaven as is evident by the Churches common language affirming constantly the Saints are in Heaven and never that the Saints are in Purgatory but the Souls onely it is manifest that the words are as expresly for us as we our selves could invent or wish I hope it will not wrogMethod if on this occasion I show how Protestant Writers speed when they bring against us any Testimony of a Father speaking as a Father that is declaring that he delivers the sence of the Catholick Church however in other Testimonies which speak not narratively or matter of Fact the very nature of words joyn'd with the variety of their Circumstances must needs afford room for ambiguity and several Glosses I affirm then that this Testimony not onely is not in the least opposit to us but is directly opposit to the Protestants in another point of Faith in which we differ To discover this let us reflect on the words After Christes Ascension into Heaven the Souls of all Saints are with Christ and ask what mean these words After Christs Ascension And first 't is Evident it puts a distinction between the Souls of Saints before Christs Ascension and After it in some Respect and what is this Respect most expresly this that the Souls of the Saints After Christes Ascension go from the body to Christ that is that before the Ascension none did The avowed Doctrin of the Catholick Church prosessing that those who die Saints in the Law of Grace go straight to Heaven but that the best Saints before our Saviours dying for them and Ascending with them did not Whence also we hold that Christes descending into Hell was to free them from that State of Suspence and Want of their strongly desired and hopet for Bliss According to that Hymn of S. Ambrose and S. Augustin in the Common-prayer-book so oft said over by rote but never reflected on When thou hadst overcome the Sharpness of death thou didst open the Kingdome of Heaven to all Believers Signifying plainly that no Believers sound Heaven open for them till after Christ's death By the Success of this one Testimony is seen how utterly the Protestant Cause would be overthrown by way of Testimony as well as Reason were Citations distinguish't brought to Grounds and those onely admitted from the Fathers in which 't is manifest they speak as Fathers or Witnessers of what is the present Churches doctrin To close up this Discourse about the Dissuader's Citations He is to show us first that they fall not under the Faulty Heads to which they are respectively assign'd or under diverse others of those Heads Next that they have in them the nature of Testimonies And lastly which is yet harder that though they have in them the nature of Testimonies their Authority is Certain and their language unambiguous so that they may be safely rely'd on for Principles or Grounds of a solid Discourse This if he shows of any one citation which strikes at our Faith I promise him very heartily to subscribe to the validity of all the rest 13. Thus much for his Authorities Next should follow a Refutation of his Reasons produc't against our Faith for as for those against our School-Divines or Casuists they concern not me as a Controvertist Let him and them fight it out Now Reasons that strike at our Faith must either be against the Ground of Faith and those shall be consider'd in my Answer to his First Section or against points of Faith And these may proceed two wayes First by showing those points Incomprehensible to our Natural Reason or unsutable to our Faney and this way he frequently takes making a great deal of game upon such subjects as any Atheist may do by the same way in points common to him and us But this hurts us not in the least in regard we hold not Mysteries of Faith Objects of Human Reason nor Spiritual Things the Objects of Fancy and so these Reasons need no farther Answer The other way Reasons against Points of Faith may proceed is to show those Points contradictory to some Evident Principles at least to some other known or else acknowledg'd Truth And these were worth answering But such as these I find none in his whole Book rather that he builds his sleight Descants or Discourses on some controvertible Text or Citation relying on them as firmly as if they were First Principles Indeed p. 65. the Dissuader tells us of a Demonstration of his for the Novelty of Transubstantion and that a plain one too But I shal manifest shortly from the very words of the Author Peter Lombard on which his Plain Demonstration relies that 't is either a plain mistake or plain Abuse of him nay argues the direct contrary to what the Dissuader product it for Some Consequences also he deduces ad hominem against diverse points of our Faith built on our own Concessions or Allow'd Truths taken from the Fathers by which he attempts to overthrow it But these Consequences are so strangely Inconsequent and those tenets he would counterpose so far from Contradictory that 't is hard to imagin whence his Reason took its rise to leap into such remote conclusions I 'le instance in two found p. 49 and 50. That the Conflagration of the last day and the Opinion of some Fathers that the Souls were detain'd in secret receptacles till the day of Judgment do both destroy intermediate Purgatory Which Consequences if he will make good I will vield his whole Book to be Demonstrative and Unanswerable In a word all the good Reasons he brings are taken from some of our Divines writing against others and he hath done himself the right to chuse the best which levelled against the opinion of a less able Divine in stead of a point of Faith must needs bear a
very plausible show 14. Next follows the Manner how he manages this Matter which in the civillest Expressions I use I must call so many sleights to delude his Reader and those so craftily coucht that none but a Scholler can discern the snare The first and Fundamental one is his wilfully mis-stating the Question all over As p. 16. when he confounds the making new Symbols or Creeds which signifies the putting together into a Profession of Faith Articles formerly-held as did S. Athanasius and the Nicene Council with making new Articles All his whole Section 3d. of Indulgences which he makes to signify meerly those which pardons sins or pains after this life whereas yet himself confesses p. 40. that those were not defind by our Church So also his next Section of Purgatory by which we mean a Penal State for those who die imperfectly contrite and from which they are deliverable by the prayers of the Church Militant Instead of which he impugns sometimes material Fire sometimes the duration of it It were tedious to reckon all his Faults in this kind scarce one point escapes this voluntary misprision that is he scarce discourses steadily though perhaps he may glance at it accidentally against one point of our Faith rightly stated or as taken in the declarative words of our Church Now common Honesty telling us that if one be to impugn any mans Tenet the first thing natural method leads him to is to put down that man's very words profest by him to express his Tenet and not what others deem conceit or talk about the same matter my Ld. ought in due candour have first produc't the words of the Council of Trent and then have leveld his opposition against them and not have told us what School divines say about the point or having thus conceald the point it self argu'd against some Circumstance or Manner of it instead of the Substance Now this kind of carriage so evidently preternatural and so constantly us'd forces me to judge it sprung from voluntary Insincerity and not from Accident or Inadvertency 15. His second Disingenuity at once Evidences and aggravates the former 'T is this that when by such a management he hath made the point odious he uses to bring in our Churches Tenet in the rear and whereas Her speaking abstractedly frees her absolutely from the invidious particularities he would fasten on her Faith he as if he had resolv'd to abuse her right or wrong makes that very thing which should clear her tend to disgrace her more As is seen p. 40. where he is forc't to confess our Church defin'd Indulgences onely in general terms that is none of his former Discourses so particularizing toucht her or her Faith and then cries out the Council durst not do this nor the other That is she durst not do and consequently did not do what all his former discourse would persuade the world our Church had done Worse then this is his Instance p. 60. where after he had pretended in the whole 4th Section to impugn Purgatory which he had confounded with School-opinions to p. 45. with the time of delivery p. 48. 51. 56. with a state of merit or demerit p. 57. 58. with his own Parenthesisses p. 59. and told us some stories of Revelations and Apparitions which seem'd to him most ridiculous Lastly confounded it with Simon Magus his Opinion Plato's or Cicero's conceit and Virgils Fiction After all this he adds this doctrin which in all the parts of it is uncertain and in the late Additions to it in Rome is certainly false is yet with all the Faults of it past into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent Now these big words All the parts of it the late Additions All the Faults of it and all these said to be past into an Article of Faith by the Council of Trent would make one think that Council had defin'd all that medley he had huddled together for Christian Faith but looking in the Council not a Syllable of any of these is to be found but barely these few words that There is a Purgatory and that the Souls there detain'd are help't by the prayers of the Faithful Where we see but two parts at most for there are but two Propositions in the whole definition Again the late Additions which he sayes are defin'd by the Council can be but one at most that is the second Proposition that those Souls are helpt by the Faithfull's prayers And lastly when he sayes this Doctrin of Purgatory with all its Faults is past by the Council into an Article of Faith the large word All its Faults can mean onely the same second Proposition there being nothing defin'd besides the very doctrin of Purgatory it self but this Which kind of carriage of his so sinisterly descanting on the point all along not pretending to put down our Tenet at all till towards the End then deforming it to be a bundle of God knows how many Faults defin'd for Faith putting all these upon the Council of Trent and yet avoiding to put down the words of the Council at all though so few lest they should discover he had lavish't out at randome show evidently the Dissuader stands not much upon Conscience or Sincerity so he can colour and hide his disingenuities and he is the greatest master of that craft I ever yet met with Now to avoid this Calumny it being frequent in his book I discourse thus Points of Faith are Supreme Truth which stand in the abstract and it is the work of Divines not of the Church-Representative to draw long trains of Consequences from them and dive particularly into the Manners how they are to be explicated or into their Extents if it be some Power Nor is this particular in the point of Indulgences or Purgatory but is found in all the other points of Faith as every learned Divine knows very well Again 't is against the Principles of Universal Supream Government for a Church Representative defining Faith to descend out of its highest Sphere and engage in particularities especially if they belong not to them as School-opinions do not but onely to order in common and leave the Application of their Common Orders to those who are to execute or to Inferiour Officers and should they engage in particulars which are both below their highest office and oft-times contingent and uncertain they would commit the greatest imprudence in the world Since then my Ld acknowledges here p. 40. that the Council orders all hard and Subtil questions concerning Purgatory all that is suspected to be false and all that is uncertain and whatever is curious and superstitious and for filthy lucre be laid aside he should have shown that it befitted a Council's Gravity to descend to particulars or to define negatively to the School-opinion concerning the Churches Treasure and not rather order in Common and leave it to Inferior Officers to execute as circumstances should work upon their Prudence which is that in
Opinions which pretend a Subordination to and Coherence with Faith Divines should first clear their Incoherence with it ere They engage their Authority against them and then to do it efficaciously being back't with the Majesty of the Council's Orders My Lds words that the Fathers of the Council set their Doctors as well as they can to defend all the new curious and scandalous Questions and to uphold the gainful trade is indeed to the purpose but withal by his leave an unhandsome and most false Calumny against so many Persons of Honour and Quality and so Invidious a Charge that could he have proov'd it he had not slubber'd it over so carelesly without offering any proof for it but his bare word nor with a sleight proper to himself immediately after he had directly charged it have half recanted it with However it be with them that is whether they did any such thing or no as he had so lately and so pressingly challeng'd them to have done And this I note as a Third Head of his disingenuity frequent in his Book that he brings very good proofs for diverse particulars which concern not our Church but when it comes to the very point and which directly strikes at her his own bare word We know or it is Certain p. 54. l. 22. p. 62. p. 63. p. 67. c. is the best Argument he produces 16. A fourth disingenuity is his Perverting wilfully the Intention of Catholick Authours How he hath dealt with the Council of Trent in the two late mention'd points of Indulgences and Purgatory is already shown In like manner has he treated the Expurgatory Indies For whereas by the word Purgari emaculari in a Citation of his own p. 21 it is manisest they meant but to amend Corruptions of the late by the Antient Copies he makes as though out of gripes of Conscience forsooth that the Fathers were not right on our side they had therefore purposely gone about to corrupt the Fathers themselves p. 18. and 19. so to make them on our side because we could not find them so An Attempt impossible to fall into head of any man not stark mad For this altering the Fathers could not have serv'd our turn unless we had made it known and publish't it and if made Publick could not be imagin'd to do the deed neither for the Fraud must needs be made as Publick as the Book So that an Action thus intended must be a Human Action without a Motive or Reason which is a Contradiction Worse is what follows p. 21 22. but withal the malice of it is more easily discoverable For 't is evident by the particulars he mentions in those Indexes or Tables that the Printer or Correcter who made them was an Heretick and put in those Tables what his perversness imagin'd was found in the Fathers Whence it was but fit his whole Index should be expung'd Not that we fear the Fathers but that we disallow the wicked intentions of the Index-maker who abuses the Fathers to injure us So p. 62. he would make Catholikes themselves dissatisfy'd of the Ground of Transubstantiation because they say 't is not express'd in Scripture as if Catholiks held that nothing could be of Faith but what 's expresly found there whereas he well knows they universally teach and hold the contrary But his abuse of Peter Lombard p. 64. 65. is very remarkable though perhaps it might spring out of his little Experience in School-divinity To make Transubstantiation seem a Novelty he would persuade his Reader Lombard sayes he could not tell whether there was any Substantial change or no Whereas that Authour Dist. 10. brings Testimonies of the Fathers to prove it and concludes thence that 'T is evident that the Substance of Bread is converted into Christ's Body and the Substance of Wine into his Blood which is what the Council of Trent calls Transubstantiation And there ends that Distinction After which immediately succeeds the 11th De modis Conversionis of the Manners of this Conversion and of these he sayes he cannot sufficiently define whether this Conversion be Formal or Substantial or of another kind So that Substantial here supposes the Conversion of the Substance of Bread into Christes Body and is put by him onely to signify one of the manners of this Conversion which he explicates to be Sic Substantiam converti in Substantiam ut haec essentialiter fiat illa that one Substance is so converted into another Substance that the one is made essentially the other Whereas others who also hold Transubstantiation do yet explicate that Conversion by putting the body of Christ to succeed under the same Accidents in place of the Substance of Bread annihilated Now this Manner of Conversion calld by him a Substantial Manner in opposition to Formal which he makes to be a Conversion both of Substance and Accidents and not in Opposition to the change of one Substance into another he leaves Undefin'd but the Conversion it self of the Substance of Bread into the body of Christ which is our point he both defines hold proves out of Fathers Disc. 10. and calls them Hereticks that deny it How unfortunate is my L. to quote an Authour as not holding Transubstantiation then to call that Citation a plain Demonstration that it was not known in his dayes whereas he both professes to hold it and by alledging Fathers for it evidences he holds it was held anciently and lastly gives my L. such hard language for not holding it himself Whether it be likely my L. should light by some accident in reading Peter Lombard onely on the 11th Dist. and never read or light on the end of the 10th let Indifferent men judge I onely desire the Reader to observe how ill my L. comes of with his plain Demonstration and to remark that he ever succeeds worst when he most ayms at a good and solid proof the reason of which is because Truth being Invincible the neerer one closes to grapple with her the worse still he is foil'd Those few Instances may suffice for the 4th Kind of the Dissuaders disingenuities which is to pervert the Intentions of his Authours of which sort were it worth the pains I would undertake to show neer an hundred in my Lds. Dissuasive This piece of Art being now so customary to him that 't is even grown into a second Nature 17. His fifth kind of disingenuity is a most wilful one and most frequent too for it takes up far the better half his book 'T is this that he rakes up together all the less solid or ill Opinions and Cases and sometimes deforms the good ones of some private Writers in the Church which he will needs lay upon the Church her self as Mistress of our Faith Nay so strangely unjust he is in this Particular that whereas it evidently clears our Faith disengages the Church and shows it but Opinion when other Catholick Doctors uncontrolledly write against such an Opinion or Explication
he would deal candidly Himself confesses the Inquisition of Spain corrected one of those Books he names and I know no obligation any man has either to use or abet the others and then to what purpose were they brought against the Church 23. The last greatest and most notorious disingenuity is his most unworthy and most Intolerable Calumny against all Catholicks that they are Traytors and unfit for human Society He names not these words but that he endeavours to have the thing beleeved by his Readers appears thus The Title of his third Chapter p. 260. is this The Church of Rome teaches Doctrins which in many things are destructive of Christian society in General and of Monarchy in special We see here what he charges on our Church and since 't is known all Catholicks not onely are oblig'd to hold but to hold as Sacred and of Faith what the Church of Rome teaches nay to be ready to dy for that Faith 't is plain his Endeavours are to make us pass in the Opinion of his Readers for persons who hold Treason and Villany Lawful nay Sacred and that we are ready to dy and hope to be sav'd by such damnable points of Faith Nor will his false-hearted Pretence p. 462. exempt any while 't is known that nothing is more deeply rooted in our hearts than our obligation to beleeve as the Church beleeves and teaches In particular he assures his Reader p. 462. that No Contracts Leagues Societies Promises Vows or Oaths are sufficiēnt security to him that deals with one of the Church of Rome And p. 279. that the Doctrins of our Church are great Enemis to the Dignity and Security to the Powers and Lives of Princes 'T is not fit we should use here the Language proper to express what 's the due return and genuin brand for so malicious a Calumny But perhaps it were not unfit nor injuring the modesty of Subjects humbly to beg Protection for our Innocence against the virulent tongues and pens of our uncharitable accusers whom neither Reason nor Experience will restrain from going on still to stigmatize us all with the Faults of a few rash or sometimes misconstru'd Writers But when writes the Dissuader this After such fresh Testimonies of the unanimous Loyalty of Catholicks to His sacred Majesty and his Royal Father spending their lives and Fortunes in his service And against whom Against a Multitude in which are found very many Noble and Honourable Personages and many thousands of others very considerable and remarkable for their Fidelity How strange a Wickedness is it then to calumniate so highly and so publickly so many eminently deserving and Honourable Subjects of his Majesty Now the mischiefs naturally apt to flow from such a Calumny are these It breeds ill Correspondence between our Fellow-Subjects and us and makes us ill look't upon by them which violates Civil Unity so necessary for the Peace and strength of a Kingdome especially being between those two parties who have ever been so friendly and brotherly in their Affection and Allegiance to their Prince and Fellow-Acters and Sufferers for his Cause It discourages Loyalty to see that after such best Testimonies of it we are not even able to obtain a bare acknowledgment that we are Loyal but that it shall still be lawful for any one at pleasure to brand us for Traytors and this publickly in print in the face of all England And lastly were not our known Fidelity too strong an Antidote for his malice it tends to breed a conceit in our Governours that we are not to be endur'd in any State and onely fit to be ruin'd and extirpated not to mention the breach of Charity ensuing such unworthy Criminations which must needs breed very many Feuds and unneighbourliness between private persons all over England and Ireland Nor will there be ever any hearty Union in Church or State till thatwicked Uncharitableness of affixing upon a whole party the faults of some few be totally laid aside 24. Now on what does my Ld ground these horrid Charges against our Church or how proceeds he to make them good After the old fashion of quoting the private Opinions of a few Authours viz. Emonerius Father Barnes Emmanuel Sà Tolet Vasquez Navar c. Now my Ld supposes his Readers are to be credulous silly Asses and to believe that these private Casuists or Discoursers are the mouth of our Church that she by them declares what we are to believe that such private Discourses are so many definitions of our Churches Doctrin or Faith That these Discourses are held by our Church to be Constant and Certain for such all Catholicks hold her Doctrin or Faith to be whereas every Child knows these and such like Opinions are controllable changeable as the Moon that they were taught by Christ and his Apostles whereas any one may and himself does quote who first invented them that they who deny or impugn them are Hereticks whereas yet others do and any one may write against them at pleasure Lastly that these Points are all Divine Revelations whereas the very nature of the thing shows and himself confesses they are all Human deductions These Madnesses which are my Ld's First Principles in this whole Chapter and the Chapter foregoing that is in better half his book if his Reader will be such a Bedlam as to yield to then all his discourse is as sure as Gospel but if not then 't is Evident such Pretences are flat and most unconscionable Calumnies against our Church Little better is his quoting two or three particular Acts of some Popes does he think the words Church and Pope are Equivalent or that the word particular act signifies Doctrin or Faith that he should think three or four Acts all in several kinds that is one in each kind argue the Churches Doctrin or Faith in those points This in case he deals truly with those Popes but I know he is apt to deform all he meets with and I see he does that of Pope Clement p. 268. which makes me suspect the rest That Pope extinguish't the Templars and consest that de Jure he could not do it but that he did it ex plenitudine potestatis Here my Ld so interprets de Jure that he makes the Pope disown any Justice in doing it that is own an Injustice in doing it for that 's my Ld's Intention in wresting those words which being impossible to conceive the Pope should prosess of himself 't is clear he meant by de Jure the same we mean by the words by Law that is that there was no positive Law of the Church impowering him to dissolve them yet the Exigency requiring it his Office might give him a natural right to do it by which if Governours might not act in great Emergencies but must be ty'd to let all go wrong because it happens no provision is made against it in any written Law All Churches Kingdomes Cities nay Families would be at the same loss
Catholick which was greedily catcht at by such as leapt for joy to find any licks thing to bespatter the Church with and startling some unattentive and too credulous Catholikes drive them zealous of defending the Council to an unwarrantable position which Tenet and its practice my Ld. himself knows well the Generality of Catholikes hate and detest as much as himself Eighth Way 27. THe eighth and last Way is to pick out as well as I can those Propositions or Principles my Ld relies on and show their Weakness which is sufficiently performed by singling them out and then naming them PRINCIPLES they are so quite unlike what they 're call'd Now his Principles he layes in his first Section I mean his main and Fundamental Propositions which because he relies on yet never proves we are from his carriage to take for Principles and Self evident to him though he himself calls them not so for 't is dangerous to them who have not Truth on their side even to mention the word Principle Evidence or Demonstration His First concerning Scripture I shall speak to anon A second seems to be this p. 6. We all acknowledge that the whole Church of God kept the Faith entire and transmitted faithfully to the After-ages the whole Faith that is to the Ages next after the Apostles as he expresses a little before call'd by him p. 7. the first and best Antiquily and signify'd to mean the First three Ages Now the Positive part of this Principle is good and Assertive of Tradition but withall unapt to stead him The Negative part of it or that the third Age transmitted it not to the fourth and so forwards imply'd in his Discourse would onely stead him but 't is left unproov'd and so is a Voluntary Assertion and strangely ridiculous For if the first two Ages kept the Faith entire and transmitted it to the third 't is Evident the Third was able to transmit it to the fourth and so forwards wherefore it being Evident from the Concern of the Thing it was also willing to do so 't is demonstrable it did so This Principle then on which he so much builds is either not for him or else highly against him 28. Another main and Fundamental Proposition or Principle is found p. 7. and as the former concern'd the Tradition of the Church so this and the three following ones concern the Authorities of Fathers The present Roman Doctrins saith he which are in difference were Invisible and unbeard of in the first and best Antiquity That is no Heretick had arisen in those dayes or in the first three hundred years denying those points and so the Fathers set not themselves to write Expresly for them but occasionally onely and yet by his leave our Controvâ—â—â—â—â—â— are frequent in citing them for diverse points especially for the Ground of our Faith the Churches voice or Tradition to the utter overthrow of the Protestant Cause So far this improov'd and main position disannulling all use of the Fathers of the first 300 years in our Controversies is from not needing proof or being Self evident 29. It may be his respect and value for the Fathers of the next Ages will make amends for this rashness He tells us immediately after that in the Succeeding Ages secular Interest did more prevail and the Writings of the Fathers were vast and voluminous full of Controversy and ambiguous Sences fitted to their own times and questions full of proper Opinions and such variety of sayings that both sides eternally and Inconfutably shall bring sayings for themselves respectively Now if they be so qualify'd that both sides may eternally dispute out of them and neither be ever able to confute the other or conclude then let him speak out and say all the Fathers after the first 300 years are not worth a straw in order to decision or Controversy nor yet the Fathers of the first 300 years because they spoke not of our points in difference and so there is a fair end of all the Fathers and of his own Dissuasive too for that part which relies on them which looks like the most authoritative piece of it The Reader will easily judge now whether we as he charges us p. 18. have many gripes of Conscience concerning the Fathers that they are not right on our side or the Dissuader Our constant and avow'd Doctrin is that the Testimony of Fathers speaking of them properly as such is Iufallible that in two Cases they speak as Fathers that is when they declare it the doctrin of the present Church of their time or when they write against any man as an Heretick or his Tenet as Heresy Some complexions of Circumstances also may be found out by much reading and comparing several considerations which make it Evident they speak as Witnesses though it be more laborious and tedious to compass a Satisfaction this way Whereas as appears by our Dissuader the Protestants neither acknowledge them Infallible nor indeed Useful And this is my Ld's FOURTH PRINCIPLE which with the former destroyes the Efficaciousness of all the Fathers invalidates all that part of his own Book which should seem weightiest 30. Notwithstanding the two former Principles to invalidate the Fathers it may still be said by the Catholicks in behalf of their validity as was by me now that the Sayings of Fathers as Witnesses are Convictive and therefore it should seem sit my Ld did lay another Principle to provide against that He is not unmindful of it but hath taken order about it For though p. 9. he tells us the Fathers are good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers down to them of what the Church esteem'd the way of Salvation yet that is to be understood according to the Rule premised p. 8. thus Things being thus it will be Impossible for them the Catholicks to conclude from the sayings of a number of Fathers that the Doctrin they would prove thence was the Catholick doctrin of the Church because any number that is less than all does not proove a Catholik Consent So that unless each single Father affirm each single point to be of Faith or the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which morally speaking is Impossible to happen it follows by his words that 't is Impossible to conclude thence the Catholick Doctrin of the Church which amounts to this that 't is Impossible to conclude any thing in Controversy from the Fathers even taken as Witnesses And this is his FIFTH PRINCIPLE A strange conceit that it should be Impossible to know the Consent of all England in a matter of Fact for example the late war without speaking with each single man in the whole Nation Yet this is his Discourse when he sayes that no number less than all can prove a Catholick consent 31. Yet some use certainly he allows of the Fathers for all this else why does he quote them Yes and the Principle which I reckon his SIXTH by virtue of which he enforces them is this
p. 8. The clear saying of one or two of those Fathers truely alledg'd by us to the Contrary will certainly prove that what many of them suppose it do affirm and which but two or three as good Catholicks do deny was not then a matter of Faith or a Doctrin of the Church I wish my Ld. had been so Ingenuous as to have made use of this Principle when he charg'd our Church it self with the mistakes of a few Writers contradicted not by one or two but sometimes by a whole Nation But this Principle shows 't was not Reason in him but Will and Interest which made him so hot As for his Principle it self it subsists not at all For is it not known that more than one or two that is S. Cyprian and the African Fathers deny'd the Baptism of Hereticks Valid yet the Contrary was notwithstanding found and defin'd to be Faith and the Sence of the Church Let him consider how perfectly he engages himself in the very Sphere of Contingency and recedes from Universality the Sphere of Certainty when he comes to rely on one or two unless he can show those one or two strangely supported and upheld by Universal Nature or concurring Circumstances 'T is possible even one or two Lawyers may hap to be ignorant of two or three Acts of Parliament But my Ld is still the best confuter of himself as appears lately by this present Principle apply'd to his former carriage against our Church To himself then let him answer I conceive that if one or two's not denying it to be of Faith or affirming expresly 't is not-of-Faith he engages not so far but bare denying a point argues what many do affirm to be not-of-Faith à fortiori one or two's affirming positively that to be of Faith and the Doctrin of the Catholick Church which many others barely deny argues 't is of Faith 'T was of Faith then what Gennadius cited by himself p. 59. affirms that After Christs Ascension the Souls of all Saints go from the body to Christ This being so let him reflect what himself asserts p. 49. that Justin Mariyr Tertullian Victorinus Martyr Prudentius S. Chrysostom Arethas Euthimius and S. Bernard affirm none go to Heaven till the last day Either then Gennadius his Testimony delivering the doctrin of the Catholick Church is Inefficacious and yet 't is incomparably the best nay the onely Efficacious one in my Lds. whole book or else according to him many Fathers and not one or two onely denying a point is no argument but that point may be of Faith Whether all those Fathers held so or no is another Question and requires a longer discussion 32. Fathers then are useless to the Dissuader as having according to him no virtue at all of setling the Understanding Yet he must make a show of them else all 's lost and so he tells his Readers p. 8. as if all were well two things both very remarkable The one that notwithstanding In the prime and purest Antiquity the Protestants are indubitably more than Conquerours in the Fathers A high Expression but compar'd with what he sayes p. 7. that in those times our present differences were unheard-of it signifies that they miraculously more then conquer where if his words be true no mortals else could either conquer or even attacque For how should one fight against such points in difference from those Fathers who never heard of those points The other is that even in the Fathers of the succeeding Ages the Protestants have the advantage both numero pondere mensurà in number weight and measure which joyn'd to his words at the bottome of p. 7. that each side may eternally and inconfutably bring sayings for themselves out of those Fathers which signifies that 't is to no end or purpose to alledge them amounts very fairly to this that he brags Protestants have a far greater number of Citations which are to no purpose than Catholicks have that those Citations which have no possible force of concluding or no weight at all do weigh more strongly for them than for us and lastly that they have a greater measure than we of proofs not worth a rush with which they can bubble up their books to a voluminous bigness And we willingly yield them the honour of having a very great advantage in all three in case they be such as his own words qualifie them to wit that each side may Eternally and Inconfutably alledge them 33. We come now to his main and most Fundamental and in comparison his onely Principle p. 9. laid out thus We do wholly rely upon Scriptures as the Foundation and final resort of all our Persuasions but we also admit the Fathers c. To finish our Discourse about the Fathers will make way to the Scripture What means admitting as contradistinguisht to relying on Not relying on that 's certain for 't is contradistinguisht to it And yet to alledge any thing for a Proof as they do Fathers and not to rely on it is to confess plainly for Truth will out that they alledge them meerly for a show He sayes they admit them as admirable Helps for the Understanding the Scriptures and good Testimony of the Doctrin deliver'd from their Forefathers Have a care my Ld. This supposes the Certainty of Tradition For if there be no Certainty of delivery there is no doctrin delivered nor consequently any thing for them to testify and so the words good Testimony unless our Ground of Continual Tradition stands mean directly that they are good for nothing as your former Discourses or Principles made them But I ask is their Interpretation of Scripture or Testimony Certain If not why should they even be admitted Or how can Vncertain Interpreters and Witnessers be admirable Helps to interpret right and good Testimony I fear my Ld. can onely mean they are Admirable Helps as Dictionaries and Books of Criticisms are to assist his Human Skill about the outward Letter which is a rare Office for a Father and not to give him the inward Sence of it or the deliver'd Doctrin of the Catholick Church for unless All conspire to speak to the same point if any one be silent concerning it it argues not according to my Ld. p. 8. a Catholick Consent and so is far beneath an admirable help And this is what we reprehend exceedingly in the Protestants that they love to talk gaily in common of any Sacred or Grave Authority for an affected form or show but not at all value the Virtue or Power of such an Authority not judge interiorly they have any worth valuing They would credit themselves by pretending Fathers yet at the same time lay wayes to elude them at pleasure or which is their very temper springing from their renouncing Living and determinate Sence and adhering to dead unsenc't words they study to speak Indeterminately and confusedly not particularly and closely 34. Do I wrong them Let my Ld. clear me His First Principle is by him
A DISCOVERY Of The Groundlesness And Insincerity Of my Ld. of Down's DISSUASIVE Being The Fourth Appendix to SVRE-FOOTING With A Letter to Dr. Casaubon and Another to his Answerer By J. S. Habentes Speciem quidem Pietatis Virtutem autem ejus abnegantes Et hos devita 2 Tim. 3. 5. LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXV Corrections of the Press PAg. 25â— l. 11. my Lds. p. 265. l. 25. have added p. 267. l. 24. Ephrem p. 270. l. 26. sense p. 279. l. 11. Truths p. 281. l. 14. the head p. 293. l. 21. thing p. 307. l. 2. thus It. p. 301. l. 1. unproov'd p. 319. l. 1. Characters p. 320. l. 21. from the words p. 327. l. 4. Schism FOURTH APPENDIX Subverting Fundamentally and manifoldly my Ld. of Downs DISSUASIVE 1. I Had observ'd my self and was inform'd by others what harm my L. of Down's DISSUASIVE did to divers persons yet I found also that it wrought different Effects in his Protestant Readers according to their respective abilities of understanding Those who were thoroughly Intelligent universally dislikt it as a very weak and ungrounded Discourse but the middle or rather meaner sort of Schollers who have sufficient capacity to apprehend the Sence of an Objection yet not enough to weigh by Principles and so comprehend the force of it nor to distinguish between Church and Schools much less the Sagacity to dive into the many Sophistries Artifices and Indirect dealings which mis-used Rhetorick can employ to delude men's eye-sight were many of them startled and entertain'd a high conceit of it To which helpt that their well-meaning and natural sincerity permitted them not to suspect and so be aware of any deceit in a discourse manag'd all along with so much formal Gravity and showes of the greatest Piety that could be For a grave carriage being where Nature is not perverted wilfully the proper Effect of a sincere Earnestness and perfect Seriousness in the heart and Piety being conceiv'd to be that which ought to heighten supernaturally that interiour disposition they are consequently apt to breed in the observer of them a conceit of the greatest Seriousness in the world Nay even to those who are very weak and mean well it gains the Affecter of this way so much Authority that it persuades those who esteem them for it they have perfect Assuredness of what they so soberly write or affirm Whence follows that this kind of grave and seemingly pious demeanour especially if carry'd on with a Constancy is the most Effectual Engin in the world to inveigle rational souls which are not aware of the craft or by looking into Principles above it whither the Discourser pleases And I conceive our Country hath already so much felt its lamentable Effects out of Pulpits in the beginning of the late troubles that all reflecters on it are sufficiently warn'd not to think all to be the solid gold of Truth which glitters with Saintly shows Now in this consists the most efficacious part of my L. of Downs Dissuasive the rest whether Reasons or Citations being very ordinary And 't was this exceeding Plausibleness and by means of this Harmfulness of that Treatise which oblig'd me to alter my Resolution and make the Answer to it a fourth Appendix to Sure-footing which I had refused to the suggestion of my first Thoughts hoping some other would lay it open more at large But how shall I go about to answer it For as Sampson's strength lay in his hair the weakest part that can be found in a man so the chief Virtue of the Dissuasive lies in the Godliness of its style which being meer voluntary words and most unapt to make up Propositions expressive of connected Sence or to compile a rational Discourse 't is by consequence the weakest peece of performance which can possibly spring from a reasonable Creature Yet with this weapon I am soonest beat nothing being more averse to my Genius than to Saint it in Scripture-phrases a performance in which I confess a Quaker would easily worst me and would even put the Dissuader himself very hard to it especially in a Controversy which ought to be a severe proof of the Truth of the point under debate The way then which sutes my humour best and as I hope is most efficacious to conclude and satisfy is to examin by Principles whether there be force of Truth at the bottome grounding the Disluader's long Invective If there be it ought to have all handsome advantages of Expressions allow'd it If not 't is no more as to the Harmony of Truth but the running a great deal of division upon no Ground 2. I shall suppose the Reader of this Appendix hath already perus'd weighed the force of my Reasoningsin SURE FOOTING which done he will easily comprehend the strength of this Reply and the manifold weakness of my L. of Downs DISSUASIVE All Truths being connected it follows that every Errour is by consequence opposit to all Truths and They to it Hence each single Errour lies open to be confuted many wayes if the method of Reason or Connexion be taken I take therefore that method because by its priviledge of bringing things to First-Principles 't is apt to undermine and blow up Errour from its very Foundations Eight several mines I lay to perform this Effect each of which Wayes is alone sufficient to do my work First Way 3. THe First is to alledge that my L. of Downs has not one First or Self-evident Principle to begin with on which he builds his Dissuasive from Catholick Faith If I wrong him let him do himself right by pointing it out and showing that 't is opposit to our Churchees Doctrin which if he does I here yield my self absolutely confuted In the mean time I have proved that Traditiones Certainty is the First Principle of CONTROVERSY and am confident in the Invincible force of Truth that all the Wit in the World cannot confute that position And if it stands he is convincet not onely to want the First Principle of the Science we are to discourse in but his Cause forcing him to renounce Tradition's Certainty to go point-blank against it and so to invalidate to our hands all he shall write as a Controvertist and how weakly he behaves himself where he goes about to lay other Principles shall be shown when I come to answer his First Section Now seeing all Reason has force by relying on the Truth of the Premises and they are known to be true either by being First Principles themselves or by being finally resolvable into others which are such it follows there can be no true Reason where there is no First Principle Till he shows us then that he builds his Dissuasive on some First Principles it will follow his whole Endeavour is to dissuade not by way of Reason but Fine Words which are indeed the Substantiallest strongest and most efficacious part of his whole Book Second Way 4. THe Second Way is to exclude him all
to be said since the whole world sees plainly we still maintain the Field against them nay dare pretend without fearing an absolute baffle which must needs follow had we not at least Probabilities to befriend us that our Grounds are Evidently and Demonstrably Certain nay more dare venture to take the most clearing Method imaginable to stand or fall by and withal are bold to challenge them that they have no Evident Grounds to begin with nor dare venture to pursue that evidencing Method But my Lds own words in his Liberty of Prophecying Sect. 20. § 2. will beyond all confute evince it ad hominem at least that we have Probabilities and those strong ones too on our side I pick out some leaving out other weighty ones which hisExpressions had too much deform'd His words are these Such as are the Beauty and Splendor of their Church their pompous Service the Stateliness and Solemnity of the Hierarchy their name of CATHOLICK which they suppose their own due and to concern no other sort of Christians he ought have said which the establisht use of the word and deriv'd riv'd down to the Successours of those who first had that Name forces all even their Adversaries to give them when they speak naturally and makes them despair of obtaining it for themselves The Antiquity of many of their Doctrins The Continual Succession of their Bishops their Immediate derivation from the Apostles the Title to succeed S. Peter the Multiteudand Variety of people which are of their Persuasion Apparent Consent with Antiquity in many Ceremonials which other Churches have rejected a pretended and sometimes an apparent Consent with some elder ages in many matters Doctrinal the great Consent of one part with another in that which most of them affirm to be de fide the great Differences which are commenced amongst their Adversaries Their happiness in being Instruments in converting divers Nations he should rather have said All The Advantages of Monarchical Government the benefit of which as well as the Inconveniences they dayly enjoy the Piety and Austerity of their Religious Orders of men and women the Single Life of their Priests and Bishops the severity of their Fasts and their Exterior Observances the known Holiness of some of those persons whose Institutes the Religious Persons pretend to imitate c. After which he subjoyns These things and diverse others may very easily persuade persons of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their Forefathers which had actual Possession and seizure of men's understandings before the opposit professions had a name Thus he By which words 't is Evident we have Probabilities and high ones too on our side else how could they be able very easily to persuade persons of much reason especially they having as he sayes more piety or more then much that is very much which argues rather that those motives for Catholick Faith were sutable to Piety or Truths ot at least exceedingly-seeming-Pious so as the great Piety of those persons neither checkt at the practice according to those Motives nor their much Reason reach't to a discovery of their Fallaciousness Whence we may gather farther than those Motives so standing for us are to be rankt in the highest degree of Probability For since those Persons are confest to be very Pious that is very Good and so unapt to be byast by Passion and withal to have much Reason 't is plain the Cause of their Assent to Catholick Faith must be look't for in the Object and have a wonderful appearance at least of Evidence or highest Probability which is able to conquer and satisfy so Rational and sincere Understandings This being so my Ld. cannot in reason own himself a Dissuader nor pretend his Discourse has power to dissuade any from our Faith unless he put down the whole force of what we build our Faith on together with his motives why he judges it false and then compare or weigh those reasons together and so conclude his absolutely preponderating I doubt those very motives deliverd faintly by himself though an Adversary are such as had he laid them open at large as he does his own Objections he would have been infinitely puzzled to find others to overballance them with any show of Reason But I will not put him upon so large a task Let him onely consider on what Grounds the Rule of our Faith is built to wit on sensible and unmistakable matter of Fact from age to age and this unmistakableness confirm'd supernaturally by the concern of the Thing obliging the Beleevers best care to preserve it and by the Goodness implanted in their hearts by Christ's Doctrin which kept lively awake that care as it is at large laid open in Sure-Footing and then compare it with Descanting upon Scripture's Letter by Human Skills which is the Ground of the Protestants Faith as contra-distinguish't from ours or rather of their Dissent or negative Tenets and show those Grounds preponderating ours and then his Reader will have some encouragement to heed his Dissuasive otherwise he can have none Sixth Way 10. A Sixth way is to demand of his Lp. if he will undertake the pretended Evidences he produces whether Reasons or Citations have not also been pretended at least to be answered by Learned men on our side and that the Indifferent part of the world have judg'd the Catholicks were so evidently concluded against by the Protestants that they were not able in reason to reply However he ought to have alledg'd that in the Evidences he brings the Protestants have had the last Reply that so at least there may be some sleight conjectural likelihood they were Unanswerable or Convictive This I say seems in reason fit to have been voucht and as Natural Method requires it plac't at the very Entrance of his Book so to give the Reader some faint hopes his perusing it might be perhaps to some purpose What does my L. of Downs He professes at the very beginning of his Introduction the direct contrary For he confesses there that the Evidences on both sides in questions of difference between our Churches have been so often produc't c. It will seem almost impossible to produce any new matter or if we could observe how unlikely he makes it he should conclude any thing it will not be probable that what can be newly alledg'd can prevail more than all which already hath been so often urg'd in these Questions He should after the words so often urg'd have added and never answer'd otherwise the often urging signifies nothing as to Convictiveness Yet careless of this he proceeds But we are not deterred from doing our duty by any such considerations as knowing that the same medicaments c. Which waving the pious Rhetorick to any Understanding man signifies directly as much as if he should profess I am resolv'd to write a Book against the Papists whatever comes onit or whether it be to purpose or
himself often alledges that very thing which should clear the Church and and makes use of it to her farther disgrace First making the School and Church Private Opinions or Explications and Faith all one and at next that the difference amongst such Opiners and Explicaters argues our difference in Faith How strange a malice is this Was there ever any time since the Apostles in which there were not in the Church diverse persons and even some Governours bad in their lives and also Erroneous in their Opinions when the Abstractedness of Christian Faith restrain'd not their Understandings from descending to particulars nor secur'd them in such discourses depending much upon human Sciences Do not the best Champions of Protestants object to the Ancient Fathers themselves such Errors in Opinions Yet no ancient Heretick was ever so weak as to make that an Argument against the Church of those times Did not many Protestant Writers holdmany Roman-Catholick Tenets as may be seen at large in the Protestants Apology Yet no Catholick in his Wits thought therefore the Church of England her self was Roman-Catholick I have heard that one of their Chief Ecclesiastical Officers namely Bishop Bilson writ a book purposely to justify the Hollanders Rebellion against the King of Spain maintaining that Subjects might in some Cases rise against their Soveraigns and turn them out of their Government And yet Catholicks are far from that peevishness to esteem the Protestants disloyal in their Principles but honour them highly for the contrary Virtue even though they are pleased to permit us their Fellow-sufferers for the same loyal Cause to be abused and branded publickly for Traytors by every disloyal Scribbler And to come neerer home did not my L. himself formerly write some strange Opinions I need not name them yet no Catholick was ever so absurd as to charge his Church with those Tenets But which is yet far worse he imputes to the Catholick Church such licentious Cases which not onely Private Authours may and do freely contradict but even Mulritudes of Church-Officers namely almost all the Bishops in France in Diocesan Synods nay the Head of the Church himself has disapproov'd in condemning the Apology writ for them Yet for all this all must be our Churches fault whether she will or no and our Doctrin though she condemns it Was ever such a disingenuous Writer heard of But what aggravates most the Case is neither the Church of England nor the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury nor any Officer or Bishop of hers that we heard of did ever in any solemn Act blemish those Authours cited in the Protestants Apology by condemning their Books nor yet those writ by the Dissuader though they judg'd them amiss but on the contrary his person is advanc't and chosen for their Champion and yet our Writers are soberer more candid than to impute to their Church any of these not-yet-disavow'd Faults whereas my Ld. for want of better Proofs will needs clap upon our Church any misreasonings of private men though our chief Church Governour and many Inferiour ones have discountenanc't and blemish't them Nor is it onely every defect human nature is liable to in reasoning or acting which must be made our Churches Crimes but every unfavorable Circumstance Man's Nature can light into and their defective Effects are all made by the Dissuader's Logick to spring from meer Popery nay the very National Rudeness of his wild Irish is in his Preface confounded by his carriage with our Churches Doctrin and the Inability of their Teachers with much Rhetorick complained of and charactered to be Popery when himself enjoyes the revenue which should educate them better and encourage them Against this kind of unreasonable procedure in the Dissuader I levelled those Corollaries from Corol. 31. to 40. which I intreat my Reader to review and him to consider particularly In the mean time I would ask him on this occasion a few short Questions May not any one remain a Catholick and never hold or practice these Cases and Opinions Do not Catholicks impugn them as much as Protestants Does he find any of those Opinions or Cases in our Catechisms or any Command of our Church to hold or act them nay even in that most common point of extending Indulgences to the next world but they who will use them may who will not need not How then does he hope to dissuade from Catholick Religion by impugning that which touches not that Religion nor concerns any ones being of it And why does not he rather fear all sober men will see his aym by this declamatory kind of Opposition to endeavour to gain credit as a great Anti-papist and not to convince solidly his Readers whose experience if they know any thing enables them to give a ready and satisfactory answer in their own thoughts to all those Questions I have now ask't and so to confute neer three parts of His Book He saw it himself and though he carries it on all along as if he were willing all should be thought the Doctrin of our Church or Faith yet fearing the Calumny is too manifest to be cloak't he provides excuses and Evasions before hand in his Title p. 127. saying The Church of Rome AS IT IS AT THIS DAY DISORDER'D teaches doctrines and uses practices which are in themselves or in their immediate CONSEQUENCES direct Impieties c. So that he speaks of our Church precisely as having some disorders in her and that they lead to ill onely by Consequences drawn from such disorderly Tenets and who 's the drawer of these Consequences Himself But grant his position that there are Disorders in the Church I mean not in Faith held Universally and obligatorily but in unobligatory Opinions and Practices I ask does he think there was ever any time in which there were not some Disorders in the Church or ever will be while Original corruption lasts Does he 〈◊〉 the very time of the Apostles was exempt from such frailty or that S. Paul complain'd for nothing of the Pastors in those primitive and purest times Phil. 2. v. 21. that Omnes quae sua sunt quaerunt non quae sunt Jesu Christi Again thinks he it any wonder that a disorder'd Tenet or a Falshood in a point belonging to manners is apt to lead by consequence to ill actions none doubting but that as Virtue is the connatural Effect of Truth so is Vice of Falshood What hath he got then by this kind of Proceeding taking up better half his book Onely this he hath proov'd there is Original Sin in the world and so it's Effects Ignorance and Interest Again let him consider how disputative an Age this last Century has been and what infinit multitudes of Writers concerning Opinionative Points of all sorts have been in our Church how voluminous how descending to particulars or Cases and this both in School-divinity Morals and Canon-Law and then let him speak seriously whether he can conceive it possible in human Nature there should not
the Spanish Master was at who hiring a proud Servant and agreeing with him that he should do nothing but what was concluded between them and writ down a while after falling in the dirt under his horse and calling to his man to help him out he told him he would first consult his written Paper whether that were put down there or no where not finding it he let his Master ly But the case of Pope Clement is far from the Envy he would asperse it with for why may not the Pope dissolve the Templars by his Power without Law whereas Christian Princes and the Church universally complain'd of them and mov'd him to it and so their Consent went accompany'd with this action of their Chief Governour 25. He hath onely two passages in that whole Chapter which even seem to concern our Church One of the Council of Trent concerning a point of Practice put down by him thus p. 266 267. That if a man have promist to a woman to marry her and is betroth'd to her and hath sworn it yet if he will before the Consunimation enter into a Monastery his Oath shall not bind him his promise is null but his second promise that shall stand and he that denies this is accurst by the Council of Trent Thus my Ld. where he tautologizes and layes it out at large to amplify it the more adds the words hath sworn it not found in the Council but put in by himself because he was resolvd we should be Perjur'd and avoids as was his frequent custome to put down the Councils own words in a distinct Letter so that his additions may be safer and in more hope to escape too open shame But to the point I ask my Ld. as a Divine Does not he hold Heaven our last End consequently that all our Actions are to be steps towards it consequently that there can be no ty to embrace any state of life in case it appear upon mature consideration of circumstances highly unapt and dangerous to the attainment of Bliss I ask again would not my Ld. himself renounce actually living with a wife if he in his conscience judg'd so but keep his promise let his Salvation go whether it would If he sees this plainly then the difficulty consists not in breaking a promise made to a Temporal end subordinate to our spiritual Last End for our Last Ends sake but in this whether such a Case can be put I propose him one may not a man come to see by better knowledge of his Spouses humour her newly-discover'd dishonesty the Inconveniences he shall incur by her ill-condition'd Friends and many such like that such a Cohabitation tends to make his whole Life a hell upon Earth which case is very possible and sometimes happens to the eternal and temporal ruin of both parties and the Infinit Scandal to the World In this case does he not think in his conscience it had been better in all respects they had been parted ere Matrimony had been consummated If then the man or woman to redeem their rashness in so lightly promising chose to debar themselves from all future hopes of marriage and quite forsake the world to serve God in a Religious Life it at once clears the reality of the Inconvenience and the persons Intentions and satisfies Temporal expectations nay ennobles in the conceit of good Christians the Attempt by the knowledge as far as any human Action can give of any Intention that the person had no base End in his Action but that which is infinitly Best Oh but this will break all Contracts Leagues Vows c. Let not my Ld. fear there is too much Original sin in the world for very many to run rather to a severe Life in a Monastery and there to make vows of Chastity than to go to bed with their Brides By this may be judg'd how my Ld. jumbles some good Cases with other bad ones and makes all equally naught did my designe of an Appendix give me leave to trace him through them all 26. His next passage seeming to touch our Church is alledg'd p. 265. Thus it is affirm'd and was practic 't by a whole Council of Bishops at Constance that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks c. This is something now being the Affirmation I suppose he means or would be thought to mean definition and Practice of an approv'd General Council Attend now Reader for here the Dissuader once or twice at least in a whole Chapter ayms to speak to the purpose But first what a favour is this of my Lds. not to put down the words of the Council where it affirms this For this had made the case plain and the fault unavoidable Next which is yet a greater kindness he not so much as cites the place in which this Affirmation is found and to disabuse the Reader I assure him faithfully there is no such place or words found in the Council To say that Safe Conduct given by Lay men absolv'd from the Secular Court but not from the Ecclesiastical is quite another thing from his Invidious Proposition and withal very Rational For why should it since both their Cauies and Laws are distinct Whereas to violate Faith given and upon this score because the party to whom I gave it is an Heretick which my Ld. falsely charges is most unmanly nay Diabolical Yet though it lay in the Churches power to proceed Juridically her way yet it lay in the Emperours to hinder or differ the Execution if any publick Concern made it prudent But what I stand upon with leave of others is that no safe Conduct was promist them to return but onely to appear and have a fair trial My reason is because in the Safe Conduct given by the Council to Hierom and we may with reason conceive it was equivalently given to both we find it given with this conditional clause Justice being still preserv'd Also Appear according to the tenor of thy foresaid writing to answer to those things which one or more will object to thee in the cause of Faith that thou mayst receive and perform in all things the accomplishment of Justice Which implies that he was to expect Justice from the Council if he clear'd not himself Again a disciple of Husse's who writ his tryal and death and professes himself as much verst in the particulars as his senses could make him complaines indeed of safe conduct given by Sigismund in Writing of coming and returning yet putting down the very form of Safe Conduct no such thing as returning is found in it Nor did Hus in all his defence complain of Safe Conduct violated except when he was first bound which was upon occasion of his flying and being brought back Nay the Emperour alwayes threatned Hus that he had rather burn an obstinate Heretick than defend him In a word all this clamour is built on the Testimony of the Hussites and an imperfect relation writ in Dutch by an unlearned
I can justifie my self I complain then that your carriage in this one page discovers you at once an absolute stranger to Science and withal very uncivilly Injurious to me all along without any imaginable need Ground or the least occasion given You begin with a mistake of the reason why the Rational Way explained in Rushworth's Dialogues was follow'd by me in Schism Dispatcht or rather why that way was devised and conceive 't is because we despair of maintaining the Popes Personal Infallibility and think all your own if you disprove this So that you strongly apprehend this the basis of all our Faith By which I see Opinion and Faith is all one with you Deceive not your self nor your Readers Sir our D râ— came and do dispute against personal Infallibilities far more strongly than you are even likely and if you please to look into our Councils you find no news of building Faith on any such ground but onely on Tradition The Way I take is the old-and-ever-Way of the Church the farther Explication of it is indeed new not occasion'd by our relinquishing Personal Infallibility of the Pope you shall never show the Church ever built her Faith on a disputable Ground but by this occasion Had you look't into Things and consider'd the progress of the Rational part of the world as well as you pore on Books you would have discern'd that the Wits of this last half Century have been strangely curious and Inquisitive and straining towards a Satisfaction apt to bring all into doubt which they conceiv'd to hinder their way to it Had you reflected on those Heroes of such Attempts the Noble and Learned Sr. Kenelm Digby des Caries Gassendus Harvey and now the Royal Society those living Libraries of Learning in their several wayes you would have found that parallel to them in the matter of Controversy were the Ld. Faukland and Mr. Chillingworth whose acute wits sinding no Establishment nor Satisfaction in the Resolution of our Faith as made by some particular Divines nor yet in the Grounds of the Protestant Beleef endeavour'd to shake the whole Fabrick of our Faith and allow but a handsome Probability to their own Whence Doubt and Inquisitiveness being the Parents of Satisfaction and Evidence Catholick Controvertists began to apply themselves more closely and regardfully to look into the Groundâ— of their Faith Tradition or Universal delivery seâ—tled from the beginning of the Church proceeded upon by Councils and all the Faithful insisted on and stuck to by the Fathers especially those who were most Controversial as Athanasius S. Augustin Tertullian S. Hierome c. and at large by Vincentius Lirinensis and to consider how Proper Causes lay'd in Things by the Course of God's Providence had the virtue to produce the Effect of deriving down with Infallible Certainty Christ's doctrin to us Hence sprung our farther Explication of this way which so much bewonders you This is your mistake now to your Injuries I quoted Rushworth's Dialogues and call'd it The rich Store-house of motives fortifying Tradition Upon this your Reason works thus This I do not understand I never heard of such an Authour and it is possible the better to cry himself up he might borrow another name What means This I do not understand I 'le acquaint the Reader It means you are so wedded to talk by the book that you are utterly at a loss if an Authour be quoted you have not heard of The reason of which is because as I see by your Discourses which look like so many dreams your Genius inclines you not much to trade in Books which pretend to the way of Reason and if Schism Dispatch't so amaz'd you 't is to be fear'd that Sure-Footing and its Corollaries may put you out of your wirts But with what Civility should you hint I so extoll'd my self under another name it being as you say but possible Should I put upon you all things that were possible what a Monster might I make you But it abundantly manifests your short reach of reason that 't is highly Improbable For either I must have discover'd my self to the world to be Authour of both books and then I had sham'd my self with so high self-praises or not have manifested it and then where 's the credit I had got by the other book I had so extoll'd Your next Injury is that I make nothing of and disclaim the Testimonies of Popes and Prelates calling them the words of a few particular men and cite for it Schism Dispatch't p. 98. where there is not one word of either Pope or Prelate nor of disclaiming any Testimony nor of calling those the bare words of a few particular men Now if this be so every word you charge against me is an injurious Calumny and your whole charge a direct Falsisication My words are these By this is shown in what we place the Infallbility of the CHURCH not in the bare words of few particular men but in the manifest and ample Attestation of such a Multitude c. Where though you cannot or will not yet the Reader if he understands plain English will see I meddle not with who is or is not Infallible besides the Church nor sean the validity of Testimonies of Popes or Prelates but treat in what the Infallibility of the CHURCH consists Now the word CHURCH denothing in its First Signification an Universality I place her Infallibility in Universal Attestation from Age to Age. Notwithstanding which my Corollaries in Sure-Footing if your Wonderment at my new Way or your own habituation to words will let you understand them will let you see I also place Infallibility in lesser Councils even in particular Sees but most in the Popes or the Roman not by way of an Afflatus of which I for my part an able to give no account but by a course of Things Natural and Supernatural laid by Gods sweetly-and-strongly ordering Providence in second Causes But what aggravates your Falsification is that whereas I there counterpose bare words and Attestation rejecting the first and making use of the later you make me affirm Testimonies to be bare words To which how much I attribute every such passage of mine will tell you for on them the way I follow entirely builds So that this whole Charge is either quite opposit or else disparate to what I say in the place whence you cite my words Your third Injury and 't is a strange one is that I sleight Scriptures Fathers and Councils as much in this business and call them in scorn Wordish Testimonies for which you cite Schism Dispatch't p. 42. But not such a word is found there nor I will undertake any where else in my Writings 'T is likely indeed that speaking of such things as you use to call Testimonies for you name every sleight Citation such whether it have the nature of Witnessing in it that is be built on Sensations or no I may say they are wordish in regard you have no