requiring men upon only probable and Prudential motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do 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 scorn 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 fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your Calumnies against Protestants in general are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one Error which may well be termed the Capital and Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their Heresie in affirming that the perpetual 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 publick Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse and talk not here of holy Scripture for if the true Church may err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private Spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else epon natural wit and judgment for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of Gods Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by Divine Inspiration or that all the Contents are infallibly true which are the direct Errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his Soul would live or die in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholicks while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but jointly he must be left to his own wit and ways and must abandon all infused Faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which Discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that the denyal of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-heresie from which all other must follow at ease which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denialaof the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one Error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The Doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Popes Infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur it a facis Sir Why do you thus but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume he deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up himself In as much as he that requires that his Interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his Interpretations should be the Laws and he that is firmly prepared in mind to believe and receive all such Interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgment they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeys only the Interpreter As if I should submit to the Laws of the King of England but should indeed resolve to obey them in that sence which the King of France should put upon them whatsoever it were I presume every understanding man would say that I did indeed obey the King of France and not the King of England If I should pretend to believe the Bible but that I would understand it accordingly to the sense which the chief Mufty should put upon it who would not say that I were a Christian in pretence only but indeed a Mahumetan 11. Nor will it be to purpose for you to pretend that the precepts of Christ are so plain that it cannot be feared that any Pope should ever go about to dissolve them and pretend to be a Christian For not to say that you now pretend the contrary to wit that the Law of Christ is obscure even in things necessary to be believed and done and by saying so have made a fair way for any foul interpretation of any part of it certainly that which the Church of Rome hath already done in this kind is an evident argument that if she once had this Power unquestioned and made expedite and ready for use by being contracted to the Pope she may do what she pleaseth with it Who that had lived in the Primative Church would not have thought it as utterly improbable
Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an Universal 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 damn all to the Fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful 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 lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness 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 Books 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 madness 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 damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily persuade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than 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 fair 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 confess 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 powerful 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 six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not Usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams 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 Temporalities of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolick 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 and some things which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and 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 and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgment of those that have Wisdom and Experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far 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 knowledg 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 Judge 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 Judge and not the Scripture 103. To this I answer As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Judge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Judge otherwise you might make your self Judge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Judge 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 Sopistry 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 infer in the end which indeed was more than you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Judge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still run upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Judge 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 Judge of Controversies that they have the Authority of Fathers to warrant their manner of speaking as of * Contra Parmen l. 5. in Prin. Optatus 104. But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Judge 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 do what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intellible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether they be learned or unlearned And my reason hereof is convincing and demonstrative because nothing is necessary to be believed
and most Royal Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrin wherewith I have adorn'd and arm'd the Frontispiece of my Book which was so earnestly recommended by your Royal Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth and Peace that is to all that were like himself as the only hopeful means of healing the breaches of Christendom whereof the Enemy of souls makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrin I have here endeavoured to uncloud and unveil and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been rais'd to obscure it by that Order which envenoms even poison it self and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and turbulent than otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrin obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther than it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Majesty be considered either as a pious Son towards your Royal Father K. James or as a tender hearted and compassionate Son towards your distressed Mother the Catholick Church or as a King of your Subjects or as a Servant unto Christ this work to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to do you service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a Defence of that whole Church and Religion you profess it could not be so proper to any Patron as to the great Defender of it which stile Your Majesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foul aspersions both of Domestick and Forein enemies of which they can have no ground but their own malice and want of Charity But it 's an argument of a despairing and lost cause to support it self with these impetuous outcries and clamors the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O damn'd villain when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodness should damn to eternal torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their damning us and our not being so peremptory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse them would be lost and therefore they are engaged to act on this Tragical part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we do little children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truly that herein they do but act a part and know themselves to do so and deal with us here as they do with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Eccommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of S. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinks their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us and damn us all without mercy or exception yet sometimes to serve other purposes they can be content to speak to us in a milder strain and tell us as my adversary does more than once That they allow Protestants as much Charity as Protestants allow them Neither is this the only contradiction which I have discovered in this uncharitable Work but have shewed that by forgetting himself and retracting most of the principal grounds he builds upon he hath saved me the labour of a confutation which yet I have not in any place found any such labour or difficulty but that it was undertakeable by a man of very mean that is of my abilities And the reason is because it is Truth I plead for which is so strong an argument for it self that it needs only light to discover it whereas it concerns Falshood and Error to use disguises and shadowings and all the fetches of Art and Sophistry and therefore it stands in need of abler men to give that a colour at least which hath no real body to subsist by If my endeavors in this kind may contribute any thing to this discovery and the making plain that Truth which my Charity perswades me the most part of them disaffect only because it has not been well represented to them I have the fruit of my labour and my wish who desire to live to no other end than to do service to Gods Church and Your most Sacred Majesty in the quality of Your Majesties most faithful Subject and most humble and devoted Servant WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH THE PREFACE TO THE AUTHOR OF Charity Maintained With an Answer to his Direction to N. N. SIR UPON the first news of the publication of your Book I used all diligence with speed to procure it and came with such a mind to the reading of it as S. Austin before he was a setled Catholick brought to his conference with Faustus the Manichee For as he thought that if any thing more then ordinary might be said in defence of the Manichean Doctrine Faustus was the man from whom it was to be expected So my persuasion concerning you was Si Pergama dextrâ defendi possunt certè hac defensa videbo If Troy by any Power could stand 'T would be defended by your hand 1. For I conceived that among the Champions of the Roman Church the English in Reason must be the best or equal to the best as being by most expert Masters trained up purposely for this war and perpetually practised in it Among the English I saw the Jesuits would yield the first place to none and Men so wise in their generation as the Jesuits were if they had any Achilles among them I presumed would make choice of him for this service And besides I had good assurance that in the framing of this building though you were the only Architect yet you wanted not the assistance of many diligent hands to bring you in choice materials towards it nor of many careful and watchful eyes to correct the errors of your work if any should chance to escape you Great reason therefore had I to expect great matters from you and that your Book should have in it the Spirit and Elixir of all that can be said in defence of your Church and Doctrin and to assure my self that if my resolution not to believe it were not built upon the rock of evident grounds and reasons but only upon some sandy and deceitful appearances now the Wind and Storm and Floods were coming which would undoubtedly overthrow it 2. Neither truly were you more willing to effect such an alteration in me than I was to have it effected For my desire is to go the right way to Eternal
that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular Man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says that the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. C. M. proceeds and tells us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith If they have and so cannot Err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone C. H. And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the Doctrine of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to Err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot Err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chooser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches decrees which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Error obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not Erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this methinks should be no impediment but that we may have certainmeans of not Erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me how I can be sure that I know the true â—â—aning of these places I ask you again can you be 〈◊〉 that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles Preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do if not to what end did they hear them If they could why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledg of your Church If you do not how know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the Notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these Notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot Err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if whosoever had a Horse must presently get up and Ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the Priviledge of not being in possibility of Erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly Err how can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your Eye-sight may deceive you how can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they Dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid Error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground that it is all one to have means of avoiding Error and to be in no danger nor possibility of Error You infer upon us as an absurd conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be
4.11 he hath given Pastors and Doctors c. lest we should be carried about with every wind of Doctrine To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called l 1 Tim. 3.15 The House of God a Pillar and ground of Truth and seeing of any particular Church it is written m Mat. 18.17 He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or a Publican We might refer it to any man that prays for Gods Spirit for it is written n Mat. 7.8 Every one that asketh receiveth and again o Jam. 1.5 If any man want Wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might refer it to the Jews for without all doubt of them it is written p Isai 59.21 my Spirit that is in thee c. All these means of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture d Mat. 18.20 as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a sudden to me happily many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised means to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say these would fail us and contradict themselves so as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councils against Councils Councils confirmed by Popes against Councils confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9. Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in points not Fundamental I desire you tell me whether they do so or do not so If they do so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they do not so but in points Fundamental also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more than to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10. But they are convinced sometime even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may nevertheless be saved because those Errors were not Fundamental And may not you also be convinced by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Do not your Purging Indexes clip the Tongues and seal up the Lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And do not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with Errors and yet say they were saved Now what else do we understand by an unfundamental Error but such a one with which a man may possibly be saved So that still you proceed in condemning others for your own faults and urging arguments against us which return more strongly upon your selves 11. But your will is we should remember that Christ must alwaies have a visible Church Answ Your pleasure shall be obeyed on condition you will not forget that there is a difference between perpetual Visibility and perpetual Purity As for the answer which you make for us true it is we believe the Catholick Church cannot perish yet that she may and did Err in points not Fundamental and that Protestants were obliged to forsake these Errors of the Church as they did though not the Church for her Errors for that they did not but continued still members of the Church For it is not all one though you perpetually confound them to forsake the Errors of the Church and to forsake the Church or to forsake the Church in her Errors and simply to forsake the Church No more than it is for me to renounce my Brothers or my Friends Vices or Errors and to renounce my Brother or my Friend The former then was done by Protestants the latter was not done Nay not only not from the Catholick but not so much as from the Roman did they separate per omnia but only in those practices which they conceived superstitious or impious If you would at this time propose a form of Liturgy which both Sides hold lawful and then they would not joyn with you in this Liturgy you might have some colour then to say they renounce your communion absolutely But as things are now ordered they cannot joyn with you in prayers but they must partake with you in unlawful practices and for this reason they not absolutely but thus far separate from your communion And this I say they were obliged to do under pain of damnation Not as if it were damnable to hold an Error not damnable but because it is damnable outwardly to profess and maintain it and to joyn with others in the practice of it when inwardly they did not hold it Now had they continued in your communion that they must have done vid. have professed to believe and externally practised your Errors whereof they were convinced that they were Errors which though the matters of the Errors had been not necessary but only profitable whether it had not been damnable dissimulation and Hypocrisie I leave it to you to Judge You your self tell us within two pages after this that you are obliged never to speak any one least lie against your knowledge § 2. now what is this but to live in a perpetual lie 12. As for that which in the next place you seem so to wonder at That both Catholicks and Protestants according to the opinion of Protestants may be saved in their several professions because forsooth we both agree in all Fundamental points I Answer this proposition so crudely set down as you have here set it down I know no Protestant will justifie For you seem to make them teach that it is an indifferent thing for the attainment of Salvation whether a man believe the Truth or the Falshood and that they care not in whether of these Religions a man live or die so he die in either of them whereas all that they say is this That those amongst you which want means to find the Truth and so die in Error or use the best means they can with industry and without partiality to find the Truth and yet die in Error these men thus qualified notwithstanding these Errors may be saved Secondly for those that have means to find the Truth and will not use them they conceive though their case be dangerous yet if they die with a general repentance for all their sins known and unknown their Salvation is not desperate The Truths which they hold of Faith in Christ and Repentance being as it were an Antidote against their Errors and their negligence in seeking the Truth Especially seeing by confession of
station unto the very end of their lives which is mans for ever Neither is this use of the word for ever any thing strange either in our ordinary speech wherein we use to say this is mine for ever this shall be yours for ever without ever dreaming of the Eternity either of the thing or Persons And then in Scripture it not only will bear but requires this sense very frequently as Exod. 21.6 Deut. 15.17 his Master shall bore his Ear through with an Awl and he shall serve him for ever Psal 52.9 I will praise thee for ever Psal 61.4 I will abide in thy Tahernacle for ever Psal 119.111 Thy Testimonies have I taken as mine Heritage for ever and lastly in the Epistle to Philemon He therefore departed from thee for a time that thou shouldest receive him for ever 75. And thus I presume I have shewed sufficiently that this for ever hinders not but that the promise may be appropriated to the Apostles as by many other circumstances I have evinced it must be But what now if the place produced by you as a main pillar of your Churches Infallibility prove upon Tryal an Engine to batter and overthrow it at least which is all one to my purpose to take away all possibility of our assurance of it This will seem strange news to you at first hearing and not far from a prodigy And I confess as you here in this place and generally all your Writers of Controversie by whom this Text is urged order the matter it is very much disabled to do any service against you in this question For with a bold sacriledg and horrible impiety somewhat like Procrustes his cruelty you perpetually cut off the Head and Foot the beginning and end of it and presenting to your confidents who usually read no more of the Bible than is alledged by you only these words I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth conceal in the mean time the words before and the words after that so the promise of Gods Spirit may seem to be absolute whereas it is indeed most clearly and expresly conditional being both in the words before restrained to those only that love God and keep his commandments and in the words after flatly denied to all whom the Scriptures stile by the name of the World that is as the very Antithesis give us plainly to understand to all wicked and worldly men Behold the place entire as it is set down in your own Bible If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of the Truth whom the. World cannot receive Now from the place there restored and vindicated from your mutilation thus I argue against your pretence We can have no certainty of the Infallibility of your Church but upon this suposition that your Popes are infallible in confirming the Decrees of General Councils we can have no certainty hereof but upon this supposition that the Spirit of truth is promised to him for his direction in this work And of this again we can have no certainty but upon supposal that he performs the condition whereunto the promise of the Spirit of truth is expresly limited viz. That he love God and keep his Commandments and of this finally not knowing the Popes Heart we can have no certainty at all therefore from the first to the last we can have no certainty at all of your Churches Infallibibility This is my first Argument From this place another follows which will charge you as home as the former If many of the Roman See were such men as could not receive the Spirit of Truth even men of the World that is Worldly Wicked Carnal Diabolical men then the Spirit of Truth is not here promised but flatly denied them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees of Councils which these Popes confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which is guided by these Decrees But many of the Roman See even by the confession of the most zealous Defenders of it were such men therefore the Spirit of truth is not here promised but denyed them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees which they confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which guides her self by these Decrees 76. You may take as much time as you think fit to answer these Arguments In the mean while I proceed to the consideration of the next Text alledged for this purpose by you out of S. Paul 1. Epistle to Timothy cap. 3.15 where he saith as you say the Church is the Pillar and ground of truth But the truth is you are somewhat to bold with S. Paul For he says not in formal terms what you make him say the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth neither is it certain that he means so for it is neither impessible nor improbable that the words the Pillar and Gonnd of truth may have reference not to the Church but to Timothy the sense of the place that thou maiest know how to behave thy self as a Pillar and ground of truth in the Church of God which is the house of the living God which exposition offers no violence at all to the words but only supposes an Ellipsis of the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek very ordinary Neither wants it some likelihood that S. Paul comparing the Church to a House should here exhort Timothy to carry himself as a Pillar in that House should do according as he had given other Principal men in the Church the name of Pillars rather than having called the Church a House to call it presently a Pillar which may seem somewhat heterogeneous Yet if you will needs have S. Paul refer this not to Timothy but the Church I will not contend about it any farther than to say possibly it may be otherwise But then secondly I am to put you in mind that the Church which S. Paul here speaks of was that in which Timothy conversed and that was a Particular Church and not the Roman and such you will not have to be Universally Infallible 77. Thirdly if we grant you out of Courtesie for nothing can enforce us to it that he both speaks of the Universal Church and says this of it then I am to remember you that many Attributes in Scripture are not Notes of Performance but of Duty and teach us not what the thing or Person is of necessity but what it should be Ye are the Salt of the Earth said our Saviour to his Disciples not that this quality was inseparable from their Persons but because it was their Office to be so For if they must have been so of necessity and could not have been otherwise in vain had he put them in fear of that which follows If the Salt hath lost his
cleanse themselves and yet continue parts of the Body And what reason then in the World is there if the whole visible Church were overcome with Tares and Weeds of superstitions and corruptions but that some members of it might reform themselves and yet continue still true members of the Body of the Church and not be made no members but the better by their Reformation 50. We acknowledge that we cannot as matters now stand Separate from your corruptions but we must depart from your External Communion For you have so ordered things that whosoever will Communicate with you at all must Communicate with you in your corruptions But it is you that will not perceive the difference between being a part of the Church and being in external Communion with all the other parts of it taking for granted that which is certainly false that no two men or Churches divided in external Communion can be both true parts of the Catholick Church 51. We are not to learn the difference between Schism and Heresie for Heresie we conceive an obstinate defence of any Error against any necessary Article of the Christian Faith And Schism a causless separation of one part of the Church from another But this we say That if we convince you of Errors and corruptions professed and practised in your Communion then we cannot be Schismaticks for refusing to joyn with you in the profession of these Errors and the practice of these corruptions And therefore you must free your selves from Error or us from Schism 52. Lastly whereas you say That you have demonstrated against us that Protestants divided themselves from the external Communion of the Visible Church add which external communion was corrupted and we shall confess the accusation and glory in it But this is not that Quod erat demonstrandum but that we divided our selves from the Church that is made our selves Out-laws from it and no members of it And moreover in the Reason of your separation from the external Communion of your Church you are mistaken for it was not so much because she your Church as because your Churches external Communion was corrupted and needed Reformation 53. That a pretence of Reformation will acquit no man from Schism we grant very willingly and therefore say that it concerns every man who separates from any Churches Communion even as much as his Salvation is worth to look most carefully to it that the cause of his separation be just and necessary For unless it be necessary it can very hardly be sufficient But whether a true Reformation of our selves from Errors superstitions and impieties will not justifie our separation in these things our separation I say from them who will not reform themselves and as much as in them lies hinder others from doing so This is the point you should have spoken to but have not As for the sentences of the Fathers to which you refer us for the determination of this Question I suppose by what I have said above the Reader understands by alledging them you have gained little credit to your cause or person And that if they were competent Judges of this Controversie their sentence is against you much rather than for you 56. But your Argument you conceive will be more convincing if we consider that when Luther appeared there were not two distinct Visible true Churches one Pure the other Corrupted but one Church only Ans The ground of this is no way certain nor here sufficiently proved For whereas you say Histories are silent of any such matter I answer there is no necessity that you or I should have read all Histories that may be extant of this matter nor that all should be extant that were written much less extant uncorrupted especially considering your Church which had latly all power in her hands hath been so pernitiously industrious in corrupting the monuments of Antiquity that made against her nor that all Records should remain which were written nor that all should be recorded which was done Lastly whereas you say that supposing a visible pure Church Luther must be a Schismatick who separated from all visible Churches I tell you if you will suppose a Visible Church extant before and when Luther arose conformable to him in all points of Doctrine necessary and profitable then Luther separated not from this Church but adjoyned himself to it Not indeed in place which was not necessary not in external Communion which was impossible but by the Union of Faith and Charity Upon these grounds I say that the ground of this Argument is no way made certain yet because it is not manifestly false I am content to let it pass And for ought I see it is very safe for me to do so for you build nothing upon it which I may not fairly grant For what do you conclude from hence but that seeing there was no Visible Church but corrupted Luther forsaking the external Communion of the corrupted Church could not but forsake the external Communion of the Catholick Church Well let this also be granted what will come of it What that Luther must be a Schismatick By no means For not every separation but only a causeless separation from the Communion of the Church we maintain to be Schismatical Hereunto may be added that though the whole Church were corrupted yet properly speaking it is not true that Luther and his Followers forsook the whole corrupted Church or the external Communion of it But only that he forsook that Part of it which was corrupted and still would be so and forsook not but only reformed another Part which Part they themselves were and I suppose you will not go about to persuade us that they forsook themselves or their own Communion And if you urge that they joyned themselves to no other part therefore they separated from the whole I say it follows not in as much as themselves were a part of it and still continued so and therefore could no more separate from the whole than from themselves Thus though there were no part of the People of Rome to whom the Plebeians joyned themselves when they made their Secession into the Aventine Hill yet they divided themselves from the Patricians only and not from the whole People because themselves were a part of this People and they divided not from themselves 57. Ad § 18. Here you prove that which no man denies that corruption in manners yields no sufficient cause to leave the Church yet sure it yields sufficient cause to cast them out of the Church that are after the Churches publick admonition obstinate in notorious impieties Neither doth the cutting off such men from the Church lay any necessity upon us either to go out of the World or out of the Church but rather puts these men out of the Church into the World where we may converse with them freely without scandal to the Church Our Blessed Saviour foretold you say that there should be in the Church Tares with choice
if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleased to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as Eating Drinking Breathing Moving So though the constant and Universal delivery of any Doctrine by the Apostolick Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens Hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contained in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparent consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advised you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholick Doctrine you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholick For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles Doctrine and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be proved against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwaies as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many Ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a Language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your Picturing of God your worshiping of Pictures 42. Ad § 24. Obj. The true Church must have Universality of place which Protestants wanting cannot avoid the just note of Heresie Answ You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it whether Universality of fact or of right and if of fact whether absolute or comparative and if comparative whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of Heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyned or in comparison only of any one of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of Heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determined unless it first be determined which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the World if you should pretend to all the World would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the Victory from you If you should oppose your selves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you should please your selves with being more than any one Sect of Christians it would presently be replied that it is uncertain whether now you are so but most certain that the time has been when you have not been so Then when the a Hierom. Cont. Luciferianos whole World wondered that it was become Arrian then when Athanasius opposed the World and the World Athanasius then when b In Theodoret. Hist 16. c. l. 2. your Liberius having the contemptible paucity of his adherents objected to him as a note of Error answered for himself There was a time when there were but three opposed the decree of the King and yet those three were in the right and the rest in the wrong then when the Professors of Error surpassed the number of the Professors of truth in proportion as the sands of the Sea do the Stars of the Heaven As c In ep 48. ad Vincentium S. Austin acknowledgeth then when d Commenitorii lib. 1. c. 4. Vincentius confesseth that the Poyson of the Arrians had contaminated not now some certain portion but almost the whole World then when the Author of Nazianzens Life testifies That d In vita Nazianz the Heresie of Arrius had possessed in a manner the whole extent of the World and when Nazianzen found cause to cry out f In Orat. Arian pro seipso Where are they who reproach us with our poverty who define the Church by the multitude and despise the little flock They have the People but we the Faith And lastly when Athanasius was so overborn with Sholes and Floods of Arrians that he was enforced to write a Treatise on purpose g Tom. 2. against those who judge of the truth only by plurality of adherents So that if you had proved want of Univesality even thus restrained to be an infallible note of Heresie there would have been no remedy but you must have confessed that the time was when you were Hereticks And besides I see not how you would have avoided this great inconvenience of laying grounds and storeing up arguments for Antichrist against he comes by which he may prove his Company the true Church For it is evident out of Scripture and confessed by you that though his time be not long his dominion shall be very large and that the true Church shall be then the woman driven into the wilderness 45. Ad § 25.26 You endeavor to prove that the Faith of Protestants is no Faith being destitute of its due qualifications Obj. First you say their belief wanteth certainty because they denying the Universal Infallibility of the Church can have no certain ground to know what Objects are revealed or testified by God Ans But if there be no other ground of certainty but your Churches infallibility upon what certain ground do you know that your Church is infallible Upon what certain ground do you know all those things which must be known before you can know that your Church is infallible As that there is a God that God hath promised his assistance to your Church in all her Decrees that the Scripture wherein this promise is extant is the word of God that those Texts of Scripture which you alledge for your infallibility are incorrupted that that which you
What wisdom was it to forsake a Church acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdom to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to Salvation but accused and convicted of many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledged to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding always the same doctrine and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knows that a little before Luthers arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependence of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and false Church may give authority to preach the Truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a false Church may preserve the Scripture true as now the Old Testament is preserved by the Jews either not being arrived to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we ask your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrine it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependence that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do sometimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant Souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your Scale nothing but Smoak and Wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Seal but those negative commendations which you are pleased to afford them nothing but no Unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers Body no Universality of time or place no visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of Persons or Doctrine no leader but Luther in a quarrel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they received from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turn But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsly made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this Tryal and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alledged for Protestants which is here dissembled then I hope our Cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrine before Luther Luthers being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordinations Scriptures personal and yet not Doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrine and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of Error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your House upon the Sand. And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Hereticks I tell you that though all Hereticks are choosers yet all choosers are not Hereticks otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Hereticks As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion our following private men rather than the Catholick Church the first and last are meer untruths for we want not Unity nor means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the Word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luthers opposing your Church upon meer passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his Heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemn us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some Body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alledged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the Balance Know then Sir that when I say the Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the Doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrine of the
chargeable for forsaking that guide which God has appointed me to follow But what if I forsook it because I thought I had reason to fear it was one of those blind guides which whosoever blindly follows is threatned by our Saviour that both he and his guide shall fall into the Ditch then I hope you will grant it was not pride but Conscience that moved me to do so for as it is wise humility to obey those whom God hath set over me so it is sinful credulity to follow every man or every Church that without warrant will take upon them to guide me shew me then some good and evident title which the Church of Rome has to this office produce but one reason for it which upon trial will not finally be resolved and vanish into uncertainties and if I yield not unto it say if you please I am as proud as Lucifer in the mean time give me leave to think it strange and not far from a Prodigee that this Doctrin of the Roman Churches being the guide of faith if it be true doctrin should either not be known to the four Evangelists or if it were known to them that being wise and good men they should either be so envious of the Churches happiness or so forgetful of the work they took in hand which was to write the Gospel of Christ as that not so much as one of them should mention so much as once this so necessary part of the Gospel without the belief whereof there is no salvation and with the belief whereof unless men be snatcht away by sudden death there is hardly any damnation It is evident they do all of them with one consent speak very plainly of many things of no importance in comparison hereof and is it credible or indeed possible that with one consent or rather conspiracy they should be so deeply silent concerning this unum necessarium You may believe it if you can for my part I cannot unless I see demonstration for it for if you say they send us to the Church and consequently to the Church of Rome this is to suppose that which can never be proved that the Church of Rome is the only Church and without this supposal upon Division of the Church I am as far to seek for a guide of my Faith as ever As for example In that great division of the Church when the whole world wondred saith Saint Hierom that it was become Arrian when Liberius Bishop of Rome as S. Athanasius and S. Hilary testifie subscribed their Heresie and joyned in Communion with them Or in the division between the Greek and the Roman Church about the procession of the Holy Ghost when either side was the Church to it self and each part Heretical and Schismatical to the other what direction could I then an ignorant man have found from that Text of Scripture Unless he hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican or Upon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Again give me leave to wonder that neither S. Paul writing to the Romans should so much as intimate this their priviledge of Infallibility but rather on the contrary put them in fear in the eleventh Chapter that they as well as the Jews were in danger of falling away That Saint Peter the pretended Bishop of Rome writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his departure should not once acquaint the Christians whom he writes to what guide they were to follow after he was taken from them That the writers of the New Testament should so frequently forewarn men of Hereticks false Christs false prophets and not once arm them against them with letting them know this onely sure means of avoiding their danger That so great a part of the New Testament should be imployed about Antichrist and so little or indeed none at all about the Vicar of Christ and the guide of the faithful That our Saviour should leave this onely means for the ending of Controversies and yet speak so obscurely and ambiguously of it that now our Judge is the greatest Controversie and the greatest hinderance of ending them That there should be better evidence in the Scripture to intitle the King to this Office who disclaims it than the Pope who pretends it That S. Peter should not ever exercise over the Apostles any one act of Jurisdiction nor they ever give him any one Title of Authority over them That if the Apostles did know S. Peter was made head over them when our Saviour said Thou art Peter c. they should still contend who should be the first and that our Saviour should never tell them S. Peter was the man That S. Paul should say he was in nothing inferiour to the very chief Apostles That the Catechumenists in the primitive Church should never be taught this foundation of their Faith that the Church of Rome was Guide of their Faith That the Fathers Tertullian S. Hierom and Optatus when they flew highest in commendation of the Roman Church should attribute no more to her than to all other Apostolical Churches That in the Controversie about Easter the Bishops and Churches of Asia should be so ill Catechised as not to know this Principle of Christian Religion The necessity of Conformity in Doctrin with the Church of Rome That they should never be pressed with any such necessity of conformity in all things but onely with the Tradition of the Western Churches in that point That Irenaeus and many other Bishops notwithstanding ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam should not yet think that a necessary Doctrin nor a sufficient ground of Excommunication which the Church of Rome though to be so That S. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk should be so ill instructed in their Faith as not to know this foundation of it That they likewise were never urged with any such necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome nor ever charged with heresie or error for denying it That when Liberius joyned in Communion with the Arrians and subscribed their heresie the Arrians then should not be the Church and the Guide of Faith That never any Hereticks for three Ages after Christ were pressed with this Argument of the Infallibility of the present Church of Rome or charged with denyal of it as a distinct Heresie so that Aeneas Sylvius should have cause to say Ante tempora Concilii Niceni quisque sibi vivebat parvus respectus habebatur ad Ecclesiam Romanam That the Ecclesiastical Story of those times mentions no Acts of Authority of the Church of Rome over other Churches as if there should be a Monarchy and the Kings for some Ages together should exercise no act of Jurisdiction in it That to supply this defect the Decretal Epistles should be so impudently forged which in a manner speak nothing else but Reges Monarchas I mean the Popes making Laws for exercising authority
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
necessary to the Church to be so then it was impossible the Church should acquire this Essence or this property afterwards and therefore impossible it should have it at the time of Luthers rising Necessarium est quod non aliquando inest aliquando non inest alicui inest alicui non inest sed quod semper omni Arist Post Analyt Again every Sophister knows that of Particulars nothing can be concluded and therefore he that will shew that the Church of Rome and the adherents of it was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising He must argue thus It was always so therefore then it was so Now this Antecedent is overthrown by any Instance to the contrary and so the first Antecedent being proved false the first consequent cannot but be false for what Reason can be imagined that the Church of Rome and the Adherents of it was not the whole Catholick Church at S. Cyprians time and was at Luthers rising If you grant as I think you cannot deny that a Church divided from the Communion of the Roman may be still in truth and in Gods account a part of the Catholick which is the thing we speak of then I hope Mr. Lewgars Argument from Unity of Communion is fallen to the ground and it will be no good Plea to say Some one Church not consisting of divers Communions was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising No one Church can be named to be the Catholick Church but the Roman Therefore the Roman Church was the Catholick at Luthers rising For Mr. Lewgar hath not nor cannot prove the Major of this syllogism certainly true but to the contrary I have proved that it cannot be certainly true by shewing divers instances wherein divers divided Communions have made up the Catholick Church and therefore not the dividing of the Communions but the cause and ground of it is to be regarded whether it be just and sufficient or unjust and insufficient Neither is the Bishop or Church of Rome with the Adherents of it an infallible Judge thereof for it is evident both he and it have erred herein divers times which I have evinced already by divers examples which I will not repeat but add to them one confessed by Mr. Lewgar himself in his discourse upon the Article of the Catholick Church pag. 84. S. Athanasius being excommunicated though by the a How by the whole Church when himself was part of it and communicated still with divers other parts of it whole Church yet might remain a member of Christs body not visible for that is impossible b What not to them who know and believe him to be unjustly Excommunicated that a person cut off from visible Communion though unjustly should be a visible member of the Church but by invisible Communion by reason of the invalidity of the sentence which being unjust is valid enough to visible excision but not farther II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it THE Condition of Communion with the Church of Rome without the performance whereof no man can be received into it is this That he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever that Church requires him to believe It is impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless that thing be either evident of it self as that twice two are four that every whole is greater than a part of it self or unless he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible guide for his belief thereof The Doctrins which the Church of Rome requireth to be believed are not evident of themselves for then every one would grant them at first hearing without any further proof He therefore that will believe them must have some certain and infallible ground whereupon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome Now this point of that Churches Infallibility is not evident of it self for then no man could chuse but in his heart believe it without farther proof Secondly it were in vain to bring any proof of it as vain as to light a Candle to shew men the Sun Thirdly it were impossible to bring any proof of it seeing nothing can be more evident than that which of it self is evident and nothing can be brought in proof of any thing which is not more evident than that matter to be proved But now experience teacheth that millions there are which have heard talk of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and yet do not believe that the defenders of it do not think it either vain or impossible to go about to prove it and from hence it follows plainly that this point is not evident of it self Neither is there any other certain ground for any mans belief of it or if there be I desire it may be produced as who am ready and most willing to submit my judgment to it fully perswaded that none can be produced that will endure a severe and impartial examination If it be said The Roman Church is to be believed infallible because the Scripture says it is so 1. I demand how shall I be assured of the Texts that be alledged that they are indeed Scripture that is the Word of God And the answer to this must be either because the Church tells me so or some other if any other be given then all is not finally resolved into and built upon that Churches Authority and this answer then I hope a Protestant may have leave to make use of when he is put to that perillous Question How know you the Scripture to be the Scripture If the answer be because the Church tells me so my reply is ready that to believe that Church is infallible because the Scriptures say so and that the Scripture is the word of God because the same Church says so is nothing else but to believe the Church is infallible because the Church says so which is infallible 2. I could never yet from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse find it written so much as once in express terms or equivalently that the Church in subordination to the Sea of Rome shall be always infallible 3. If it be said that this is drawn from good consequence from Scripture truly interpreted I demand what certain ground have I to warrant me that this consequence is good and this interpretation true and if answer be made that reason will tell me so I reply 1. That this is to build all upon my own reason and private interpretation 2. I have great reason to fear that reason assures no man that the infallibility of the Church of Rome may be deduced from Scripture by good and firm consequence 4. If it be said that a Consent of Fathers do so interpret the Scripture I answer 1. That
thing provided you do not call it a sacrifice So again Haeres 79. besides his putting cunningly ipsa fuit which before we took notice of he makes no scruple to put in Dogma and Sacrificium wheresoever it may be for his purpose Epiphanius his title to this Heresie is Against the Collyridians who offer to Mary Petavius puts in Sacrifice Again in the same page before D. he puts in his own illo dogmate and whereas Epiphanius says in all this he makes it in all this Opinion Pag. 1061. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he translates this womanish Opinion whereas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though perhaps it may signifie a thought or act of thinking yet I believe it never signifies an Opinion which we hold Ibid. at B. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this he renders this Opinion Pag. 1064. at C. Nor that we should offer to her name simply and absolutely he makes it Nor that we should offer sacrifice to her name So many times is he fain to corrupt and translate him partially lest in condemning the Collyridians he might seem to have involved the practice of the Roman Church in the same Condemnation My Seventh and last Reason is this Had Epiphanius known that the Collyridians held the virgin Mary to be a Sovereign power and Deity then he could not have doubted whether this their offering was to her or to God for her whereof yet he seems doubtful and not fully resolved as his own words intimate Haeres 79. ad fin Quam multa c. How many things may be objected against this Heresie for idle Women either worshipping the Blessed Virgin offer unto her a Cake or else they take upon them to offer for her this foresaid ridiculous oblation Now both are foolish and from the Devil These Arguments I suppose do abundantly demonstrate to any man not viel'd with prejudice that Epiphanius imputed not to the Collyridians the Heresie of believing the Virgin Mary God and if they did not think her God there is then no reason imaginable why their oblation of a Cake should not be thought a Present as well as the Papists offering a Taper or that the Papists offering a Taper should not be thought a Sacrifice as well as their offering a Cake and seeing this was the difference pretended between them this being vanished there remains none at all So that my first Conclusion stands yet firm that either the Ancient Church erred in condemning the Collyridians or the present errs in approving and practising the same worship An ADVERTISEMENT The Reader when he meets with the Phrase Catholick Doctrin in the two following Discourses must remember that it does not signifie Articles of Faith determined in any General Councils which might be looked upon as the Faith of the whole Church but the Current and Common Opinion of the Age which obtained in it without any known opposition and contradiction Neither need this be wondred at since they are about matters far removed from the Common Faith of Christians and having no necessary influence upon good life and manners whatsoever necessity by mistake of some Scriptures might be put upon them IV. An Argument drawn from the admitting Infants to the Eucharist as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility THE Condition without the performance whereof no man can be admitted to the Communion of the Church of Rome is this that he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever the Church requires him to believe More distinctly and particularly thus He must believe all that to be divine Revelation which that Church teaches to be such as the Doctrin of the Trinity the Hypostatical union of two natures in the person of Christ The procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son the Doctrin of Transubstantiation and such like Whatsoever that Church teaches to be necessary he must believe to be necessary As Baptism for Infants Faith in Christ for those that are Capable of Faith Penance for those that have committed mortal sin after Baptism c. Whatsoever that Church declares expedient and profitable he must believe to be expedient and profitable as Monastical Life Prayer to Saints Prayer for the Dead going on Pilgrimages The use of Pardons Veneration of holy Images and Reliques Latin Service where the people understand it not Communicating the Laity in one kind and such like Whatsoever that Church holdeth lawful he must believe lawful As to Marry to make distinction of Meats as if some were clean and others unclean to flie in time of Persecution for them that serve at the Altar to live by the Altar to testifie a truth by Oath when a lawful Magistrate shall require it to possess Riches c. Now is it impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless either it be evident of it self or he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible ground for his belief Now the Doctrins which the Church of Rome teacheth it is evident and undeniable that they are not evident of themselves neither evidently true nor evidently credible He therefore that will believe them must of necessity have some certain and infallible ground whereon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a Mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome No man can be assured that that Church is infallible and cannot err whereof he may be assured that she hath erred unless she had some new promise of divine assistance which might for the future secure her from danger of erring but the Church of Rome pretends to none such Nothing is more certain than that that Church hath erred which hath believed and taught irreconcileable Contradictions one whereof must of necessity be an Error That the Receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist is necessary for Infants and that the receiving thereof is not necessary for them That it is the will of God that the Church should administer the Sacrament to them and that it is not the will of God that the Church should do so are manifest and irreconcileable Contradictions Supposing only that which is most evident that the Eucharist is the same thing of the same vertue and efficacy now as it was in the primitive Church That Infants are the same things they were have as much need are capable of as much benefit by the Eucharist now as then As subject to irreverent carriages then as now And lastly that the present Church is as much bound to provide for the spiritual good of Infants as the Ancient Church was I say these things supposed the propositions before set down are plain and irreconcileable Contradictions whereof the present Roman Church doth hold the Negative and the Ancient Church of Rome did hold the Affirmative and therefore it is evident that either the present Church doth err in holding something not necessary which is so or that the Ancient Church did
each to other without having these parts in several places then the distinction is vain But it is impossible that any thing should have several parts one out of another without having these parts in several places Therefore the distinction is vain The Major of this Syllogism he took for granted The Minor he proved thus Whatsoever body is in the proper place of another body must of necessity be in that very body by possessing the demensions of it therefore whatsoever hath several parts one out of the other must of necessity have them one out of the place of the other and consequently in several places For illustration of this Argument he said If my head and belly and thighs and legs be all in the very same place of necessity my head must be in my belly and my belly in my thighs and my thighs in my legs and all of them in my feet and my feet in all of them and therefore if my head be out of my belly it must be out of the place where my belly is and if it be not out of the place where my belly is it is not out of my belly but in it Again to shew that according to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation our Saviours body in the Eucharist hath not the several parts of it out of one another he disputed thus Wheresoever there is a body having several parts one out of the other there must be some middle parts severing the extreme parts But here according to this Doctrin the extreme parts are not severed but altogether in the same point Therefore here our Saviours Body cannot have parts one out of other Mr. Dan. To all this for want of a better Answer gave only this Let all Scholars peruse these After upon better consideration he wrote by the side of the last Syllogism this Quoad entitatem verum est non quoad locum that is according to entity it is true but not according to place And to Let all Scholars peruse these he caused this to be added And weigh whether there is any new matter worth a new Answer Chillingworth Replyed That to say the extreme parts of a body are severed by the middle parts according to their entity but not according to place is ridiculous His reasons are first Because severing of things is nothing else but putting or keeping them in several places as every silly woman knows and therefore to say they are severed but not according to place is as if you should say They are heated but not according to heat they are cooled but not according to cold Indeed is it to say they are severed but not severed VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his own Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto I Reconciled my self to the Church of Rome because I thought my self to have sufficient reason to believe that there was and must be always in the World some Church that could not err and consequently seeing all other Churches disclaimed this priviledge of not being subject to error the Church of Rome must be that Church which cannot err I was put into doubt of this way which I had chosen by D. Stapleton and others who limit the Churches freedom from Error to things necessary only and such as without which the Church can be a Church no longer but grantted it subject to error in things that were not necessary Hereupon considering that most of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholicks were not touching things necessary but only profitable or lawful I concluded that I had not sufficient ground to believe the Roman Church either could not or did not err in any thing and therefore no ground to be a Roman Catholick Against this again I was perswaded that it was not sufficient to believe the Church to be an infallible believer of all doctrins necessary but it must also be granted an infallible teacher of what is necessary that is that we must believe not only that the Church teacheth all things necessary but that all is necessary to be believed which the Church teacheth to be so in effect that the Church is our Guide in the way to Heaven Now to believe that the Church was an infallible Guide and to be believed in all things which she requires us to believe I was induced First because there was nothing that could reasonably contest with the Church about this Office but the Scripture and that the Scripture was this Guide I was willing to believe but that I saw not how it could be made good without depending upon the Churches authority 1. That Scripture is the Word of God 2. That the Scripture is a perfect rule of our duty 3. That the Scripture is so plain in those things that concern our duty that whosoever desires and endeavors to find the will of God there shall either find it or at least not dangerously mistake it Secondly I was drawn to this belief because I conceived that it was evident out of the Epistle to the Ephesians that there must be unto the worlds end a Succession of Pastors by adhering to whom men might be kept from wavering in matters of faith and from being carried up and down with every wind of false doctrin That no Succession of Pastors could guard their adherents from danger of error if themselves were subject unto error either in teaching that to be necessary which is not so or denying that to be necessary which is so and therefore That there was and must be some Succession of Pastors which was an infallible guide in the way to Heaven and which should not possibly teach any thing to be necessary which was not so nor any thing not necessary which was so upon this ground I concluded that seeing there must be such a Succession of Pastors as was an infallible guide and there was no other but that of the Church of Rome even by the confession of all other Societies of Pastors in the world that therefore that Succession of Pastors is that infallible Guide of Faith which all men must follow Upon these grounds I thought it necessary for my salvation to believe the Roman Church in all that she thought to be and proposed as necessary Against these Arguments it hath been demonstrated unto me and First against the first That the reason why we are to believe the Scripture to be the word of God neither is nor can be the Authority of the present Church of Rome which cannot make good her Authority any other way but by pretence of Scripture and therefore stands not unto Scripture no not in respect of us in the relation of a Foundation to a building but of a building to a Foundation doth not support Scripture but is supported by it But the general consent of Christians of all Nations and Ages a far greater company than that of the Church of Rome and delivering universally the Scripture for the word of God is the ordinary
that ever they should have brought in the Worship of Images and Picturing of God as now it is that they should legitimate Fornication Why may we not think they may in time take away the whole Communion from the Laity as well as they have taken away half of it Why may we not think that any Text and any sense may not be accorded as well as the whole 14. Ch. of the Ep. of S. Paul to the Corinth is reconciled to the Latine service How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden than the Worship of Angels in the Ep. to the Colossians than the teaching for Doctrines Mens commands in the Gospel of S. Mark And therefore seeing we see these things done which hardly any man would have believed that had not seen them why should we not fear that this unlimited Power may not be used hereafter with as little moderation Seeing devices have been invented how Men may worship Images without Idolatry and Kill Innocent Men under pretence of Heresie without Murther who knows not that some tricks may not be hereafter devised by which lying with other Mens Wives shall be no Adultery taking away other Mens Goods no Theft I conclude therefore that if Solomon himself were here and were to determine the difference which is more likely to be Mother of all Heresie the denial of the Churches or the affirming of the Popes Infallibility that he would certainly say this is the Mother give her the Child 12. You say again confidently that if this Infallibility be once impeached every Man is given over to his own Wit and Discourse which if you mean Discourse not guiding it selfe by Scripture but only by principles of Nature or perhaps by prejudices and popular errors and drawing consequences not by rule but chance is by no means true if you mean by Discourse right reason grounded on Divine revelation and common notions written by God in the hearts of all 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 and reasonable and necessary that Men as in all their actions so especially in that of greatest importance the choice of their way to happiness should be left unto it and he that follows this in all his opinions and actions and does not only seem to do so follows 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 than S. John 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 tryal by is to consider whether they confess Jesus to be the Christ that is the Guide of their Faith and Lord of their actions not whether they acknowledg the Pope to be his Vicar I say no more than S. Paul in exhorting all Christians to try all things and to hold fast that which is good than S. Peter in commanding all Christians to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in them than our Saviour himself 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 and why of your selves Judge ye not what is right And though by passion or precipitation or prejudice by want of Reason or not using that they have Men may be and are oftentimes led into Error and mischief yet that they cannot be misguided by discourse truly so called such as I have described you your self 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 infer falshood Therefore by discourse no Man can possibly be led to Error but if he Err in his conclusions he must of necessity either Err in his principles which here cannot have place or commit some Error in his discourse that is indeed not discourse but seem to do so 13. You say thirdly with sufficient confidence that if the true Church may Err in defining what Scriptures be Canonical or in delivering the sense thereof then we must follow either the private Spirit or else natural wit and Judgment and by them examine what Scriptures contain true or false Doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected All which is apparently untrue neither can any proof of it be pretended For though the present Church may possibly Err in her judgment touching this matter yet have we other Directions in it besides the private 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 contains irreconcilable 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 and that is the Testimony of the Primitive Christians 14. You say Fourthly with convenient boldness That this infallible Authority of your Church being denied no man can be assured that any parcel of Scripture was written by Divine inspiration Which is an untruth for which no proof 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 assured that the Scripture is Divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible Authority of your Church or any other The second because if I cannot have ground to be assured of the Divine Authority of Scripture unless 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 unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 16. Had I a mind to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead Men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you you deny the Infallibility of the Church of England Ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the Infallibility of the Roman Church Ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes Infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to the
exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recovered himself from that Disease which he undertakes to cure or against a Guide in a way that at first before he had experience himself mistook it and afterwards found his error and amended it That noble writer Michael de Montai'gne was surely of a far different mind for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such Diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montai'gne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres when thou art converted strengthen by Brethren gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need Conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this Charitable Function 41. The Motives then hitherto not answered were these 42. I. Because perpetual visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation II. 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 fail 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 III. Because if any credit may be given to as credible records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholicks hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and Divine Miracles IV. Because many points of Protestant Doctrine are the damned Opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church V. Because the Prophecies of the Old Testament touching the Couversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholick Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it VI. Because the Doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the Confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compass of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal VII Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine VIII Because Luther to Preach against the Mass which contains the most material points now in controversie was persuaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devil IX Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversie writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty X. Because by denying all humane Authority either of Pope or Councils or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 43. To the first God hath neither drecreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible Company of Men free from all Error in it self Damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external Communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my Conscience that I believe some Error tho never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me Her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with Supernatural and Divine Miracles which for number and Glory out-shine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the Confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after Ages great Signs and Wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false Doctrine and that I am not to believe any Doctrine which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the Doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true Doctrine should in all Ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false Doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the Members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the Fourth All those were not a See this acknowledged by Bellar de Scrip Eccles in Philastrio by Petavius Animad in Epiph de inscrip operis By S. Austin Lib. de Haeres Haer. 80. Hereticks which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Hereticks To the Fifth Kings and Nations have been and may be Converted by Men of contrary Religions To the Sixth The Doctrine of Papists is confessed by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the Seventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have Authority from it to Preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or Practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to do a necessary work of Charity after a peacable manner when there is no body else that can or will do it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some
such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical 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 do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less 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 methinks you should not deny 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 Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book 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 think 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 confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job 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 Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns 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 Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have 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 damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return 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 discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical 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 damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self 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 y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books 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 Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer 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 Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical 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 prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for 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 do 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 trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books 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 than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
câ—stodiri quemadmodam scriptura Canonica tot linguarum literis ordine successione celebrationis Ecclesiasticae custoditur contra quam non defuerunt tamen qui sub nominibus Apostolorum multa confingerent Frustra quidem Quia illa sic commendata sic celebrata sic nota est Verum quid possit adversus literas non Canonica authoritate fundatas etiam hinc demonstrabit impiae conatus audaciae quod adversus eos quae tanta notitiae mole firmatae sunt sese erigere non praetermisit Aug. ep 48. ad Vincent contra Donat Rogat That in his judgment the only preservative of the Scriptures integrity was the Translating it into so many Languages and the general and perpetual use and reading of it in the Church for want whereof the works of particular Doctors were more exposed to danger in this kind but the Canonical Scripture being by this means guarded with Universal care and dilligence was not obnoxious to such attempts And this assurance of the Scriptures incorruption is common to us with him we therefore are as certain hereof as S. Austin was and 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 b In hac Germani textus pervestigatione satis perspicue inter omnes constat nullum argumentum esse certius ac firmius quam antiquorem probatorum codicum latinorum fidem c. sic Sixtus in praefat That in the prevestigation of the true and genuine Text it was perspicuously manifest to all men that there was no Argument more firm and certain to be relied upon than the Faith of Ancient Books Now this ground we have 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 have to say in this matter For I will add moreover that we are as certain in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted as any man in your Church was until Clement the 8th set forth your own approved Edition of your Vulgar Translation For you do not nor cannot without extreme impudence deny that until 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 than one sort of them could not possibly be true in all things Neither were it less impudence to pretend that any man in your Church could until Clements's time have any certainty what that one true Copy 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 themselves cock-sure of a perfect true uncorrupted Translation without being beholden to Clement but how fouly 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 remains uncorrupted is it necessary to have it or is it not If it be not I hope we may do well enough without it If it be necessary what became of your Church for 1500 Years together All which time you must confess 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 grown to a higher degree of Presumption in this point yet are you as far as ever from any true and real and rational assurance of the absolute purity of your Authentick Translation which I suppose my self to have proved unanswerably in divers places 58. Ad 16. § C. M. Objects to Protestants 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 Basil that of Castalio by Beza That of Beza by Castalio That of Calvin by Carolus Molinaeus That of Geneva by M. Parks and King James And lastly one of our Translations by the Puritans 59. I HIL All which might have been as justly objected against that great variety of Translations extant in the Primitive Church and made use of by the Fathers and Doctors of it For which I desire not that my word but S. Austins may be taken They which have 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 seemed to himself to have some ability in both Languages he presently ventured 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 learn from the same S. Austin in the 15. Chap. of the same Book Amongst all these Interpretations saith he let the Italian be preferred for it keeps closer to the Letter and is perspicuous in the sense Yet so far was the Church of that time from persuming upon the absolute purity and perfection even of this best Translation that S. Hierome thought it necessary to make a new Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew Fountain which himself testifies in his Book de Viris Illustribus And to correct the vulgar version of the New Testament according to the truth of the Original Greek amending many Errors which had crept into it whether by the mistake of the Author or the negligence of the Transcribers which work he undertook and performed at the request of Damasus Bishop of Rome You constrain me saith he to make a new Work of an old that after the Copies of the Scriptures have been dispersed through the whole World I should sit as it were an Arbitrator amongst them and because they vary among themselves should determine what are those things in them which consent with the Greek verity And after Therefore this present Preface promises the four Gospels only corrected by collation with Greek Copies But that they might not be very dissonant from the Custome of the Latine reading I have so tempered with my stile the Translation of the Ancients that those things amended wich did seem to change the sense other things I have suffered to remain as they were So that in this matter Protestants must either stand or fall with the Primitive Church 62. C. M. But the Faith of Protestants relies upon Scripture alone Scripture is delivered to most of them by Translations Translations depend upon the skill and honesty of Men who certainly may Err because they are Men and certainly do Err at least some of them because their Translations are contrary
true Priest he cannot possibly escape damnation Such a man for his comfort you tell first you that will have mens Salvation depend upon no uncertainties that though he verily believe that his sorrow for sins is a true sorrow and his purpose of amendment a true purpose yet he may deceive himself perhaps it is not and if it be not he must be damned Yet you bid him hope well But Spes est rei incertae nomen You tell him secondly that though the party he confesses to seem to be a true Priest yet for ought he knows or for ought himself knows by reason of some secret undiscernable invalidity in his Baptism or Ordination he may be none and if he be none he can do nothing This is a hard saying but this is not the worst You tell him thirdly that he may may be in such a state that he cannot or if he can that he will not give the Sacrament with due Intention and if he does not all 's in vain Put case a man by these considerations should be cast into some agonies what advice what comfort would you give him Verily I know not what you could say to him but this that first for the Qualification required on his part he might know that he desired to have true sorrow and that that is sufficient But then if he should ask you why he might not know his sorrow to be a true sorrow as well as his desire to be sorrowful to be a true desire I believe you would be put to silence Then secondly to quiet his fears concerning the Priest and his intention you should tell him by my advice that Gods goodness which will not suffer him to damn men for not doing better than their best will supply all such defects as to humane endeavours were unavoidable And therefore though his Priest were indeed no Priest yet to him he should be as if he were one and if he gave Absolution without Intention yet in doing so he should hurt himself only and not his penitent This were some comfort indeed and this were to settle mens Salvation upon reasonable certain grounds But this I fear you will never say for this were to reverse many Doctrines established by your Church and besides to degrade your Priesthood from a great part of their honour by lessening the strict necessity of the Laities dependance upon them For it were to say that the Priests Intention is not necessary to the obtaining of absolution which is to say that it is not in the Parsons power to damn whom he will in his Parish because by this Rule God should supply the defect which his malice had caused And besides it were to say that Infants dying without Baptism might be saved God supplying the want of Baptism which to them is unavoidable But beyond all this it were to put into my mouth a full and satisfying answer to your Argument which I am now returning so that in answering my objection you should answer your own For then I should tell you that it were altogether as abhorrent from the goodness of God and as repugnant to it to suffer an ignorant Lay-mans Soul to perish meerly for being misled by an undiscernable false Translation which yet was commended to him by the Church which being of necessity to credit some in this matter he had reason to rely upon either above all other or as much as any other as it is to damn a penitent sinner for a secret defect in that desired Absolution which his Gostly Father perhaps was an Atheist and could not give him or was a villiain and would not This answer therefore which alone would serve to comfort your penitent in his perplexities and to assure him that he cannot fail of Salvation if he will not for fear of inconveniencies you must forbear And seeing you must I hope you will come down from the Pulpit and Preach no more against others for making mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain grounds lest by judging others you make your selves and your own Church inexcusable who are strongly guilty of this fault above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptions tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priests Qualifications and Intentions 69. Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptism a Casual thing and in the power of man to confer or not confer would yield me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizers intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the Consecrators true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of Bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of Damnation doth offer me a Fisth demonstration of the same conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountain neither do I think it Charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the Subject affords variety 70. Sixthly therefore I return it thus The Faith of Papists relies alone upon their Churches infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudential motives Dependance upon prudential motives they confess to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71. Seventhly The Faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to Err. What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72. Eighthly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds than a man may have for the belief almost of any Religion As some believe it because their Forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because it is the Religion of their Country where all other Religions are persecuted and profcribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetual succession of Professors of all their Doctrine Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous and magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more Professors of it than the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compass Sea and Land to gain
Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented Truth and if you will deal ingeniously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his Faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground than any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alledge but that with you rather than with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73. Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenced with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and Lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other national Languages in respect of those that are Licensed to read them This I presume you will confess And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meer men subject to the same Passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translators And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these Translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74. Tenthly and lastly to lay the Axe to the Root of the Tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorrupted Word of God yet others among you and those as good and zealous Catholicks as you are not so confident hereof 75. First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authentical Infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76. Vega was present at the Council of Trent when that decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the World authentical and not to be rejected upon any pretence whatsoever At the forming this decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Council as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it by the President of it the Cardinal S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Council in this decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all Error but only from such Errors out of which any opinion pernicious to Faith and Manners might be collected This Andradius in his defence of that Council reports of Vega and assents to it himself Driedo in his Book of the Translation of Holy Scripture hath these Words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolick hath approved or accepted Hieroms Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Original and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawful for any man either by comparing it with the Fountain to examine it or in some places to doubt whether or no Hierome did understand the true sense of the Scripture but only as an Edition to be preferred before all others then extant and no where deviating from the Truth in the Rules of Faith and good Life Mariana even where he is a most earnest Advocate for the Vulgar Edition yet acknowleges the imperfection of it in these Words Pro Edit vulg c. 21. p. 99. The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Council of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copies And again We maintain that the Hebrew and Greek were by no means rejected by the Trent Fathers And that the Latin Edition is indeed approved yet not so as if they did deny that some places might be Translated more plainly some more properly whereof it were easie to produce innumerable examples And this he there professes to have learnt of Laines the then General of the Society who was a great part of that Council present at all the Actions of it and of very great authority in it 77. To this so great authority he adds a reason of his opinion which with all indifferent men will be of a far greater authority If the Council saith he had purposed to approve an Edition in all respects and to make it of equal authority and credit with the Fountains certainly they ought with exact care first to have corrected the Errors of the Interpreter which certainly they did not 78. Lastly Bellarmine himself Bell. de verbo Dei l. 2. c. 11. p. 120. 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 discern which is the true reading of the Vulgar Edition but only by recourse unto the Originals and dependence 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 doubtful sometimes whether your Vulgar Translation be true and sometimes whether this or that be your Vulgar Translation and sometimes undoubtedly resolved that your Vulgar Translation is no true Translation nor consonant to the Original as it was at first delivered And what then can be alledged but that out of your own grounds it may be inferred and inforced upon you that not only in your Lay-men but your Clergy-men and Scholars Faith and Truth and Salvation and all depends upon fallible and uncertain grounds And thus by Ten several retortions of this one Argument I have endeavoured to shew you how ill you have complied with your own advice which was to take heed of urging Arguments that might be returned 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 refer 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 advice 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 Originals of these that remain to be corrupted And lastly
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err 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 Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful 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 Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment 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 souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do 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 calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than 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 says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice 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 practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing 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 himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
the Evidence of the Revelation was all in all But here we must err with you in small things for fear of loosing your direction in greater and for fear of departing too far from you not go from you at all even where we see plainly that you have departed from the Truth 57. Beyond all this I say that this which you say in wisdom we are to do is not only unlawful but if we will proceed according to reason impossible I mean to adhere to you in all things having no other ground for it but because you are as we will now suppose Infallible in some things that is in Fundamentals For whether by skill in Architecture a large structure may be supported by a narrow foundation I know not but sure I am in reason no conclusion can be larger than the Principles on which it is founded And therefore if I consider what I do and be perswaded that your infallibility is but limited and particular and partial my adherence upon this ground cannot possibly be Absolute and Universal and Total I am confident that should I meet with such a man amongst you as I am well assur'd there be many that would grant your Church Infallible only in Fundamentals which what they are he knows not and therefore upon this only reason adheres to you in all things I say that I am confident that it may be demonstrated that such a man adheres to you with a fiducial and certain assent in nothing To make this clear because at the first hearing it may seem strange give me leave good Sir to suppose you the man and to propose to you a few questions and to give for you such answers to them as upon this ground you must of necessity give were you present with me First supposing you hold your Church Infallible in Fundamentals obnoxious to Error in other things and that you know not what points are Fundamental I demand C. Why do you believe the Doctrin of Transubstantiation K. because the Church hath taught it which is Infallible C. What Infallible in all things or only in Fundamentals K. in Fundamentals only C. Then in other points she may err K. she may C. and do you know what Points are Fundamental what not K. No and therefore I believe her in all things least I should disbelieve her in fundamentals C. How know you then whether this be a fundamental point or no K. I know not C. It may be then for ought you know an unfundamental point K. yes it may be so C. And in these you said the Church may err K. yes I did so C. Then possibly it may err in this K. It may do so C. Then what certainty have you that it does not err in it K. None at all but upon this supposition that this is a Fundamental C. And this supposition you are uncertain of K. Yes I told you so before C. And therefore you can have no certainty of that which depends upon this uncertainty saving only a suppositive certainty if it be a Fundamental truth which is in plain English to say you are certain it is true if it be both true and necessary Verily Sir if you have no better Faith than this you are no Catholick K. good words I pray I am so and God willing will be so C. You mean in outward profession and practice but in belief you are not no more than a Protestant is a Catholick For every Protestant yields such a kind of assent to all the proposals of the Church for surely they believe them true if they be Fundamental Truths And therefore you must either believe the Church Infallible in all her proposals be they foundations or be they superstructions or else you must believe all Fundamental which she proposes or else you are no Catholick K. But I have been taught that seeing I believed the Church Infallible in points necessary in wisdom I was to believe her in every thing C. That was a pretty plausible inducement to bring you hither but now you are here you must go farther and believe her Infallible in all things or else you were as good go back again which will be a great disparagement to you and draw upon you both the bitter and implacable hatred of our part and even with your own the imputation of rashness and levity You see I hope by this time that though a man did believe your Church Infallible in Fundamentals yet he has no reason to do you the courtesie of believing all her proposals nay if he be ignorant what these Fundamentals are he has no certain ground to believe her upon her Authority in any thing And whereas you say it can be no imprudence to err with the Church I say it may be very great imprudence if the question be Whether we should err with the present Church or hold true with God Almighty 60. Whereas you add That that visible Church which cannot err in Fundamental propounds all her definitions without distinction to be believed under Anathema's Ans Again you beg the question supposing untruly that there is any that Visible Church I mean any Visible Church of one Denomination which cannot err in points Fundamental Secondly proposing definitions to be believed under Anathema's is no good argument that the Propounders conceive themselves infallible but only that they conceive the Doctrine they condemn is evidently damnable A plain proof hereof is this that particular Councils nay particular men have been very liberal of their Anathema's which yet were never conceived infallible either by others or themselves If any man should now deny Christ to be the Saviour of the world or deny the Resurrection I should make no great scruple of Anathematizing his Doctrine and yet am very far from dreaming of Infallibility 62. The effect of the next Argument is this I cannot without grievous sin disobey the Church unless I know she commands those things which are not in her power to command and how far this power extends none can better inform me than the Church Therefore I am to obey so far as the Church requires my obedience I Answer First That neither hath the Catholick Church but only a corrupt part of it declared her self nor required our obedience in the points contested among us This therefore is falsely and vainly supposed here by you being one of the greatest questions amongst us Then Secondly That God can better inform us what are the limits of the Churches power than the Church her self that is than the Roman Clergy who being men subject to the same passions with other men why they should be thought the best Judges in their own cause I do not well understand But yet we oppose against them no human decisive Judges not any Sect or Person but only God and his Word And therefore it is in vain to say That in following her you shall be sooner excused than in following any Sect or Man applying Scriptures against her Doctrine In as much
savour wherewith shall it be Salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and to be trodden under Foot So the Church may be by Duty the Pillar and Ground that is the Teacher of Truth of all truth not only necessary but profitable to Salvation and yet she may neglect and violate this Duty and be in fact the teacher of some Error 78. Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholick Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it always shall and will be so yet after all this you have done nothing your Bridge is too short to bring you to the Bank where you would be unless you can shew that by truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to Salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church alwaies shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of Men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a Man and not be reasonable But as a Man may be still a Man though he want a Hand or an Eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a Man may be a Man that has some Boyls and Botches on his Body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in Doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are Eph. 4.11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Until we all meet into the Unity of Faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine Out of which words this is the only argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unless it be a Church universally Infallible But it is impious to say there is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alledged For that tells us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carried about with every wind of false Doctrine Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say he hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Oâ—ders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Obj. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a Man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spains Army Ans I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from Error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman story But what if these men had writ by divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from Error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principal and Fundamental points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your unity and freedom from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will you deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles
It is sufficient that he denies us nothing necessary to Salvation Deus non deficit in necessariis nec redundat in superfluis So D. Stapleton But that the ending of all Controversies or having a certain means of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you have often said and supposed but never proved though it be the main pillar of your whole discourse So little care you take how slight your foundations are so your building make a fair show And as little care how you commit those faults your self which you condem in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no infallible means to determine all differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion And yet afterwards being demanded by D. Potter why the Questions between the Jesuits and Dominicans remain undetermined You return him this cross interrogatory Who hath assured you that the point wherein these learned men differ is a revealed Truth or capable of definition or is not rather by plain Scripture indeterminable or by any Rule of Faith So then when you say it were great impiety to imagine that God hath not left infallible means to decide all differences I may answer It seems you do not believe your self For in this controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtful whether there be any means to determin it On the other side when you ask D. Potter who assured him that there is any means to determine this Controversie I answer for him that you have in calling it a great impiety to imagine that there is not some infallible means to decide this and all other differences arising about the Interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion For what trick you can devise to shew that this difference between the Dominicans and Jesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many Texts of Scripture and many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can find out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that general speeches are not always to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89. But if there be any infallible means to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be Infallible what shall decide that If you would say as you should do Scripture and Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit means to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you run into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also whether the Church be Infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissive acknowledgment of the Churches Infallibility As if you should have said My Brethren I perceive this is a great contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be Infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready means to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is Infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be Infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you have done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the body and blood of Christ That the Communion is to be given to Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to be invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect always to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches Infallibility is fit to prove it self and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confess that the Churches Infallibility is not fit to decide this difference whether the Church be infallible then you must confess it is not fit to decide all Unless you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches infallibility cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it self then having professed before that there is no possible means besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will give me leave to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is Infallible For certainly light it self is not more clear than the evidence of this syllogism If there be no other means to make men agree upon your Churches Infallibility but only this and this be no means then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is Infallible But there is as you have granted no other possible means to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no means Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is Infallible 90. Lastly to the place of S. Austin wherein we are advised to follow the way of Catholick Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austin speaks of and the way which you commend being divers ways and in many things clean contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vain equivocation Shew us any way and do not say but prove it to have come from Christ and his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither do we expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable than the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholick Discipline which Christians in S. Austins time held abominable as the Picturing of God and which you must confess to have come into the Church Seven Hundred Years after Christ if you will bring in things as you have done the half Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christ Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will do such things as these and yet would have us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a
Take it which way you will this conclusion will certainly follow That either all that which S. John wrote in his Gospel or less than all and therefore all much more was sufficient to make them believe that which being believed with lively Faith would certainly bring them to Eternal Life 43. This which hath been spoken I hope is enough to justifie my undertaking to the full that it is very probable that every one of the four Evangelists has in his Book the whole substance all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ But for Saint Luke that he hath written such a perfect Gospel in my judgment it ought to be with them that believe him no manner of question Consider first the introduction to his Gospel where he declares what he intends to write in these Words For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst us even as they delivered unto us which from the beginning were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of things from the first to write to thee in order most excellent Theophilus that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast heen instructed Add to this place the entrance to his History of the Acts of the Apostles The former Treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up Weigh well these two places and then answer me freely and ingenuously to these demands 1. Whether S. Luke does not undertake the very same thing which he says many had taken in hand 2. Whether this were not to set forth in order a Declaration of those things which are most surely believed amongst Christians 3. Whether the whole Gospel of Christ and every necessary Doctrine of it were not surely believed among Christians 4. Whether they which were Eye-witnesses and Ministers of the Word from the beginning delivered not the whole Gospel of Christ 5. Whether he does not undertake to write in order these things whereof he had perfect understanding from the first 6. Whether he had not perfect understanding of the whole Gospel of Christ 7. Whether he doth not undertake to write to Theophilus of all those things wherein he had been instructed 8. And whether he had not been instructed in all the necessary parts of the Gospel of Christ 9. Whether in the other Text All things which Jesus began to do and teach must not at least imply all the principal and necessary things 10. Whether this be not the very interpretation of your Rhemish Doctors in their Annotation upon this place 11. Whether all these Articles of the Christian Faith without the belief whereof no man can be saved be not the principal and most necessary things which Jesus taught 12. And lastly whether many things which S. Luke has wrote in his Gospel be not less principal and less necessary than all and every one of these When you have well considered these proposals I believe you will be very apt to think if S. Luke be of credit with you That all things necessary to salvation are certainly contained in his writings alone And from hence you will not choose but conclude that seeing all the Christians in the world agree in the belief of what S. Luke hath written and not only so but in all other Books of Canonical Scripture which were never doubted of in and by the Church the Learned Arch-Bishop had very just and certain ground to say That in these Propositions which without Controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much truth is contained as being joyned with holy obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation and that we have no cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable Heresie thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God 44. Against this you object two things The one that by this Rule seeing the Doctrin of the Trinity is not received universally among Christians the denial of it shall not exclude Salvation The other that the Bishop contradicts himself in supposing a man may believe all necessary Truths and yet superinduce some damnable Heresies 45. To the first I answer what I conceive he would whose words I here justify that he hath declared plainly in this very place that he meant not an absolute but a limited Universality and speaks not of propositions universally believed by all Professions of Christianity that are but only by all those several Professions of Christianity that have any large spread in any part of the world By which words he excludes from the universality here spoken of the denyers of the Doctrin of the Trinity as being but a handful of men in respect of all nay in respect of any of these professions which maintain it And therefore it was a great fault in you either willingly to conceal these words which evacuate your objection or else negligently to oversee them 46. Now for the foul Contradiction wherein I pray does it lie In supposing say you a man may believe all Truths necessary to salvation and yet superinduce a damnable Heresie I answer It is not certain that his words do suppose this neither if they do does he contradict himself I say it is not certain that his words import any such matter For ordinarily men use to speak and write so as here he does when they intend not to limit or restrain but only to repeat and press and illustrate what they have said before S. Athanasius in his Creed tells us The Catholick Faith is this that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance and why now do you not tell him that he contradicts himself and supposes that we may worship a Trinity of Persons and one God in substance and yet confound the Persons or divide the Substance which yet is impossible because Three remaining Three cannot be confounded and One remaining One cannot be divided If a man should say unto you he that keeps all the Commandments of God committing no sin either against the love of God or the love of his neighbour is a perfect man Or thus he that will live in constant health had need be exact in his diet neither eating too much nor too little Or thus he that will come to London must go on straight forward in such a way und neither turn to the right hand or to the left I verily believe you would not find any contradiction in his words but confess them as coherent and consonant as any in your Book And certainly if you would look upon this saying of the Bishop with any indifference you
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
you know all Protestants with one consent affirm it to be false and therefore without proof to take it for granted is to beg the Question 4. That supposing Luther and they which did first separate from the Roman Church were guilty of Schism it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this division must be so likewise Which is not so certain as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any state Civil or Ecclesiastical do commit a great fault whereof notwithstanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former state when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus have I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-country-men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithful maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the King of Spain 5. That all those which a Christian is to esteem neighbors do concur to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteem those his neighbors who are not members of the true Church 6. That all the members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mystical body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7. That the Catholick Church signifies one company of faithful people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the Visible Church 8. That every Heretick is a Schismatick Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some point professed by your Church and so are Hereticks yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9. That all the members of the Catholick Church must of necessity be united in external Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommunicated is not in the Churches Communion yet he is still a member of the Church and divers times it hath happened as in the case of Chrisostom and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued members of the Catholick Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shew or pretence of proof The rest is an impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcerned And therefore I pass to the eighth Section 10. Ad. § 8. Here you obtrude upon us a double fallacy One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falsehood which yet are maintained by more than thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases Thus the words of S. Austin cap. 11. lib. 2. cont Parm. That there is no necessity to divide Unity are not spoken absolutely that there never is nor can be any necessity to divide Unity which only were for your purpose but only in such a special case as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can do them no spiritual hurt to the intent they may not be separated from those who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Unity Which very words do clearly give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Unity with bad men without spiritual hurt i. e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austins mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same book where to Parmenian demanding how can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted He answers Very true this is not possible if he be joyned with them that is if he commit any evil with them or favour them which do commit it But if he do neither of these he is not joyned with them 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 unlawful 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. Iraeneus also says not simply which only would do you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justifie a Separation from them who will not reform But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousness of a Schism Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Iraeneus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seen that what Irenaeus says 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 war such as strain at Gnats and swallow Camels And these saith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervail 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 cruel Tyranny both upon the bodies and souls 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 dogmate sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore not about any Catholick Doctrin 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 sharply and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the World as * Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. Perron Replic l. 3. c. 2. Eusebius testifies and as Cardinal Perron though mincing the matter yet confesseth by this very Irenaeus himself
The only Fountain of all these mischiefs being indeed no other than your pouring out a Flood of persecutions against Protestants only because they would not sin be damned with you for company Unless we may add the impatience of some Protestants who not enduring to be Torn in peeces like Sheep by a company of Wolves without resistance chose rather to die like Soldiers than Martyrs 96. Obj. But-they endeavoured to force the Society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if it refused they did when they had power drive them away even their superiours both Spiritual and Temporal as is notorious The proofs hereof are wanting and therefore I might defer my answer until they were produced yet take this beforehand If they did so then herein in my opinion they did amiss for I have learnt from the Ancient Fathers of the Church that nothing is more against Religion than to force Religion and of S. Paul the Weapons of the Christian Warfare are not carnal And great reason For humane violence may make men counterfeit but cannot make them believe and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed form without and Atheism within Besides if this means of bringing men to embrace any Religion were generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that have power and think they have truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may be used in every place by those that have powe◠as well as they and think they have truth as well as they what could follow but the maintainance perhaps of truth but perhaps only of the profession of it in one place and the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of Unity but peradventure only of uniformity in particular States and Churches but the immortallizing the greater and more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the World And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgment of carnal policy the temporal benefit and tranquillity of temporal States and kingdoms but the infinit prejudice if not the desolation of the kingdom of Christ And therefore it well becomes them who have their portions in this life who serve no higher State than that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further than they may serve themselves by it who think of no other happiness but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this World who think of no other means to preserve States but humane power and Machiavillian policy and believe no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil injustum quod utile that to a King or City that has Ruling Power nothing that is profitable is unjust Such men as these it may become to maintain by worldly power and violence their State-instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgment it is the present whatsoever is better than any because it is already setled and alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed Servants and lovers of Christ of Truth of the Church and of Man-kind ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common Enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdoms stand and fall they know that to no King or State any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men by the profession of a Religion which they believe not to lose their own Eternal Happiness out of a vain and needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their temporal quietness There is no danger to any state from any mans opinion unless it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenced which sort I confess may justly be punished as well as other faults or unless this sanguinary Doctrine be joyned with it that it is lawful for him by humane violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other Mens Consciences and compel them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much less if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secured from violence that even thier unjust and Tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one Citty fly into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs than Murtherers and to die for their Religion rather than to fight for it But of all the men in the World you are the most unfit to accuse them hereof against whom the Souls of Martyrs from under the Altar cry much louder than against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many Ages together have daily sacrificed Hecatombs of Innocent Christians under the name of Hereticks to your blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you have power by deposing of Kings and Invasion of Kingdoms and think when you kill the Adversaries of it you do God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the external Communion and company of that part of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions and impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace and glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the manner or the degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it self was not Schismatical but Innocent and not only so but just and necessary 99. Ad § 36. What you cite out of Optatus l. 2. cont Parm. Thou canst not deny but that thou knowest that in the City of Rome there was first an Episcopal Chair placed for Peter wherein Peter the head of the Apostles sate whereof also he was called Cephas in which one Chair Unity was to be kept by all lest the other Apostles might attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair and that he should be a Schismatick and sinner who against that one single Chair should erect another All this is impertinent if it be well lookt into The truth is the Donatists had set up at Rome a Bishop of their faction not with intent to make him Bishop of the whole Church but of that Church in particular Now Optatus going upon S. Cyprians ground of one Bishop in one Church proves them Schismatick for so doing by this Argument S. Peter was first Bishop of Rome neither did the Apostles attribute to themselves each one his particular Chair viz. in that City for in other places
is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so may he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain Truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confined to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Austin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it always must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 16. The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her Harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austins time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a visible calumny raised against the Catholicks that they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith Saint Austin did the reports of ill Tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it was to all Christians at that time to set up any pictures in a Church to worship them as your new fashion is bruited abroad to be done in the Churches of the Catholick Church But what answer do S. Austin and Optatus make to this accusation Do they confess and maintain it Do they say as you would now It is true we do set Pictures upon our Altar and that not only for ornament or memory but for worship also but we do well to do so and this ought not to trouble you or affright you from our Communion What other answer your Church could now make to such an objection is very hard to imagine And therefore were your Doctrin the same with the Doctrin of the Fathers in this point they must have answered so likewise But they to the contrary not only deny the crime but abhor and detest it To little purpose therefore do you hunt after these poor shadows of resemblances between us and the Donatists unless you could shew an exact resemblance between the present Church of Rome and the Ancient which seeing by this and many other particulars it is demonstrated to be impossible that Church which was then a Virgin may be now a Harlot and that which was detraction in the Donatists may be in Protestants a just accusation 18. But the main point you say is that since Luthers Reformed Church was not in being for divers Centuries before Luther and yet was in the Apostles time they must of necessity affirm heretically with the Donatists that the true unspotted Church of Christ perished and that she which remained on earth was O Blasphemy an Harlot By which words it seems you are resolute perpetually to confound True and Unspotted and to put no difference between a corrupted Church and none at all But what is this but to make no difference between a diseased and a dead man Nay what is it but to contradict your selves who cannot deny but that sins are as great stains and spots and deformities in the sight of God as errors and confess your Church to be a Congregation of men whereof every particular not one excepted and consequently the generality which is nothing but a collection of them is polluted and defiled with sin 19. You ask How can the Church more truly be said to perish than when she is permitted to maintain a damnable Heresie I Answer she may be more truly said to perish when she is not only permitted to do so but de facto doth maintain a damnable Heresie Again she may be more truly said to perish when she falls into an Heresie which is not only damnable in it self and ex natura rei as you speak but such an Heresie the belief of whose contrary Truth is necessary not only necessitate praecepti but medii and therefore the Heresie so absolutely and indispensably destructive of salvation that no ignorance can excuse it nor any general repentance without a dereliction of it can beg a pardon for it Such an heresie if the Church should fall into it might be more truly said to perish than if it fell only into some heresie of its own nature damnable For in that state all the members of it without exception all without mercy must needs perish for ever In this although those that might see the truth and would not cannot upon any good ground
out from some Body affords an Argument for this purpose For the first place there is no certainty that it speaks of Hereticks but no Christians of Antichrists of such as denied Jesus to be the Christ See the place and you shall confess as much The second place it is certain you must not say it speaks of Hereticks for it speaks only of some who believed and taught an Error while it was yet a question and not evident and therefore according to your Doctrine no formal Heresie The third says indeed that of the Professors of Christianity some shall arise that shall teach Heresie But not one of them all that says or intimates that whosoever separates from the Visible Church in what state soever is certainly an Heretick Hereticks I confess do always do so But they that do so are not always Hereticks for perhaps the State of the Church may make it necessary for them to do so as Rebels always disobey the command of their King yet they which disobey a Kings Command which perhaps may be unjust are not presently Rebels 22. In the 19. § We have the Authority of eight Fathers urged to prove that the separation from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of S. Peter I conceive you mean as it is the Particular Church is the mark of Heresie Which kind of Argument I might well refuse to answer unless you would first promise me that whensoever I should produce as plain sentences of as great a number of Fathers as Ancient for any Doctrine whatsoever that you will subscribe to it though it fall out to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Roman Church For I conceive nothing in the World more unequal or unreasonable than that you should press us with such Authorities as these and think your selves at liberty from them and that you should account them Fathers when they are for you and Children when they are against you Yet I would not you should interpret this as if I had not great assurance that it is not possible for you ever to gain this cause at the Tribunal of the Fathers nay not of the Fathers whose sentences are here alledged Let us consider them in order and I doubt not to make it appear that far the greater part of them nay all of them that are nay way considerable fall short of your purpose 23. Obj. S. Hierome you say Ep. 57. ad Damasum professes I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter c. But then I pray consider he saith it to Pope Damasus and this will much weaken the Authority with them who know how great over-truths men usually write to one another in letters Consider again that he says only that he was then in Communion with the Chair of Peter Not that he always would or of necessity must be so for his resolution to the contrary is too evident out of that which he saith elsewhere which shall be produced hereafter He says that the Church at that present was built upon that Rock but not that only Nor that alwaies Nay his judgment as shall appear is express to the contrary And so likewise the rest of his expressions if we mean to reconcile Hierome with Hierome must be conceived as intended by him of that Bishop and Sea of Rome at that present time and in the present State and in respect of that Doctrine which he there intreats of For otherwise had he conceived it necessary for him and all men to conform their judgements in matters of Faith to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome how came it to pass that he chose rather to believe the Epistle to the Hebrews Canonical upon the Authority of the Eastern Church than to reject it from the Canon upon the Anthority of the Roman How comes it to pass that he dissented from the Authority of that Church touching the Canon of the Old Testament For if you say that the Church then consented with S. Hierome I fear you will lose your Fort by maintaining your Out-works and by avoiding this run into a greater danger of being forced to confess the present Roman Church opposite herein to the Ancient How was it possible Hierom. de scrip Eccle. tit Fortunatianus that he should ever believe that Liberius Bishop of Rome either was or could have been wrought over by the sollicitation of Fortunatianus Bishop of Aquileia and brought after two Years Banishment to subscribe Heresie Which Act of Liberius though some fondly question being so vain as to expect we should rather believe them that lived but yesterday thirteen hundred Years almost after the thing is said to be done and speaking for themselves in their own Cause rather than the dis-interessed time-fellows or immediate Successors of Liberius himself yet I hope they will not proceed to such a degree of immodesty as once to question whether S. Hierome though so And if this cannot be denied I demand then if he had lived in Liberius his time could he or would he have written so to Liberius as he does to Damasus would he have said to him I am in the Communion of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon this Rock Whosoever gathereth not with thee scattereth Would he then have said the Roman Faith and the Catholick were the same or that the Roman Faith received no delusions no not from an Angel I suppose he could not have said so with any coherence to his own belief and therefore conceive it undeniable that what he said then to Damasus he said it though perhaps he strained too high only of Damasus and never conceived that his words would have been extended to all his Predecessors and all his Successors 24. Obj. S. Ambrose de obitu Satyri fratris saith of his Brother Satyrus that inquiring for a Church wherein to give thanks for his delivery from Shipwreck he called to him the Bishop and he asked him whether he agreed with the Catholick Bishops that is with the Roman Church And when he understood that he was a Schismatick that is Separated from the Roman Church he abstained from Communicating with him Answ No more can be certainly concluded from it but that the Catholick Bishops and the Roman Church were then at Unity so that whosoever agreed with the latter could not then but agree with the former But that this Rule was perpetual and that no man could ever agree with the Catholick Bishops but he must agree with the Roman Church this he says not nor gives you any ground to conclude from him Athanasius when he was excommunicated by Liberius agreed very ill with the Roman Church and yet you will not gainsay but he agreed well enough with the Catholick Bishops 24. Obj. S. Cyprian saith Epist 55. ad Cornel. They are bold to Sail to the Chair of S. Peter and to the principal Church from whence Priestly Unity hath sprung Neither do they consider that they are Romans whose
Faith was commended by the Preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Answ For S. Cyprian all the World knows that he b It is confessed by Baronius Anno. 238. N. 41. By Bellarm l. 4. de R. Pont. c. 7. §. Tertia ratio resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Re-baptizing which that Church at that time delivered as a necessary tradition So necessary that by the Bishop of Rome Firmilianus and other Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia and Galatia and generally all who persisted in the contrary opinion c Confessed by Baronius An 258. N. 14. 15. By Card. Perron Repl. l. 1. c. 25. Ibid. were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which excommunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinal Perren magisterially and without all colour of proof affirm the contrary and Cyprian in particular so far cast off as for it to be pronounced by Stephen a false Christ Again so necessary that the Bishops which were sent by Cyprian from Africk to Rome were not admitted to the Communion of ordinary conference But all men who were subject to the Bishop of Romes Authority were commanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace and Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. John forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holds still his former opinion and though out of respect to the Churches peace d Vide Con. Carth. apud sur To. 1. he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise than he held yet he conceived Stephen and his adherents d Bell. l. 2. de Conc. c. 5. Aug. ep 48. lib. 1. de Bapt. c. 18. to hold a pernitious Error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversation in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so far was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so in submitting to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that no other Bishop but our Lord Jesus only had power to Judge with Authority of his Judgment and as plainly intimates that Stephen for usurping such a power and making himself a Judge over Bishops was little better than a Tyrant and as heavily almost he censures him and peremptorily opposes him as obstinate in Error in that very place where he delivers that famous saying How can he have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother little doubting it seems but a man might have the Church for his Mother who stood in opposition to the Church of Rome and far from thinking what you fondly obtrude upon him that to be United to the Roman Church and to the Church was all one and that separation from S. Peters Chair was a mark I mean a certain mark either of Schism or Heresie 26. But you have given a false or at least a strained Translation of S. Cyprians forecited Words for Cyprian saith not to whom falshood cannot have access as if he had exempted the Roman Church from a possibility of Error but to whom perfidiousness cannot have access meaning those perfidious Schismaticks whom he there complains of and of these by a Rhetorical insinuation he says that with such good Christians as the Romans were it was not possible they should find favourable entertainment As for his joyning the Principal Church and the Chair of Peter how that will serve to prove separation from the Roman Church to be a mark of Heresie it is hard to understand Though we do not altogether deny but that the Church of Rome might be called the Chair of S. Peter in regard he is said to have Preached the Gospel there and the principal Church because the City was the principal and imperial City which prerogative of the City if we believe the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon was the ground and occasion why the Fathers of former times I pray observe conferred upon this Church this prerogative above other Churches 27. Obj. But in another place Epist 52. S. Cyprian makes Communicating with Cornelius the Bishop of Rome and with the Catholick Church to be the same Answ This does not prove that to Communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to Communicate with the Catholick Church is always for that you assume one and the same thing S. Cyprian speaks not of the Church of Rome at all but of the Bishop only who when he doth Communicate with the Catholick Church as Cornelius at that time did then whosoever Communicates with him cannot but Communicate with the Catholick Church and then by accident one may truely say such a one Communicates with you that is with the Catholick Church and that to Communicate with him is to Communicate with the Catholick Church As if Titius and Sempronius be together he that is in company with Titius cannot but be at that time in company with Sempronius As if a General be marching to some place with an Army he that then is with the General must at that time be with the Army And a man may say without absurdity such a time I was with the General that is with the Army and that to be with the General is to be with the Army Or as if a mans hand be joyned to his Body the finger which is joyned to the hand is joyned to the Body and a man may say truly of it this finger is joyned to the hand that is to the Body and to be joyned to the hand is to be joyned to the Body because all these things are by accident true And yet I hope you would not deny but the finger might possibly be joyned to the hand and yet not to the Body the hand being cut off from the Body and a man might another time be with his General and not with his Army he being absent from the Army And therefore by like Reason your collection is Sophistical being in effect but this to communicate with such a Bishop of Rome who did Communicate with the Catholick Church was to Communicate with the Catholick Church therefore absolutely and always it must be true that to Communicate with him is by consequent to Communicate with the Catholick Church and to be divided from the Communion is to be an Heretick 28. Obj. S. Irenaeus saith lib. 3. cont haer c. 3. Because it were long to number the successions of all Churches we declaring the Tradition of the most great most Ancient and known Church founded by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by vain Glory Blindness
mad than to the Lectors reading these Epistles to say Peace with you and to separate from the peace of these Churches to which these Epistles were written So Optatus having done you as it might seem great service in upbraiding the Donatists as Schismaticks because they had not Communion with the Church of Rome overthrows and undoes it all again and as it were with a spunge wipes out all that he had said for you by adding after that they were Schismaticks because they bad not the fellowship of Communion with the seven Churches of Asia to which S. John writes whereof he pronounces confidently though I know not upon what ground Extra septem Ecclesias quicquid for is est alienum est Now I pray tell me do you esteem the Authority of these Fathers a sufficient assurance that separation from these other Apostolick Churches was a certain mark of Heresie or not If so then your Church hath been for many Ages heretical If not how is their authority a greater argument for the Roman than for the other Churches If you say they conceived separation from these Churches a note of Schism only when they were united to the Roman so also they might conceive of the Roman only when it was united to them If you say they urged this only as a probable and not as a certain Argument so also they might do that In a word whatsoever answer you can devise to shew that these Fathers made not separation from these other Churches a mark of Heresie apply that to your own Argument and it will be satisfied 33. You see S. Austins words make very little or indeed nothing for you But now his Action which according to Cardinal Perrons rule is much more to be regarded than his words as not being so obnoxious to misinterpretation a You do ill to translate it the Principality of the Sea Apostolick as if there were but one whereas S. Austin presently after speaks of Apostolical Churches in the plural number and makes the Bishops of them joynt Commissioners for the judging of Ecclesiastical causes I mean his famous opposition of three Bishops of Rome in Succession touching the great question of Appeals wherein he and the rest of the African Bishops proceeded so far in the first or second Milevitan Council as to b The words of the Decree which also Bellarmine l. 1. de Matrim c. 17. assures us to have been formed by S. Austin are these Si qui Africani ab Episcopis provocandum putaverint non nisi ad Africana provocent Concilia vel ad Primates provinciarum suarum Ad transmarina antem qui putaverit appellandum à nullo intra Africam in Communionem suscipiatur This Decree is by Gratian most impudently corrupted For whereas the Fathers of that Council intended it particularly against the Church of Rome he tells us they forbad Appeals to all excepting only the Church of Rome decree any African Excommunicate that should appeal to any man out of Africk and therein continued resolute unto death I say this famous Action of his makes clearly and evidently and infinitely against you For had Boniface and the rest of the African Bishops a great part whereof were Saints and Martyrs believed as an Article of Faith that Union and Conformity with the Doctrin of the Roman Church in all things which she held necessary was a certain note of a good Catholick and by Gods command necessary to Salvation how was it possible they should have opposed it in this Unless you will say they were all so foolish as to believe at once direct contradictions viz. that conformity to the Roman Church was necessary in all points and not necessary in this or else so horribly impious as believing this doctrin of the Roman Church true and her power to receive Appeals derived from divine Authority notwithstanding to oppose and condemn it and to Anathematize all those Africans of what condition soever that should appeal unto it I say of what condition soever For it is evident that they concluded in their determination Bishops as well as the inferior Clergy and Laity And Cardinal Perrons pretence of the contrary is a shameless falshood repugnant to the plain a The words are these Praefato debito salutationis officio impendio deprecamur ut deinceps ad aures vestras hinc venientes non faciliùs admittatis nec à nobis excommunicates ultra in Communionem velitis recipere quia hoc etiam Niceno Concilio definitum facile advertet venerabilitas tua Nam si de inferioribus Clericis vel Laicis videtur id praecavert quanto magis hoc de Episcopis voluit observari words of the Remonstrance of the African Bishops to Celestine Bishop of Rome 34. Obj. Tertullian saith Praescrip cap. 36. If thou be near Italy thou bast Rome whose Authority is near at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles have poured all Doctrin together with their blood Ans Your allegation of Tertullian is a manifest conviction of your want of sincerity For you produce with great ostentation what he says of the Church of Rome but you and your fellows always conceal and dissemble that immediately before these words he attributes as much for point of direction to any other Apostolick Church and that as he sends them to Rome who lived near Italy so those near Achaia he sends to Corinth those about Macedonia to Philippi and Thessalonica those of Asia to Ephesus His words are Go to now thou that wilt better imploy thy curiosity in the business of thy salvation run over the Apostolical Churches wherein the Chairs of the Apostles are yet sate upon in their places wherein their Authentick Epistles are recited sounding out the voyce and representing the face of every one Is Achaia near thee there thou hast Corinth If thou art not far from Macedonia thou hast Philippi thou hast Thessalonica If thou canst go into Asia there thou hast Ephesus If thou be adjacent to Italy thou hast Rome whose Authority is near at hand to us in Africk A happy Church into which the Apostles poured forth all their Doctrine together with their Blood c. Now I pray Sirtell me if you can for blushing why this place might not have been urged by a Corinthian or Philippian or Thessalonian or an Ephesian to shew that in the Judgment of Tertullian separation from any of their Churches is a certain mark of Heresie as justly and rationally as you alledge it to vindicate this priviledge to the Roman Church only Certainly if you will stand to Tertullians judgment you must either grant the authority of the Roman Church though at that time a good Topical Argument and perhaps a better than any the Hereticks had especially in conjunction with other Apostolick Churches yet I say you must grant it perforce but a Fallible Guide as well as that of Ephesus and Thessalonica and Philippi and Corinth or you must maintain the authority of
it not as well as yours and whether some mens persuasion 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 than a mans persuasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he 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 a just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Hereticks that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferred on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Popes right or an Usurpation If it were his right whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose 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 until 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 unlawful to go 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 we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an Usurped Authority commanding unlawful 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 Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his Sword to his Prefect with this commission that if he Governed well he should use it for him if ill against 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 Gospel of Christ and consequently against her Doctrine if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or Woman that has ability to persuade 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 than that of a Christian to do 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 any unnecessary disturbance of order to persuade men out of a false unto a true way of Eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assured us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the Error of his way shall save a Soul from Death and shall hide a multitude of Sins 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 Cardinals do 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 Canonical exception Whether the Doctrine that the King is supream head of the Church of England as the Kings of Judah and the first Christian Emperors were of the Jewish and Christian Church be any new found Doctrine Whether it be not true that Bishops being made Bishops have their Authority immediately 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 immediately from Christ and yet this or that man cannot be made Pope without the Authority of the Cardinals Whether you do well to suppose that Christian Kings have no more Authority in ordering the affairs of the Church than 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 Kingdom and yet not be capable of doing it himself as well as a Bishop may give Authority to a Physician to practice Physick in his Diocess which the Bishop cannot do himself Whether if Nero the Emperor would have commanded S. Peter or S. Paul to Preach the Gospel of Christ and to exercise the office of a Bishop of Rome whether they would have questioned his Authority to do so Whether there were any Law of God or man that prohibited K. JAMES to give Commission to Bishops nay to lay his injunction upon them to do any thing that is lawful Whether a casual irregularity may not be lawfully dispenced with Whether the Popes irregularities if he should chance to incur 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 immediately by infusion from God himself yet if they were the Kings Subjects he wants not authority to command them to build him a Palace for his use or a fortress for his service Or as the King of France pretends not to have power to make Priests himself yet I hope you will not deny him power to command any of his Subjects that has this power to ordain any fit person Priest whom he shall desire to be ordained Whether it do 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 ipso facto Ordained and Consecrated who by the Kings Authority are commended to the Bishops to be Ordained and Consecrated Especially seeing the King
pretend is the true sense of them When you have produced certain grounds for all these things I doubt not but it will appear that we also may have grounds certain enough to believe our whole Religion which is nothing else but the Bible without dependence on the Churches infallibility Suppose you should meet with a man that for the present believes neither Church nor Scripture nor God but is ready and willing to believe them all if you can shew some sufficient grounds to build his faith upon will you tell such a man there are no certain grounds by which he may be converted or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. Obj. The Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Ans But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47. Obj. But Protestants though they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. Yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all Ans The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to relie in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all reason Might not the one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your own but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. Obj. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Ans By like reason since you acknowledge that every error in points defined and declared by your Church destroys the substance of Faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of Faith without which there can be no hope of Salvation But though we cannot perhaps say in particular thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a receipt takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. Obj. It is generally delivered by Catholick Divines that he who erreth against any one revealed truth tâ—seth all Divine Faith Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Ans I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines Yet if the Authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for true doctrin this position of yours thus nakedly set down That any error against any one revealed truth destroys all divine faith For they all require not your self excepted that this truth must not only be revealed but revealed publickly and all things considered sufficiently propounded to the erring party to be one of those which God under pain of damnation commands all men to believe But if the Reader will be at the pains he may see this vain fancy confuted out of one of the most rational and profound Doctors of your own Church I mean Estius upon the third Book of the Sententes the 23. Distinct and the 13. Section beginning thus It is disputed whether in him who believes some of the Articles of our Faith and disbelieves others or perhaps some one there be faith properly so called in respect of that which he does believe 50. But if Protestants have certainty they want obscurity and so have not that faith which as the Apostle saith is of things not appearing This argument you prosecute in the next Paragraph but I can find nothing in it to convince or perswade me that Protestants cannot have as much certainty as is required to faith of an object not so evident as to beget science If obscurity will not consist with certainty in the highest degree then you are to blame for requiring to faith contradicting conditions If certainty and obscurity will stand together what reason can be imagined that a Protestant may not entertain them both as well as a Papist Your bodies and souls your understandings and wills are I think of the same
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein 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 belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess 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 Councils against Councils 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 self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved 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 profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose 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 seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment 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 less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete 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 than 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 persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured 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 find 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 me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved 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 fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and 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 confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 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. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear 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 revealed reason could never have discovered 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 convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
yielded both these were among the Donatists as much as we yield them to be among the Papists As for D. Potters acknowledgment that they maintained an error in the matter and nature of it Heretical This proves them but material Hereticks whom you do not exclude from possibility of Salvation So that all things considered this argument must be much more forcible from the Donatists against the Catholicks than from Papists against Protestants in regard Protestants grant Papists no more hope of salvation than Papists grant Protestants whereas the Donatists excluded absolutely all but their own part from hope of Salvation so far as to account them no Christians that were not of it the Catholicks mean while accounting them Brethren and freeing those among them from the imputation of Heresie who being in error quaerebant cautâ sollicitudine veritatem corrigi parati cùm invenerint sought for truth carefully being ready when they found it to correct their errors 23. Whereas you say That the Argument for the certainty of their Baptism because it was confessed good by Catholicks whereas the Baptism of Catholicks was not confessed by them to be good is not so good as yours touching the certainty of your Salvation grounded on the confession of Protestants because we confess there is no damnable error in the doctrin or practice of the Roman Church I Answer no we confess no such matter and though you say so a hundred times no repetition will make it true We profess plainly that many damnable errors plainly repugnant to the precepts of Christ both Ceremonial and Moral more plainly than this of Rebaptization and therefore more damnable are believed and professed by you And therefore seeing this is the only disparity you can devise and this is vanished it remains that as good an answer as the Catholicks made touching the certainty of their Baptism as good may we make and with much more evidence of Reason touching the security and certainty of our Salvation 24. By the way I desire to be informed seeing you affirm that Rebaptizing those whom Hereticks had baptized was a sacriledge and a profession of a damnable Heresie when it began to be so If from the beginning it were so then was Cyprian a sacrilegious professor of a damnable heresie and yet a Saint and a Martyr If it were not so then did your Church excommunicate Firmilian and others and separate from them without sufficient ground of Excommunication or Separation which is Schismatical You see what difficulties you run into on both sides choose whether you will but certainly both can hardly be avoided 27. What S. Austin answers to the Donatists argument fits us in answer to yours as if it had been made for it for as S. Austin says that Catholicks approve the Doctrin of Donatists but abhor their Heresie of Re-baptization So we say that we approve those fundamental and simple necessary Truths which you retain by which some good souls among you may be saved but abhor your many Superstitions and Heresies And as he says that as gold is good yet ought not to be sought for among a company of thieves and Baptism good but not to be sought for in the Conventicles of Donatists so say we that the Truths you retain are good and as we hope sufficient to bring good ignorant souls among you to salvation yet are not to be sought for in the Conventicle of Papists who hold with them a mixture of many vanities and many impieties 30. Obj. But Protestants do either exclude Hope by Despair with the Doctrin that our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vain presumption grounded upon a fantastical perswasion that they are predestinate which Faith must exclude all fear and trembling and you add though some Protestants may relent from the rigour of the aforesaid doctrin yet none of them can have true hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such Doctrins Ans * See numb 4. in the fol. edit All this may be as forcibly returned upon Papists as it is urged against Protestants in as much as all Papists either hold the Doctrine of Predetermination and absolute Election or Communicate with those that do hold it Now from this Doctrin what is more prone and obvious than for every natural man without Gods especial preventing grace to make this practical collection either I am elected or not elected if I be no impiety possible can ever damn me If not no possible industry can ever save me Now whether this disjunctive perswasion be not as likely as any doctrin of Protestants to extinguish Christian Hope and filial fear and to lead some men to despair others to presumption all to a wretchless and impious life I desire you ingenuously to inform me and if you deny it assure your self you shall be contradicted and confuted by men of your own Religion and your own society and taught at length this charitable doctrin that though mens opinions may be charged with the absurd consequences which naturally flow from them yet the men themselves are not I mean if they perceive not the consequence of these absurdities nor do not own and acknowledge but disclaim and detest them I add 1. That there is no Calvinist that will deny the truth of this proposition Christ died for all nor to subscribe to that sense of it which your Dominicans put upon it neither can you with coherence to the received Doctrine of your own Society deny that they as well as the Calvinists take away the distinction of sufficient and effectual grace and indeed hold none to be sufficient but only that which is effectual 2. Whereas you say They cannot make their calling certain by good works who do certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified by faith alone and by that faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified I answer There is no Protestant but believes that Faith Repentance and universal Obedience are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour and eternal happiness This being granted the rest is but a speculative Controversie a Question about words which would quickly vanish but that men affect not to understand one another As if a company of Physicians were in consultation and should all agree that three Medicins and no more were necessary for the recovery of the Patients health this were sufficient for his direction towards the recovery of his health though concerning the proper and specifical effects of these three Medicins there should be amongst them as many differences as men So likewise being generally at accord that these three things Faith Hope and Charity are necessary to salvation so that whosoever wants any of them cannot obtain it and he which hath them all cannot fail of it is it not very evident that they are sufficiently agreed for mens directions to eternal Salvation And seeing Charity is a full comprehension of all
be made unnecessary by being so accounted nor an unnecessary point be made necessary by being overvalued But as the ancient Philosophers whose different opinions about the soul of man you may read in Aristotle de Anima and Cicero's Tusculan Questions notwithstanding their divers opinions touching the nature of the soul yet all of them had souls and souls of the same nature Or as those Physicians who dispute whether the brain or heart be the principal part of a man yet all of them have brains and have hearts and herein agree sufficiently So likewise though some Protestants esteem that Doctrin the soul of the Church which others do not so highly value yet this hinders not but that which is indeed the soul of the Church may be in both sorts of them and though one account that a necessary truth which others account neither necessary nor perhaps true yet this notwithstanding in those Truths which are truly and really necessary they may all agree For no Argument can be more sophistical than this They differ in some points which they esteem necessary Therefore they differ in some that indeed and in truth are so 35. Now as concerning the other inference That they cannot agree what points are fundamental I have said and proved formerly that there is no such necessity as you imagin or pretend that men should certainly know what is and what is not fundamental They that believe all things plainly delivered in Scripture believe all things fundamental and are at sufficient Unity in matters of Faith though they cannot precisely and exactly distinguish between what is fundamental and what is profitable nay though by error they mistake some vain or perhaps hurtful opinions for necessary and fundamental Truths Cap. 3. §. 53. alibt Besides I have shewed above that as Protestants do not agree for you over-reach in saying they cannot touching what points are fundamental so neither do you agree what points are defined and so to be accounted and what are not nay nor concerning the subject in which God hath placed this pretended Authority of defining some of you setling it in the Pope himself though alone without a Council Others in a Council though divided from the Pope Others only in the conjunction of Council and Pope Others not in this neither but in the acceptation of the present Church Universal Lastly others not attributing it to this neither but only to the perpetual 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 defined and therefore necessary which the latter according to their own grounds have no obligation to do nay cannot do so upon any firm and sure and infallible foundation FINIS OUT OF Mr. Chillingworth's Manuscript A LETTER TO Mr. LEWGAR CONCERNING THE Church of Romes Being the Guide of Faith and Judge of Controversies Good Mr. LEWGAR THough I am resolved not to be much afflicted for the loss of that which is not in my power to keep yet I cannot deny but the loss of a friend goes very near unto my heart and by this name of a friend I did presume till of late that I might have called you because though perhaps for want of power and opportunity I have done you no good office yet I have been always willing and ready to do you the best service I could and therefore I cannot but admire at that affected strangeness which in your last Letter to me you seem to take upon you renouncing in a manner all relation to me and tacitly excommunicating me from all interest in you the Superscription of your Letter is to Mr. William Chillingworth and your Subscription John Lewgar as if you either disdained or made a conscience of stiling me your friend or your self mine If this proceed from passion and weakness I pray mend it if from reason I pray shew it If you think me one of those to whom Saint John forbids you to say God save you then you are to think and prove me one of those Deceivers which deny Christ Jesus to be come in the flesh If you think me an Heretick and therefore to be avoided you must prove me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 condemned by my own judgment which I know I cannot and therefore I think you cannot If you say I do not hear the Church and therefore am to be esteemed an Heathen or Publican you are to prove that by the Church there is meant the Church of Rome and yet when you have done so I hope Christians are not forbidden to shew humanity and civility even to Pagans for Gods sake Mr. Lewgar free your self from this blind zeal at least for a little space and consider with reason and moderation what strange crime you can charge me with that should deferve this strange usage especially from you Is it a crime to endeavour with all my understanding to find your Religion true and to make my self a believer of it and not be able to do so Is it a crime to imploy all my reason upon the justification of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and to find it impossible to be justified I will call God to witness who knows my heart better than you do that I have evened the scale of my judgment as much as possibly I could and have not willingly allowed any one grain of worldly motives on either side but have weighed the Reasons for your Religion and against with such indifference as if there were nothing in the world but God and my self and is it my fault that that scale goes down which hath the most weight in it that that building falls which has a false foundation have you such power over your understanding that you can believe what you please though you see no reason or that you can suspend your belief when you do see reason If you have I pray for our old friendships sake teach me that trick but until I have learnt it I pray blame me not for going the ordinary way I mean for believing or not believing as I see reason If you can convince me of wilful opposition against the known truth of negligence in seeking it of unwillingness to find it of preferring temporal respects before it or of any other fault which is in my power to amend that is indeed a fault if I amend it not be as angry with me as you please But to impute to me involuntary errors or that I do not see that which I would see but cannot or that I will not profess that which I do not believe certainly this is far more unreasonable error than any which you can justly charge me with for let me tell you the imputing Socinianism to me whosoever was the author of it was a wicked and groundless slander Perhaps you will say for this is the usual song on that side that pride is a voluntary fault and with this I am justly
Philosophers and Heresies of Christians are none of his his is but one to wit the Catholick Church c. S. Epiphan in fine Panar 11. A man may not call the Conventicles of Hereticks I mean Marcionites Manichees and the rest Churches therefore the Tradition appoints you to say I believe one Holy Catholick Church c. S. Cyrill Catech. 18. And these Testimonies I think are sufficient to shew the judgment of the Ancient Church that this Title of the Church one is directly and properly exclusive to all companies besides one to wit that where there are diverse professions of Faith or diverse Communions there is but one of these which can be the Catholick Church Upon this ground I desire some company of Christians to be named professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Roman which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and if no other in this sense can be named than was she the Catholick Church at that time and therefore her judgment to be rested in and her Communion to be embraced upon peril of Schism and Heresie Mr. Chillingworths Answer Upon the same ground if you pleased you might desire a Protestant to name some Company of Christians professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and seeing he could name no other in this sense concludes that the Greek Church was the Catholick Church at that time Upon the very same ground you might have concluded for the Church of the Abyssines or Armenians or any other society of Christians extant before Luthers time And seeing this is so thus I argue against your ground 1. That ground which concludes indifferently for both parts of a contradiction must needs be false and deceitful and conclude for neither part But this ground concludes indifferently both parts of a contradiction viz. That the Greek Church is the Catholick Church and not the Roman as well as That the Roman is the Catholick Church and not the Greek Therefore the ground is false and deceitful seem it never so plausible 2. I answer Secondly that you should have taken notice of my Answer which I then gave you which was that your major as you then framed your Argument but as now your minor is not always true if by one you understand one in external Communion seeing nothing hindred in my Judgment but that one Church excommunicated by another upon an insufficient cause might yet remain a true member of the Catholick Church and that Church which upon the overvaluing this cause doth excommunicate the other though in fault may yet remain a member of the Catholick Church which is evident from the difference about Easter-day between the Church of Rome and the Churches of Asia for which vain matter Victor Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Churches of Asia And yet I believe you will not say that either the Church excommunicating or the Church excommunicated ceased to be a true member of the Church Catholick The case is the same between the Greek and the Roman Church for though the difference between them be greater yet it is not so great as to be a sufficient ground of excommunication and therefore the excommunication was causeless and consequently Brutum fulmen and not ratified or confirmed by God in Heaven and therefore the Church of Greece at Luthers rising might be and was a true member of the Catholick Church As concerning the places of Fathers which you alledge I demand 1. If I can produce you an equal or greater number of Fathers or more ancient than these not contradicted by any that lived with them or before them for some doctrin condemned by the Roman Church whether you will subscribe it If not with what face or conscience can you make use of and build your whole Faith upon the Authority of Fathers in some things and reject the same authority in others 2. Secondly because you urge S. Cyprians Authority I desire you to tell me whether this Argument in his time would have concluded a necessity of resting in the Judgement of the Roman Church or no If not how should it come to pass that it should serve now and not then fit this time and not that as if it were like an Almanack that would not serve for all Meridians If it would why was it not urged by others upon S. Cyprian or represented by S. Cyprian to himself for his direction when he differed from the Roman Church and all other that herein conformed unto her touching the point of Re-baptizing Hereticks which the Roman Church held unlawful and damnable S. Cyprian not only lawful but necessary so well did he rest in the Judgment of that Church Quid verba audiam cùm facta videam says he in the Comedy And Cardinal Perron tells you in his Epistle to Casaubon that nothing is more unreasonable than to draw consequences from the words of Fathers against their lively and actual practice The same may be said in refutation of the places out of S. Austin who was so far from concluding from them or any other a necessity of resting in the Judgment of the Roman Church that he himself as your Authors testifie lived and died in opposition of it even in that main fundamental point upon which Mr. Lewgar hath built the necessity of his departure from the Church of England and embracing the Communion of the Roman Church that is The Supream Authority of that Church over other Churches and the power of receiving Appeals from them Mr. Lewgar I know cannot be ignorant of these things and therefore I wonder with what conscience he can produce their words against us whose Actions are for us If it be said that S. Cyprian and S. Austin were Schismaticks for doing so it seems then Schismaticks may not only be members of the Church against Mr. Lewgars main conclusion but Canoniz'd Saints of it or else S. Austin and S. Cyprian should be rased out of the Roman Kalendar If it be said that the point of Re-baptization was not defined in S. Cyprians time I say that in the Judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome and their adherents it was For they urged it as an Original and Apostolick Tradition and consequently at least of as great force as any Church definition They excommunicated Firmilianus and condemned S. Cyprian as a false Christ and a false Apostle for holding the contrary and urged him Tyrannico terrore to conform his judgment to theirs as he himself clearly intimates If it be said they differed only from the particular Church of Rome and not from the Roman Church taking it for the universal society of Christians in Communion with that Church I Answer 1. They know no such sense of the word I am sure never used it in any such which whether it had been possible if the Church of Rome had been in their judgment to other Churches in
trouble you took the next Boat and went to the Church of Rome because that bespake you first You impute to me as I hear that the way I take is destructive only and that I build nothing which first is not a fault for Christian Religion is not now to be built but only I desire to have the rubbish and impertinent Lumber taken off which you have laid upon it which hides the glorious simplicity of it from them which otherwise would embrace it Remember I pray Averroes his saying Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis and consider the swarms of Atheists in Italy and then tell me whether your unreasonable and contradictious Doctrines your forged Miracles and counterfeit Legends have not in all probability produced this effect Secondly if it be a fault it is certainly your own for your discourse intended for the proof of a positive conclusion That we must be Papists proves in deed and in truth nothing but even in shew and appearance no more but this Negative that we must not be Protestants but what we must be if we must not be Protestants God knows you in this Discourse I am sure do not shew it Mr. Lewgars Reply § 1. The minor of Mr. Chillingworths Argument against my ground is very weak being framed upon a false supposition that a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith c. from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church for if he could not indeed name any other the title would remain to the Greek Church But he hath the Roman to name and so my ground cannot conclude either for the Greek or Abyssine or any other besides the Roman but for that it does except he can name some other § 2. His second answer is weak likewise for my Minor is always true at least they thought it to be so whose Authorities I produce in confirmation of it as will appear to any one that considers them well how their force lies in Thesi not in Hypothesi not that the Church was not then divided into more Societies than one but that she could never be § 3. As for his Instance to the contrary wherein he believes I will not say the Churches excommunicated by Victor ceased to be a true member of the Catholick If I say so I say no more than the Ancient Fathers said before me Iraeneus when he desired Victor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to cut off so many and great Churches and Ruffinus reprehendit eam quod non benè fecisset abscindere ab unitate corporis c. § 4. But howsoever the case of Excommunication may be the division of external Communion which I intended and the Fathers spake of in the alledged Authorities was that which was made by voluntary separation § 5. Whereby the Church before one Society is divided into several distinct Societies both claiming to be the Church of which Societies so divided but one can be the Catholick and this is proved by the Authorities alledged which Authorities must not be answered by disproving them as he does for that is to change his Adversary and confute the Fathers sayings instead of mine but by shewing their true sense or judgment to be otherwise than I alledged it § 6. To his demand upon the places alledged I Answer that I do not build my whole faith of this conclusion upon the Authority of those Fathers for I produce them not for the Authority of the thing but of the Exposition The thing it self is an Article of the Creed Unam Catholicam grounded in express Scripture Columba mea unica but because there is difference in understanding this Prophesie I produce these Authorities to shew the Judgment of the Ancient Church how they understood it and the proper answer to this is either to shew that these words were not there or at least not this meaning and so to shew their meaning out of other places more pregnant § 7. And I promise that whensoever an equal consent of Fathers can be shewed for any thing as I can shew for this I will believe it as firmly as I do this § 8. But this is not the Answerers part to propound doubts and difficulties but to satisfie the proof objected § 9. And if this course be any more taken I will save my self all farther labour in a business so likely to be endless § 10. His second Answer to the places is wholly impertinent for therein would he disprove them from watching a necessity of resting in the judgment of the Roman Church whereas I produced them only to shew that among several Societies of Christians only one can be the Catholick and against this his second Answer saith nothing § 11. In his third Answer he makes some shew of reply to the Authorities themselves but he commits a double Error One that he imposes upon me a wrong conclusion to be proved as will appear by comparing my conclusion in my Paper with the conclusion he would appoint me § 12. Another that he imposes upon the Authorities a wrong Interpretation no way grounded in the words themselves nor in the places whence they were taken nor in any other places of the same Fathers but meerly forged out of his own Brain For first the places do not only say that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no part of the Church but that the Church cannot be divided into more Societies than one and they account Societies divided which are either of a diverse Faith or a diverse Communion Neither do they define Hereticks or Schismaticks in that manner as he does § 13. For an Heretick in their Language is he that opposes partinaciously the Common Faith of the Church and a Schismatick he that separates from the Catholick Communion never making any mention at all of the cause § 14. And if his definition of a Schismatick may stand then certainly there was no Schismatick ever in the World nor none are at this day for none did none does separate without some pretence of Error or unlawfulness in the Conditions of the Churches Communion § 15. And so I expect both a fuller and directer answer to my Argument without excursions or diversions into any other matter till the judgment of Antiquity be cleared in this point Mr. Chillingworths Answer Ad § 1. The Minor of my Argument you say is very weak being grounded upon a false Supposition That a Protestant could name no other Church professing a diverse Faith from the Greek which was the Catholick Church And your reason is because he might name the Roman But in earnest Mr. Lewgar do you think that a Protestant remaining a Protestant can esteem the Roman Church to be the Catholick Church or do you think to put tricks upon us with taking your proposition one while in sensu composito another while in sensu diviso For if your meaning was that a Protestant not remaining but ceasing to be a
Protestant might name the Roman for the Catholick so I say also to your discourse that a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant might name a Greek to be the Catholick Church and if there were any necessity to find out one Church of one denomination as the Greek the Roman the Abyssine which one must be the Catholick I see no reason but he might pitch upon the Greek Church as well as the Roman I am sure your discourse proves nothing to the contrary In short thus I say if a Grecian should go about to prove to a Protestant that his Church is the Catholick by saying as you do for the Roman some one was so before Luther and you can name no other therefore ours is so Whatsoever may be answered to him may be answered to you For as you say a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant may name to him the Roman so I say a Protestant ceasing to be a Protestant may name to you the Grecian If you say a Protestant remaining a Protestant can name no other but the Roman for the Catholick I may very ridiculously I confess but yet as truly say he can name no other but the Grecian If you say he cannot name the Greek Church neither remaining a Protestant I say likewise neither remaining a Protestant can he name the Roman for the Catholick So the Argument is equal in all respects on both sides and therefore either concludes for both parts which is impossible for then contradictions should be both true or else which is certain it concludes for neither And therefore I say your ground you build on That before Luther some Church of one denomination was the Catholick if it were true as it is most false would not prove your intent It would destroy perhaps our Church but it would not build yours It would prove peradventure that we must not be Protestants but it will be far from proving that we must be Papists For after we have left being Protestants I tell you again that you may not mistake there is yet no necessity of being Papists no more than if I go out of England there is a necessity of going to Rome And thus much to shew the poorness of your ground if it were true Now in the second place I say it is false neither have you proved any thing to the contrary Ad § 2. You say the Authorities you have produced shew to any that consider them well That the Church could never be divided into more Societies than one and you mean I hope one in external Communion or else you dally in ambiguities and then I say I have well considered the alledged authorities and they appear to me to say no such thing but only that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no true members of the Church Whereas I put the case of two such Societies which were divided in external Communion by reason of some overvalued difference between them and yet were neither of them Heretical or Schismatical To this I know you could not answer but only by saying That this supposition was impossible viz. That of two Societies divided in external Communion neither should be Heretical nor Schismatical and therefore I desired you to prove by one convincing Argument that this is impossible This you have not done nor I believe can do and therefore all your places fall short of your intended conclusion and if you would put them into Syllogistical form you should presently see you conclude from them Sophistically in that fallacy which is called A dicto secundum quid ad dictum Simpliciter Thus No two divided Societies whereof one is Heretical or Schismatical can be both members of the Catholick Church therefore simply no two divided Societies can be so the Antecedent I grant which is all that your places say as you shall see anon but the consequence is Sophistical and therefore that I deny It is no better nor worse than if you should argue thus No true divided Societies whereof one is Out-lawed and in Rebellion are both members of the same Commonwealth therefore simply no two divided Societies But against this you pretend That the alledged places say not only that the Societies of Hereticks and Schismaticks are no parts of the Church but that the Church cannot be divided into more Societies than one And they account Societies divided which are either of a diverse Faith or of a diverse Communion This is that which I would have proved but as yet I cannot see it done There be Eleven Quotations in all seven of them speak expresly and formally of division made by Hereticks and Schismaticks viz. 1.3 4. 7.9 10 11. Three other of them viz. 5 6.8 though they use not the word yet Mr. Lewgar knows they speak of the Donatists which were Schismaticks and that by the relative particles you and them are meant the Donatists And lastly the second Mr. Lewgar knows says nothing but this That an Hereticks cannot be accounted of that one Flock which is the Church But to make the most of them that can be The first saith the Unity of the Church cannot be separated at all nor divided This I grant but then I say every difference does not in the sight of God divide this Unity for then diversity of Opinions should do it and so the Jesuits and Dominicans should be no longer members of the same Church Or if every difference will not do it why must it of necessity be always done by difference in Communion upon an insufficient ground yet mistaken for sufficient for such only I speak of Sure I am this place says no such matter The next place saies the Flock is but one and all the rest that the Church is but one and that Hereticks and Schismaticks are not of it which certainly was not the thing to be proved but that of this one Flock of this one Church two Societies divided without just cause in Communion might not be true and lively members both in one Body Mystical in the sight of God though divided in Unity in the sight of men It is true indeed whosoever is shut out from the Church on Earth is likewise cut off from it before God in Heaven but you know it must be Clave non errante when the cause of abscission is true and sufficient Ad § 3. If you say so you say no more than the Fathers but what evasions and tergiversations are these Why do you put us off with ifs and ands I beseech you tell me or at least him that desires to reap some benefit by our Conference directly and Categorically Do you say so or do you say it is not so Were the Excommunicated Churches of Asia still members of the Catholick Church I mean in Gods account or were they not but all damned for that horrible Heresie of celebrating the Feast of Easter upon a diverse day from the Western Churches If you mean honestly and fairly answer directly to this Question and then you
effect of it in their lives and conversations in a word such as were betrayed to their Error and kept for ever in it either by negligence in seeking the Truth or unwillingness to find it or by some other voluntary sin And for these I dare not flatter them with hope of pardon but let me tell you it is not the error of the understanding but the sin of their will that truly and properly damns them But for the former I am confident that nothing is more contumelious to the goodness of God than to think that he will damn any such for he should damn men that truly love him and desire to serve him for doing that which all things considered was impossible for them not to do Obj. If it is said that pride of their own understanding made them not submit to the Church of Rome and to her guidance and that for this being a voluntary sin they may be justly damned Ans I answer that whether the Church of Rome be the guide of all men is the Question and therefore not to be begged but proved that the man we speak of is very willing to follow this Guide could he find any good ground to believe it is his Guide and therefore the reason he follows her not is not pride but ignorance that as it is humility to obey those whom God hath set over us so it is credulity to follow every one that will take upon him to lead us that if the blind lead the blind not only the leader but the follower shall perish Lastly that the present Church of Rome pretends very little and indeed nothing of moment to get the office of being Head and Guide of the Church which Antichrist when he cometh may not and will not make use of for the very same end and purpose and therefore he had reason not to be too sudden and precipitate in committing himself to the conduct of the Pope for fear of mistaking Antichrist for the Vicar of Christ Obj. But in all Commonwealths it is necessary there should be not only a Law for men to live by but also a living and speaking Judge to decide their differences arising about the various Interpretations of the Law and otherwise Controversies would be endless therefore if such a judge be so necessary in civil affairs for the procuring and preserving our temporal peace and happiness how much more necessary is he for the deciding of those Controversies that concern the saving and damning of our souls for ever Ans Hereunto I answer 1. That if it were as evident and certain that God hath appointed the Pope or Church of Rome to be the Guide of Faith and Judge of Controversies as that the King hath appointed such a one to be Lord Chief Justice the having of such a Guide would be very available for to preserve the Church in Unity and to conduct mens souls to Heaven but a Judge that has no better title or evidence to his place than the Pope has to that which he pretends to a Judge that is doubtful and justly questionable whether he be the Judge or no is in all probability likely to produce clean contrary effects and to be himself one of the Apples of strife one of the greatest subjects of Controversie and occasion of dissentions And to avoid this great inconvenience if God had intended the Pope or Church of Rome for this great Office certainly he would have said so very plainly and very frequently if not frequently certainly sometimes once at least he would have said so in express terms but he does not say so no not so much as once nor any thing from whence it may be collected with any sure or firm consequence therefore if it be not certain certainly it is very probable he never meant so Again in Civil Controversies the case can hardly be so put that there should be any necessity that the same man should be Judge and Party but in matters of Religion wherein all have equal interest every man is a party and engaged to judge for temporal respects this way or that way and therefore not fit to be a Judge But what then if he which was with so much clamor and so little reason vouched for the Infallibility of the Roman Church do tell you plainly there is no living Judge on Earth appointed by God to decide the Controversies arising amongst Christians nor no way to determine them but Scripture His words are express and formal and need no other commentary but a true interpretation Optatus Melevit lib. 5. ad princip Vos dicitis Licet nos non Licet inter Vestrum Licet nostrum non Licet nutant remigant animae populorum Nemo vobis credat nemo nobis omnes contentiosi homines sumus Quaerendi sunt judices si Christiani de utrâque parte dari non possunt de foris quaerendus est Judex Si Paganus non potest nosse Christiana Secreta Si Judaeus inimicus est Christiani Baptismatis Ergo in terris de hac re nullum poterit reperiri judicium de coelo quaerendus est Judex Sed ut quid pulsamus caelum cum habeamus hic in Evangelio Testamentum Quia hoc loco rectè possunt terrenae coelestibus comparari tale est quod quivis hominum habens numerosos filios His quamdiu presens est ipse imperat singulis non est adhuc necessarium Testamentum Sic Christus quamdiu praesens in terris fuit quamvis nec modo desit pro tempore quicquid necessarium erat Apostolis imperavit Sed quomodo terrenus pater cùm se in confinio senserit mortis timens ne post mortem suam ruptâ pace litigent fratres adhibitis testibus voluntatem suam de pectore morituro transfert in tabulas diù duraturas si fuerit inter fratres contentio nata non itur ad tumulum sed quaeritur Testamentum qui in tumulo quiescit tacitis de tabulis loquitur vivus Is cujus est testamentum in coelo est Ergo voluntas ejus velut in Testamento sic in Evangelio inquiratur That is You say such a thing is Lawful we say it is Unlawful the minds of the People are doubtful and wavering between your lawful and our unlawful Let no man believe either you or us we are all contentious men We must seek therefore for Judges between us If Christians are to be our Judges both sides will not afford such We must seek for a Judge abroad If he be a Pagan he cannot know the secrets of Christianity If he be a Jew he is an Enemy to Christian Baptism Therefore there is no judgment of this matter can be found on Earth We must seek for a Judge from Heaven But to what end do we sollicite Heaven when we have here in the Gospel a Will and Testament And because here we may fitly compare Earthly things with Heavenly The case is just as if a man had many Sons while
err in holding something necessary which was not so For the Negative Proposition viz. That the Eucharist is not necessary for Infants that it is the Doctrin of the present Church of Rome it is most manifest 1. From the disuse and abolition and prohibition of the contrary Ancient practice For if the Church did conceive it necessary for them either simply for their salvation or else for their increase or confirmation in grace and advancement to a higher degree of glory unless she could supply some other way their damage in this thing which evidently she cannot what an uncharitable sacriledge is it to debar and defraud them of the necessary means of their so great spiritual benefit especially seeing the administration of it might be so ordered that irreverent casualties might easily be prevented which yet should they fall out against the Churches and Pastors intention certainly could not offend God and in reason should not offend man Or if the Church do believe that upon such a vain fear of irreverence which we see moved not the Ancient Church at all she may lawfully forbid such a general perpetual and necessary charity certainly herein she commits a far greater error than the former Secondly from the Council of Trents Anathema denounced on all that hold the contrary in these words If any man say that the receiving of the Eucharist is necessary for little children before they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema Concil Trid. Sess 21. de communione parvulorum Can. 4. Now for the Affirmative part of the Contradiction to make it evident that that was the Doctrin of the Ancient Church I will prove it First from the general practice of the Ancient Church for several Ages Secondly by the direct and formal Testimonies of the Fathers of those times Thirdly by the confession of the most learned Antiquaries of the Roman Church My First Argument I form thus If to communicate Infants was the general practice of the Ancient Church for many Ages then certainly the Church then believed that the Eucharist was necessary for them and very available for their Spiritual benefit But it is certain that the Communicating of Infants was the general practice of the Church for many Ages Therefore the Church of those times thought it necessary for them To deny the consequence of the proposition is to charge the Church with extream folly wilful superstition and perpetual profanation of the Blessed Sacrament As for the Assumption it is fully confirmed by Clemens Rom. Constit Apost l. 3. c. 20. Dionysius Areopagita de Eccles Hierarch cap. ult S. Cyprian and a Council of African Bishops with him Epist 59. ad Fidum and in his Treatise de Lapsis p. 137. Edit Pamel Paulinus Bishop of Nola in Italy An. 353. in Epist 12. ad Senem out of Ordo Romanus cited by Alevinus S. Bedes Scholar and Master to Charlemain in his Book de divinis officiis cap. de Sab. Sancto Pasc Gennadius Massiliensis de Eccles dogmatibus c. 52. Concil Toletanum 2. Can. 11. It continued in the Western Church unto the days of Lewes the Debonair witness Cardinal Perron des passages de S. Austin p. 100. Some footsteps of it remained there in the time of Hugo de S. Victore as you may see lib. 1. de Sacram. Caerem cap. 20. It was the practice of the Church of the Armenians in Waldensis his time as he relates out of Guido the Carmelite Tom. 2. de Sacr. c. 91. de erroribus Armenorum It is still in force in the Church of the Abyssines witness Franc. Alvarez Hist Aethiop c. 22. Thomas a Jesu de procuranda salute omnium gentium It has cotinued without any interruption in the Greek Church unto this present Age as may be evidently gathered out of Lyranus in c. 6. John Arcudius lib. 1. c. 14. lib. 3. c. 40. de concord Eccles Orient Occident in Sacram. administratione Card. Perron des passages de S. Austin p. 100. where he also assures us of the Primitive Church in general that she gave Infants the Eucharist as soon as they were baptized and that the custome of giving this Sacrament to little Infants the Church then observed and before p. 21. That in those Ages it was always given to Infants together with Baptism The same is likewise acknowledged by Contzen in John 6. ver 54. and by Thomas a Jesu de proc salute omnium gentium So that this matter of the practice of the Ancient Church is sufficiently cleared Seeing therefore the Ancient Church did use this Custom and could have no other ground for it but their belief that this Sacrament was necessary for Infants it follows necessarily that the Church then did believe it necessary But deductions though never so evident are superfluous and may be set aside where there is such abundance of direct and formal Authentical Testimonies whereof some speak in Thesi of the necessity of the Eucharist for all men others in Hypothesi of the necessity of it for Infants My Second Argument from the Testimonies of the Fathers of those times I form thus That Doctrin in the affirmative whereof the most eminent Fathers of the ancient Church agree and which none of their contemporaries have opposed or condemned ought to be taken for the Catholick Doctrin of the Church of those times But the most eminent Fathers of the Ancient Church agree in the Affirmation of this Doctrin that the Eucharist is necessary for Infants and none of their contemporaries have opposed or condemned it Ergo it ought to be taken for the Catholick Doctrin of the Church of their times The Major of this Syllogism is delivered and fully proved by Card. Perron in his Letter to Casaubon 5. obs and is indeed so reasonable a postulate that none but a contentious spirit can reject it For confirmation of the Minor I will alledge first their sentences which in Thesi affirm the Eucharist to be generally necessary for all and therefore for Infants and then their Suffrages who in Hypothesi avouch the necessity of it for Infants The most pregnant Testimonies of the first rank are these Of Iraeneus lib. 4. cont Heres c. 34. where he makes our Union to Christ by the Eucharist the foundation of the hope of our resurrection in these words As the bread of Earth after the Invocation of God is now not common bread but the Eucharist consisting of two things an earthly and an heavenly so our bodies receiving the Eucharist are not now corruptible for ever but have hope of resurrection The like he hath lib. 5. c. 2. And hence in probability it is that the Nicene Council stiled this Sacrament Symbolum resurrectionis the pledge of our Resurrection And Ignatius Ep. ad Eph. Pharmacum Immortalitatis the Medicine of Immortality Cyril Alex. lib. 4. in Joan. They shall never partake nor so much as tast the life of holiness and happiness which receive not the Son in the mystical Benediction Cyril
expect from Heaven a Golden Hierusalem according to the Jewish tales which they call Duterossis which also many of our own have followed Especially Tertullian in his Book de spe fidelium and Lactantius in his seventh Book of Institutions and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Pictavionensis and of late Severus in his Dialogue which he calls Gallus and to name the Greeks and to joyn together the first and last Irenaeus and Apollinarius Where we see he acknowledges Irenaeus to be of this opinion but that he was the first that held it I believe that that is more a Christian untruth than Irenaeus his opinion a Judaical Fable For he himself acknowledges in the place above cited that Irenaeus followed Papias and it is certain and confessed that Justin Martyr believed it long before him and Irenaeus himself derives it from Presbyteri qui Johannem discipulum Domini viderunt from Priests which saw John the Disciple of the Lord. Lastly by Pamelius Sixtus Senensis and Faverdentius in the places above quoted Seeing therefore it is certain even to the confession of the Adversaries that Papias Justin Martyr Meleto and Irenaeus the most considerable and eminent men of their Age did believe and teach this Doctrine and seeing it has been proved as evidently as a thing of this nature can be that none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned it It remains according to Cardinal Perrons first rule that this is to be esteemed the Doctrine of the Church of that Age. My second Reason I form thus Whatsoever Doctrine is taught by the Fathers of any Age not as Doctors but as witnesses of the Tradition of the Church that is not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church of their times that is undoubtedly to be so esteemed especially if none contradicted them in it But the Fathers above cited teach this Doctrine not as their own private opinion but as the Christian Tradition and as the Doctrine of the Church neither did any contradict them in it Ergo it is undoubtedly to be so esteemed The Major of this Syllogism is Cardinal Perrons second Rule and way of finding out the Doctrine of the Ancient Church in any Age and if it be not a sure Rule farewel the use of all Antiquity And for the Minor there will be little doubt of it to him that considers that Papias professes himself to have received this Doctrine by unwritten Tradition though not from the Apostles themselves immediately yet from their Scholars as appears by Eusebius in the forecited third Book 33. Chapter That Irenaeus grounding it upon evident Scripture professes that he learnt it whether mediately or immediately I cannot tell from a Presbyteri qui Johannem Discipulum Domini viderunt Priests or Elders who saw John the Lords Disciple and heard of him what our Lord taught of those times of the thousand years and also as he says after from Papias the Auditor of John the Chamber-fellow of Polycarpus an Ancient man who recorded it in writing a Faverdentius his Note upon this place is very Notable Hinc apparet saith he from hence it appears that Irenaeus neither first invented this opinion nor held it as proper to himself but got this blot and blemish from certain Fathers Papias I suppose and some other inglorious fellows the familiar Friends of Irenaeus are here intended I hope then if the Fathers which lived with the Apostles had their blots and blemishes it is no such horrid Crime for Calvin and the Century writers to impute the same to their great Grandchildren Aetas parentum pejor avis progeniem fert vitiosiorem But yet these inglorious Disciples of the Apostles though perhaps not so learned as Faverdentius were yet certainly so honest as not to invent lies and deliver them as Apostolick Tradition or if they were not what confidence can we place in any other unwritten Tradition Lastly that Justin Martyr grounds it upon plain Prophecies of the Old Testament and express words of the New he professeth That he and all other Christians of a right belief in all things believe it joyns them who believe it not with them who deny the Resurrection or else says that none denied this but the same who denied the Resurrection and that indeed they were called Christians but in deed and Truth were none Whosoever I say considers these things will easily grant that they held it not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church and the Faith of Christians Hereupon I conclude whatsoever they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church that was the Faith of the Church of their time But this Doctrine they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church Ergo it was and is to be esteemed the Faith of the Church Trypho Do ye confess that before ye expect the coming of Christ this place Hierusalem shall be again restored and that your People shall be congregated and rejoyce together with Christ and the Patriarchs and the Prophets c. Justin Martyr I have confessed to you before that both I and many others do believe as you well know that this shall be but that many again who are not of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you For I have declared unto you that some called Christians but being indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks do generally teach blasphemous and Atheistical and foolish things but that you might know that I speak not this to you only I will make a Book as near as I can of these our disputations where I will profess in writing that which I say before you for I resolve to follow not men and the Doctrines of men but God and the Doctrine of God For although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob which also say there is no Resurrection of the Dead but that as soon as they die their Souls are received into Heaven do not ye yet think them Christians as neither if a man consider rightly will he account the Sadducees and other Sectaries and Hereticks as the Genistae and the Meristae and Galileans and Pharisees and Hellenians and Baptists and other such to be Jews but only that they are called Jews and the Children of Abraham and such as with their lips confess God as God himself cries out but have their Hearts far from him But I and all Christians that in all things believe aright both know that there shall be a Resurrection of the Flesh and a thousand years in Hierusalem restored and adorned and inlarged according as the Prophets Ezekiel and Esay and others do testifie for thus saith Isaiah of the time of this thousand years For there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth and they shall not remember the former c.
And after A certain man amongst us whose name was John one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ in that Revelation which was exhibited unto him hath foretold That they which believe our Christ shall live in Hierusalem a thousand years and that after the Universal and everlasting Resurrection and Judgment shall be I have presumed in the beginning of Justin Martyrs answer to substitute not instead of also because I am confident that either by chance or the fraud of some ill-willers to the Millinaries opinion the place has been corrupted and turned into not into also For if we retain the usual reading But that many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you then must we conclude that Justin Martyr himself did believe the opinion of them which denied the thousand years to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians and if so why did he not himself believe it nay how could he but believe it to be true professing it as he does if the place be right to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians for how a false Doctrine can be the pure and holy opinion of Christians what Christian can conceive or if it may be so how can the contrary avoid the being untrue unholy and not the opinion of Christians Again if we read the place thus That many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified certainly there wll be neither sense nor reason neither coherence nor consequence in the words following For I have told you of many called Christians but being indeed Atheists and Hereticks that they altogether teach blasphemous and impious and foolish things for how is this a confirmation or reason of or any way pertinent unto what went before if there he speak of none but such as were purae piaeque Christianorum sententiae of the pure and holy opinion of Christians And therefore to disguise this inconsequence the Translator has thought fit to make use of a false Translation and instead of for I have told you to make it besides I have told you of many c. Again if Justin Martyr had thought this the pure and holy opinion of Christians or them good and holy Christians that held it why does he rank them with them that denyed the Resurrection Why does he say afterward Although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this do not ye think them Christians Lastly what sense is there in saying as he does I and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things believe the Doctrine of the thousand years and that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament teach it and yet say That many of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not believe it Upon these reasons I suppose it is evident that the place has been corrupted and it is to be corrected according as I have corrected it by substituting in the place of not instead of also Neither need any man think strange that this misfortune of the change of a Syllable should befal this place who considers that in this place Justin Martyr tells us that he had said the same things before whereas nothing to this purpose appears now in him And that in Victorinus comment on the Revelation wherein by S. Hieroms acknowledgment this Doctrine was strongly maintained there now appears nothing at all for it but rather against it And now from the place thus restored these Observations offer themselves unto us 1. That Justin Martyr speaks not as a Doctor but as a witness of the Doctrine of the Church of his time I saith he and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things hold this And therefore from hence according to Cardinal Perrons Rule we are to conclude not probably but demonstratively that this was the Doctrine of the Church of that time 2. That they held it as a necessary matter so far as to hold them no Christians that held the Contrary though you chance to meet with some called Christians that do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob c. Yet do not ye think them Christians Now if Bellarmines Rule be true that Councils then determine any thing as matters of Faith when they pronounce them Hereticks that hold the Contrary then sure Justin Martyr held this Doctrine as a matter of Faith seeing he pronounceth them no Christians that contradict it 3. That the Doctrine is grounded upon the Scripture of the Old and New Testament and the Revelation of S. John and that by a Doctor and Martyr of the Church and such a one as was converted to Christianity within 30 years after the Death of S. John when in all probability there were many alive that had heard him expound his own words and teach this Doctrine and if probabilities will not be admitted this is certain out of the most authentical records of the Church that Papias the Disciple of the Apostles Disciples taught it the Church professing that he had received it from them that learned it from the Apostles and if after all this the Church of those Times might Err in a Doctrine so clearly derived and authentically delivered how without extream impudence can any Church in after times pretend to Infallibility The Millinaries Doctrine was over-born by imputing to them that which they held not by abrogating the Authority of S. John's Revelation as some did or by derogating from it as others ascribing it not to S. John the Apostle but to some other John they know not who which Dionysius the first known adversary of this doctrine and his followers against the Tradition of Irenaeus Justin Martyr and all the Fathers their Antecessors by calling it a Judaical opinion and yet allowing it as probable by corrupting the Authors for it as Justin Victorinus Severus VI. A Letter relating to the same Subject SIR I Pray remember that if a consent of Fathers either constitute or declare a Truth to be necessary or shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then that opinion of the Jesuits concerning Predestination upon prescience which had no opposer before S. Austin must be so and the contrary Heretical of the Dominicans and the present Church differs from the Ancient in not esteeming of it as they did Secondly I pray remember that if the Fathers be infallible when they speak as witnesses of Tradition to shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then the opinion of the Chiliasts which now is a Heresie in the Church of Rome was once Tradition in the Opinion of the Church Thirdly Since S. Austin had an opinion that of whatsoever no beginning was known that came from the Apostles many Fathers might say things to be Tradition upon that ground only but of this Opinion of the Chiliasts one of the ancientest Fathers Irenaeus
says not onely that it was Tradition but sets down Christs own words when he taught it and the pedigree of the opinion from Christ a to John his Disciple from him to several Priests whereof Papias was one who put it in writing and so downwards which can be shewn from no other Father for no other opinion either controverted or uncontroverted Fourthly That if Papias either by his own error or a desire to deceive could cozen the Fathers of the purest age in this why not also in other things why not in twenty as well as one why not twenty others as well as he Fifthly That if the Fathers could be cozened how could general Councils scape who you say make Tradition one of their Rules which can only be known from the Fathers Sixthly If they object how could errors come in and no beginning of them known I pray remember to ask them the same Question concerning the Millenaries which lasted uncontradicted until Dionysius Alexandrinus two hundred and fifty years after Christ and if they tell you that Papias was the first beginner look in Irenaeus and he will tell you the contrary Loco citato l. 5. c. 33. Seventhly Remember that if I ought not to condemn the Church of Rome out of Scripture because my interpretation may deceive me then they ought not to build their Infallibility upon it and less upon her own word because theirs may deceive them unless the same thing may be a wall when you lean upon it and a bulrush when we do Eighthly Remember that they cannot say they trust not their Interpretation in this but a consent of Fathers because the Fathers are not said to be infallible but as they tell the Opinion of the Church of their time which is infallible therefore they must first prove out of Scripture that she is infallible or else she who is her self the subject of the Question cannot be allowed till then to give a verdict for her self Ninthly Remember the Roman Church claims no Notes of the Church but what agree with the Grecian too as Antiquity Succession Miracles c. but onely Communion with the Pope and Splendor both which made for the Arrians in Liberius his time and it were a hard Case that because the Greeks are poor upon Earth they should be shut out of Heaven Tenthly Remember that if we have an Infallible way we have no use at least no necessity of an Infallible Guide for if we may be saved by following the Scripture as near as we can though we err it is as good as any Interpreter to keep unity in charity which is only needful though not in opinion and this cannot be ridiculous because they say if any man misinterpret the Council of Trent it shall not damn him and why without more ado may not the same be said of Scripture VII An Argument against the Infallibility of the present Church of Rome taken from the Contradictions in your Doctrin of Transubstantiation Chillingworth THat Church is not infallible which teacheth Contradictions But the Church of Rome teacheth Contradictions Therefore the Church of Rome is not infallible Mr. Daniel I deny the Minor Chilling That Church teacheth Contradictions which teacheth such a Doctrin as contains Contradictions But the Church of Rome teacheth such a Doctrin Therefore the Church of Rome teacheth Contradictions Mr. Daniel I deny the Minor Chilling The Doctrin of Transubstantion contains Contradictions But the Church of Rome teacheth the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Therefore the Church of Rome teacheth such a Doctrin as contains Contradictions Mr. Dan. I deny the Major Chilling That the same thing at the same time should have the true figure of a mans body and should not have the true figure of a mans body is a Contradiction But in the Doctrin of Transubstantiation it is taught that the same thing viz. our Saviour present in the Sacrament has the true figure of a mans body and has not the true figure of a mans body at the same time therefore the Doctrin of Transubstantiation contains Contradictions Mr. Dan. The Major though not having all rules required to a contradiction as boys in Logick know yet let it pass Chilling Boys in Logick know no more conditions required to a Contradiction but that the same thing should be affirmed and denied of the same thing at the same time For my meaning was that that should not be accounted the same thing which was considered after divers manners Mr. Dan. I deny the Minor of your syllogism Chilling I prove it according to the several parts of it And first for the first part He must have the Figure of a mans body in the Eucharist who is there without any real alteration or difference from the natural body of a man But our Saviour according to the Romish Doctrin of Transubstantiation is in the Sacrament without any real alteration or difference from the natural body of a man Therefore according to this Doctrin he must there have the figure of a mans body To the second part that he must not have the figure of a mans body in the Sacrament according to this Doctrin thus I prove it He must not have the figure of a mans body in the Eucharist which must not have extension there But our Saviours body according to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation must not have extension there Therefore according to this doctrin he must not have the figure of a mans body there The Major of this Syllogism I proved because the figure of a mans body could not be without extension The Minor I proved thus That must not have extension in the Eucharist whose every part is together in one and the same point But according to this Doctrin every part of our Saviours body must be here in one and the same point therefore here it must not have extension Mr. Dan. Answered by distinguishing the Major of the first Syllogism and said that he must not have the true figure of a mans body according to the reason of a figure taken in its essential consideration which is to have positionem partium sic sic extra partes but not the accidental consideration which is in ordine ad locum And this answer he applied for the solution of the Minor saying thus Our Saviour is there without any real alteration intrinsecal but not extrinsecal for he is not changed in order to himself but in order to place Or otherwise he is not altered in his continual existence which is only modus essentiae and inseparable even by divine power though altered in modo existendi which is situation and required to figure taken in order to place Chill Against this it was replied by Chillingworth That the distinction of a mans body as considered in it self and as considered in reference to place is vain and no solution of the Argument And thus he proved it If it be impossible that any thing should have several parts one out of another in order and reference of
external reason why we believe it whereunto the Testimonies of the Jews enemies of Christ add no small moment for the Authority of some part of it That whatsoever stood upon the same ground of Universal Tradition with Scripture might justly challenge belief as well as Scripture but that no Doctrin not written in Scripture could justly pretend to as full Tradition as the Scripture and therefore we had no reason to believe it with that degree of faith wherewith we believe the Scripture That it is unreasonable to think that he that reads the Scripture and uses all means appointed for this purpose with an earnest desire and with no other end but to find the will of God and obey it if he mistake the meaning of some doubtful places and fall unwillingly into some errors unto which no vice or passion betrays him and is willing to hear reason from any man that will undertake to shew him his error I say that it is unreasonable to think that a God of goodness will impute such an error to such a man Against the second it was demonstrated unto me that the place I built on so confidently was no Argument at all for the Infallibility of the Succession of Pastors in the Roman Church but a very strong Argument against it First no Argument for it because it is not certain nor can ever be proved that S. Paul speaks there of any succession Ephes 4.11 12 13. For let that be granted which is desired that in the 13. ver by until we all meet is meant until all the Children of God meet in the Unity of Faith that is unto the Worlds end yet it is not said there that he gave Apostles and Prophets c. which should continue c. until we all meet by connecting the 13. ver to the 11. But he gave then upon his Ascension and miraculously endowed Apostles and Prophets c. for the work of the ministry for the Consummation of the Saints for the Edification of the Body of Christ until we all meet that is if you will unto the Worlds end Neither is there any incongruity but that the Apostles and Prophets c. which lived then may in good sense be said now at this time and ever hereafter to do those things which they are said to do For who can deny but S. Paul the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles and S. John the Evangelist and Prophet do at this very time by their writings though not by their persons do the work of the ministry consummate the Saints and Edifie the Body of Christ Secondly it cannot be shewn or proved from hence that there is or was to be any such succession because S. Paul here tells us only that he gave such in the time past not that he promised such in the time to come Thirdly it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise for who is so impudent as to pretend that there are now and have been in all Ages since Christ some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Especially such as he here speaks of that is endowed with such gifts as Christ gave upon his Ascension of which he speaks in the 8 ver saying He led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men And that those gifts were Men endowed with extraordinary Power and Supernatural gifts it is apparent because these Words and he gave some Apostles some Prophets c. are added by way of explication and illustration of that which was said before and he gave gifts unto Men And if any man except hereunto that though the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists were extraordinary and for the Plantation of the Gospel yet Pastors were ordinary and for continuance I answer it is true some Pastors are ordinary and for continuance but not such as are here spoken of not such as are endowed with the strange and heavenly gifts which Christ gave not only to the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists but to the inferior Pastors and Doctors of his Church at the first Plantation of it And therefore S. Paul in the 1st to the Corinth 12.28 to which place we are referred by the Margent of the Vulgar Translation for the explication of this places this gift of teaching amongst and prefers it before many other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost Pastors there are still in the Church but not such as Titus and Timothy and Apollos and Barnabas not such as can justly pretend to immediate inspiration and illumination of the Holy Ghost And therefore seeing there neither are nor have been for many Ages in the Church such Apostles and Prophets c. as here are spoken of it is certain he promised none or otherwise we must blasphemously charge him with breach of his promise Secondly I answer that if by dedit he gave be meant promisit he promised for ever then all were promised and all should have continued If by dedit be not meant promisit then he promised none such nor may we expect any such by vertue of or warrant from this Text that is here alledged And thus much for the first Assumpt which was that the place was no Argument for an infallible succession in the Church of Rome Now for the second That it is a strong Argument against it thus I make it good The Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors which our Saviour gave upon his Ascension were given by him that they might Consummate the Saints do the work of the Ministry Edifie the Body of Christ until we all come into the Unity of Faith that we be not like Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine The Apostles and Prophets c. that then were do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction do the work of the Ministry to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine therefore they do this some other way Now there is no other way by which they can do it but by their writings and therefore by their writings they do it therefore by their writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of Faith therefore the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists are our Guides Therefore not the Church of Rome FINIS AN ANSWER To Some PASSAGES IN Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING At the Third Dialogue Section 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS LONDON Printed for James Adamson at the Angel in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. AN ANSWER To some passages in Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING AT The Third Dialogue §. 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS Uncle DO you think there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople Nephew That I do I would I knew what I ask as well CHILLINGWORTH First I should have answered that in propriety of Speech I could not say that I