their fellowes who have travelled long in this work have been able to effectuat nothing by all their vast Volumes And have ye the confidence to doe the bussinesse by this one naked Syllogisme But that I may shut up these lines remember ye cannot now call upon me to shew a peculiar ground or evidence which the Religion of PROTESTANTS hath to prove it self to be the True Religion and that it is conforme to the True sense of the Scriptures For Religion is not one individuall truth but a complex of many truths which cannot all be proven at once or with one breath though there be none of them but through the mercie of GOD we are able to demonstrate against any Adversarie But now it lyes upon you as the Opponent to prove your Assumption Instance therefore if ye can one Ground Necessarlie requisit for evidenceing and proving the True Religion and its conformitie to the True sense of the Scriptures which is wanting in the Religion of PROTESTANTS which I hope I may confidently say neither you nor any of your fraternitie shall ever be able to doe Aprill 24. 1666. Iohn Menzeis POSTCRIPT August lib. De unitate Ecclesia contra Epist Petiliani cap. 3. Sunt certe libri Dominici quorum authoritati utriqueue consentimus utrique credimus utrique servimus Ibi quxramus Eccesiam ibi discutiamus cansam nostram Idem Patrlo infra Ergoin Scripturis sanctis Canonitis Ecclesiam requiramus It is desired that any Answere which shall be returned be subscrived as the Author would have it taken notice of Apryll 28 1666. The Jesuits second paper A Reply to an Answere made be Mr. IOHN MENZIES to a discourse of a Romane-Catholick shewing that the PROTESTANT Religion cannot be a true Religion or a Religion wherein men can save their Souls I Have perused your paper and find that in writting â—â— are like to your self in conference by mouth because in both much that you may seeme to the simple sort to say something The controversies that we have in hands about the means to know a True Religion and to distinguish it from a false Religion is not of small concernment neither hath it so narrow dimensions as within the compasse of them it 〈◊〉 not able to detaine for a little while all the pith or force of 〈…〉 or be leaping out be the sides to mix it with other digressions about traditions visible judge of controversies untimely retortions of Arguments c. Which maketh nothing to the present difficultie which may be fullie â—nded without mentioning any such things Laying them closs aside and purposely â—â—ske nuing all your excursions as out of the line and swelling only of tergiversations and diffidence to answere directly I lay againe to your doore this point viz. It is impossible that the Protestant Religion can be proven to be a True Religion or the Religion to which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternal life and consequently that whosoever aimeth at eternall happiness after this life or intendeth to save his Soule is oblidged to quite it and to make search to find out the True Religion Prescinding for now where this True Religion is to be found since the present difficulty is only to shew that Protestant Religion cannot be it This point I proved by this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a True Religion which hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove that it is a True Religion and conforme to the True sense of the letter of the Word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no peculias ground or principle to prove that it is a True Religion or conforme to the True sense of the letter of the Word of GOD. Ergo it cannot be a True Religion To this Argument you answere first carping it that is not in forme as having two Premisses Negatives but in this you are farr mistaken for the Negation in one of the Premisses is not taken Neganter but Infinitanter and doth not affect or light upon the Copula but is a part of the subject of the Proposition Next you answere as you say directly admitting the Major and denying the Subsumption to wit that the Protestant Religion hath no speciall ground or principle to prove that it is conforme to the True sense of the letter of the Word of GOD and so denying that it hath no speciall ground or principle you consequently must affirme that it hath some speciall ground or principle whereby it can prove it self to be destinguished from a false Religion and to be conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Now lay all these things together first that under your own hand writ ye have undertaken to mantain the Protestant Religion to be a True Religion Next that you grant a Religion cannot be True except it have some peculiar ground or principle whereby it can prove it self to be Ture or conforme to the True sence of the letter of the word of God Thirdly that you deny that the Protestant Religion hath not thir speciall grounds and principles whereby she may prove herself to be True and conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Now let any be judge whether to weind your self out of this labyrinth and without manifestly deserting of your cause ye be not oblidged to produce these peculiar grounds or principles whereby you say that Protestant Religion is furnished to prove it self to be True and conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Which likewise may be extorted by this Dilemma Either the Protestant Religion is furnished with sufficient grounds or principles to prove it self to be True and conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of GOD or it hath no such principles if it have no sufficient principles then confess ingenuously it is a groundles Religion if it have them then let them be produced and examined And why doe you reserve keep them up since the producing of them is necessarie to mantaine and defend the truth of the Protestant Religion are they perhaps invisible or are you ashamed to bring them to light only remember that the grounds or principles that you produce to this effect to prove your Religion to be True must be speciall and have this propriety that they so prove the Protestant Religion to be True or conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of God that they cannot be affirmed to prove a false Religion and which you your self holdeth for a false Religion to be a True Religion or conforme to the True sense of the letter of the word of GOD. As the ground or principle which is produced to prove Honesty or one to be an honest man must have this propriety that it cannot serve to prove a knave to be an honest-man Lastly in your paper you insinuat two superficial and fleeing shifts and evasions which doth nothing help you The first is that the Protestant
Religion hath ex parte objecti intrinseck grounds and principles whereby it is constitute a True Religion though it hath not ex parte subjecti But this onely is to bring new obscure termes which put in good SCOTS signify onely the same which hath been said hitherto to wit that Protestant Religion hath intrinsecall and objective truths and conformitie with the true sense of the letter of the word of GO'D but is destitute of all speciall grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to have such intrinsecall and objective truth and conformity But I pray you what false Religion is there that may not with as good reason apply the same termes to themselves and say that their Religion is true ex parte objecti and hath intrinsecall and objective evidence truth and conformity with Scripture though they cannot shew this ex parte subjecti Likewise they have as great Reason as you to say that their Religion and the truth of it may be made evident if it encounter with an understanding well disposed though it cannot be made evident to fools So you are pleased civilly to call all those who have their understanding of such temper that they cannot see the truth of your Religion The other shife and evasion is that Religion is not one individual truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven at once or in one breath But what makes this to your purpose since that before you can prove any one of those particular truths to be conforme to the true sense of the text of such a Scripture you must first produce some speciall ground or principle to prove that your Clergie-men in Actu primo hath such assistance or hability as is prerequired in men that should give out to People the true sense of particular texts of Scriptures or else how can men be induced to beleeve that the sense which you give is the true sense since every false Religion might pretend with as great reason as you doe that they give the true sense though plaine contrane to the sense that you give In the end of your paper you desire me to subscrive and to put my name to the answere that I make as you have put to your name to yours but this your demand doth not seem rationall since your condition and mine are not alike for you are at home and as a Cock on your own midden and there must lurke some other thing under this demand since it can make nothing to your cause who proponeth the reasons against if they be pertinent and to the purpose Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Iesuits second paper May 2. 1666. An Answere to a second paper from the traffiquing Romanist who commonly passeth under the name of Mr. Francis Dempster alias Logan YOur consident undertaking to impugne the Religion of PROTESTANTS made me once to expect great things But for what I can yet discerne Parturiunt montes c. I did truely nauseat to read this your raw and indigested paper in which you wholly passe by the most materiall points in my Answere and are pleased to reflect on them as unnecessarie excursions that so your Omissions might seeme lesse criminall A very easie subterfuge by which any faint disputant may decline to meddle with these difficulties which he sees would nettle him But that I may keep you closse to your work I must crave leave to reminde you of some of these omissions and yet to desire that first ye would cleare your self of that fallacie wherewith I charged the third proposition of your first paper Whether it were an impertinent excursion to discover an egregious fallacie in one of these propositions which ye laid down as a foundation of all your ensuing superflâ—â—cture the indifferent Reader may judge Secondly I desire you to answere directly to the retorsions whereby I inverted your Syllogisme against your self and your Romanists Is there any thing more ordinary in School debates then retorsion of Arguments or when the grand debate betwixt you and me is whether the PROTESTANT RELIGION or Popery be the True Religion was it untimely or impropper for me to shew that the weapons which ye bring against the Religion of PROTESTANTS doe strick at the very foundations of Popery And thirdly I desire you to prove the assumption of your Syllogisme denyed by me or else to refell the Arguments whereby I shew that though it be a Negative yet this is no sufficient ground to turne over the opponents office upon me If you doe not performe these things to all which ye are tyed by the rules of disputing I beleeve ye shall hardly escape from being censured by judicious Readers as an Ignoramus I shall not insist upon the evasion which ye have devised to cloak the informalitie of your Syllogisme ex omnibus negativis pretending that in one of the propositions you take the Negative Infinitanter not neganter Although you have not been pleased to tell in which of the propositions it is so taken and though there be no indifferent Reader but would look upon all the Propositions as simple Negatives neither could you in our Language expresse them more Negatively if you intended to affect the Copula with the Negation Yet I shall passe this seeing I have onely used this transient insinuation to admonish you to look better to the forme of your Syllogismes and withall did shew you a clear way how to have corrected your error without â—unning to these Termini infinitantes Onely you must remember that if your Nâ—gatio infinitans fall in the Minor then it becomes an Affirmative and so your pretence of liberating your self from being tyed to prove it doth wholly evanish There be diverse other things in your paper deserving severe castigation but they are truely so Iudibrious that it is irksome to me once to mention them Nay hardly shall any thing materiall be found in the whole paper beside the repetitions of what ye had said in your first Yet lest the wrapping up of all these in generall should give you occasion to say that my complaint were groundles I shall therefore branch forth two or three of the particulars And first Ye seeme to strengthen your Syllogisme with a Dilemma which yet upon the matter is nothing but Recocta crambe the same thing in a new dresse And thereupon you insult not without petulancie as if you hade nothing to doe but to triumph saying Hath the Religion of PROTESTANTS no principles whereby to prove it self Are they invisible or are you ashamed to produce them Soft I beseech you Is the Sun invisible because the blind Mole doth not see it Did I not tell you that the Religion of PROTESTANTS hade peculiar grounds and principles to prove it self to be a True Religion Did I not likewise declare wherein this chief Ground and Principle consisted Namely in its conformity to the Will of God revealed in the holy Scriptures Which neither Popery nor any false Religion hath or can
the writing of this a new Edition of this your second paper was transmitted to me correcting somewhat the dresse of it but nothing the matter which therefore I judged not worthy of any further recognition Reader know That the Corrections in the second Edition of the Iesuits second paper were only of some trespasses of Orthography which are now much better corrected by the PRINTER The Jesuits third paper An Answere to a Reply of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein he labours to justifie that the grounds which he produced to prove the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion were not meere shifts and evasions May 5. 1666. YOUR reply is stuffed with words wherewith ye undervalue all things that are brought against you calling them none-sense raw and indigested that you have a faint disputant that the matter is Recocta crambe c. But doe you not know that such tenor of words are called Sagittae parvulorum Since every one who hath a tongue and penne may say or writ what he pleases or why may not all thir things be reponed with as good reason to your self calling you a faint disputant and that your discourses are raw and indigested and so a matter of so great importance as to discerne a True Religion from a false shall be resolved in a flyting whereof you have this advantage to have the first word Laying then purposely aside all things that are out of the way I propone to you againe this point that the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion nor the Religion to the which God hath annexed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever aimes at eternall happines after this life or intends to save his soule is obliged in conscience to quite it and to search for the True Religion prescinding or abstracting for now where this True Religion is to be found and insisting for the present in this only point that the PROTESTANT Religion cannot be it and assure your self that this point will be a Crambe cocta et recocta and alwise set before you till by sufficient heat you disgest and make good substance of it This point we proved by this one Syllogisme which againe is repeated to you That Religion cannot be a True Religion which hath no peculiar ground nor principle to prove that it is a True Religion or conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove it self to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Therefore the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion Here you deny the Subsumption that is you deny that the Protestant Religion hath no peculiar ground or principle to prove it self conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and consequently you affirmed that it hath peculiar grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to be a Religion grounded upon the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD and being pressed to produce your grounds to prove the truth of your Religion in stead of solide grounds you produce these two sleeing shifts and evasions The first is That the Protestant Religion hath intrinsecall grounds Ex parte objecti though it have not alwise Ex parte subjecti that is if they doe not alwise prove the defect is not in the Religion or in the grounds considered in themselves but in the indisposition of the subject to the which they are applyed But it was told you that it was a meer shift and that your obscure termes being resolved in good Scots signifies onely that your Religion hath objective and intrinsecall truth or conformity with the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD but so that it is destuute of all speciall ground or principle whereby it can prove it self to be grounded upon the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. And that your answere can have no other sense but this is proven because all thir foure propositions are Synonima to wit A Religion to be a True Religion A Religion to be conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture A Religion to have objective and intrinsecall truth and evidence A Religion that is able to convince if it meet with a well disposed intellect or capacity These foure propositions being all Synonims and signifying the same thing and so all equally in controversie you cannot prove one by another but you must prove them be some extrinsecall and distinct Medium otherwise you must grant that your answere is a meer shift and which in good Scots signifyes only this That your Religion is true in it self but hath no peculiar ground whereby it can be proven to be true and so we must beleeve it to be true only because you say that it is And with this I set againe before you this Recocted Dilemma Either the Protestant Religion hath speciall grounds to prove that it is a True Religion that it is a Religion conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture that it is a Religion that hath objective or intrinsecall truth and evidence that it is a Religion able to convince any intellect that is well disposed or else it hath no speciall ground or principles whereby all thir can be verified of it If it have speciall grounds let them be produced and examined if it have none let an ingenuous confession have place that it is groundless and destitute of all principles whereby it can prove these foure Synonime propositions to agree to it Which is confirmed because any Religion even that which is acknowledged be themselves to be false may affirme with as good reason and pretend that all these foure fore-named Synonime propositions may be verified of their Religion To wit that their Religion is a True Religion that their Religion is conforme to the will of GOD revealed in Scripture that their Religion is true Ex parte objecti and hath objective and intrinsecall grounds that their Religion is evident and true if it meet with an intellect well disposed All the answere and disparity you give is that they are fools and ye wise men that they are blind and so no wonder that they cannot see the clear beams of the truth of your Religion But may not they apply all this to you with as good reasons as you doe to them The other shift that in stead of a solide ground you brought was this that you were not obliged to give a particular ground or principle to prove in generall your Religion to be true because Religion say you is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths whereof one must be proven after another But this answere is a meer shift whereby you would decline the onely and maine difficultie by bringing in a whole body of controversies which likewise can no wayes help you Because before you can prove any one of these particular truths to
flesh to compound a soveraigne Triacle I am sorrie that as your Paper began with a falshood in matter of fact you must excuse my plainnesse so it should be shut up with another Sic respondent Ultima Primis You may not expect that I will trifle away more time in answering your frivolous unsubscrived Tautologies Either therefore leave your repetitions and doe the worke of an Opponent seriously or else you will constraine me to give a publick account to the World of your trifling and tergiversation Turpe est difficiles habere nugas Aberdene May 9. 1666. John Menzeis The Iesuits fourth Paper Answere to a third Paper of Mr. JOHN MENZEIS whereby he labours of new to perswade that the Grounds which he produces for the truth of the Protestant Religion were not meere shifts and evasions 28. of May 1666. This Paper was not delivered to Mr. IOHN MENZEIS till Iune 2. YOVR third Paper bearing the date of the ninth of May Did not come to my hands before the twenty seventh of May. Neither know I wherefore it hath been so long keept up Since as I am informed you did first dyt it to your Scholers who out of zeal to the reputation of their Master did use all diligence to disperse many copies of it and although it be not authentick and subscrived with your hand with the solemuities used in your former paper yet for the ordinarie straine of digressions not making to the purpose I doe acknowledge it for yours And it is pleasant that you say that you marvell that I passe over in silence and does not answere But how can you marvell at this since I have alwayes protested to you and protest to you againe that I would closse misken and take no notice of any thing that is out of the way and which does not concern the decision of the present controversie to wit Whether the Protestant Religion can be shown to be a True Religion by any ground or principle which may not serve with as great Reason to prove any false Religion to be a True Religion And so soone as you who hath bragingly undertaken to prove the truth of your Religion shall produce any such ground whereby it may appear that you put your self at least in the way either to give some satisfactory answere or at least to confesse ingenuously that you have no such ground for your Religion I oblige my self and shall finde you Surtie that I shall answere at length to all your Digressions to all your Retorsions and likewise shall disput with you at great leasure about the rules of Logick and shew how groslie you are mistaken in confounding Objective negations with formall negations as if a formall affirmation might not fall upon objective negations united be an objective affirming Copula As for your injurious and undervaluing words both in Greek and Latine wherewith your paper is stuffed calling all things brought against you Tantologies Battologies Insipid and Childish things and Non-sense c. I told you before that any man that hath a tongue may heap up and utter injurious words even against GOD himself And this way of proceeding would be thought by the judicious to be a clear testimony of a deserted cause and that since by sufficient reason you cannot propt the tottering truth of your Religion at least by Digressions Injurious words and other practises you will shoulder and hold up your reputation before simple people who adjudges the Victorie to him who rails most As if the means to try a True Religion from a false were not of such high concernment it self alone as did deserve to confine both your thoughts and penne within the gyre of it So that without wrouging the weightines of the matter ye cannot decline to squable about other things before it be fully ended Laying then aside as before all other things as out of the rod this is laid againe before you that the Protestant Religion cannot be the true Religion nor the Religion to which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever armes at eternall happinesse after this life or intends to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and betake himself to a diligent search for the True Religion prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting for the present is this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This point is proven at before by this Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God But the Protestant Religion hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a true Religion Though you leave off to call this Syllogisme a Crambe recocta being conscious to your self not to be able to produce sufficient heat to dissolve and digest it yet you call it a poor and naked Syllogisme which if it be as you say it beggs this favour of you that you will cloath and cover the nakednesse of it with some fitting answere Only be pleased to remember that since you deny the subsumption and so puts your self in obligation to produce grounds for the proofe of your Religion that the grounds you produce must have this propertie that they cannot serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be a True Religion As the grounds which serves to prove one to be an honest man must have this propertie that they cannot serve to prove a knave to be an honest man Neither doe you satisfie in saying that Honestie consists in a conformity of actions with the Law as Knaverie in a deformity of actions to the Law this I say does not help you because this is onely to explicat the terms and to draw the lineaments not filling up the fields and vacuities For the present controversie is not wherein consists objective Honestie or objective Knaverie nor wherein consists objective truth of Religion or objective falshood of Religion but suppoining the one to consist in a conformity or difformity of actions to the Law and the other to consist in a conformity or difformity with the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD it remains to shew by some speciall ground wherefore of one man is verified this objective Honestie and not of the other and wherefore of one Religion is affirmed this obiective truth and not of the other To this you answere that this is easily known be applying and comparing onely the actions of both with the Law and the tenets of both with the word of GOD as the obliquity and crookednesse of a rule is presently known by applying it to a straight and even rule and with this popular discourse you think to have cleared and exhausted
texts of Scripture and let thir grounds be produced and shown that they cannot be assumed with as great reason to prove that the Clergie of a false Religion hath this ability In actu primo or else you are destitute of speciall grounds and then it is impossible that your Clergie can give the true sense of Scripture because it is impossible to doe any thing In actu secundo without a speciall ability In actu primo to doe it So that all the ability that your Clergie is furnished with In actu primo is onely to guesse at the true sense of Scripture and wherefore should people pay you Stipend for guessing since they are endued with sufficient ability themselves and without you to guesse at the true sense of Scripture In this your last Paper you adde a third shift to wit that all the grounds whereby Tertullian and other Fathers proved the truth of Christian Religion against Paganes proves likewise the truth of your PROTESTANT Religion But who will not laugh at this answere as if there were no Christian Religion but your PROTESTANT Religion And what Christian Religion is so false which may not with as great reasone assume this shift of yours As to that whereby you remitt me to the grounds which Morney Grotins and others of your own Authors brings I pray you since they are your own take all the help you can of them and either be distilling or squeezing all their writs Expresse me one solid ground to prove the truth of your Religion which may not with as great reason be applied to prove a false Religion to be a true Religion Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Iesuits fourth Paper An Answere to a fourth Paper from a traffiquing Papist commonly supposed to be Mr. Francis Dempster alias Rinne or Logan TO apologize for your long silence you alleage that my third Paper dated May ninth came not to your hands untill May twentyseventh and that it was unsubscrived and hade been first dictated to my Scholers To which it is answered that on the ninth of May I sent an authentick copie of that paper to the Gentle-man of your profession by whome the rest both of yours and mine were addressed If he hath neglected to deliver it to you untill the twentyseventh of May you may call him to an accompt and put him to Pennance at your next shriveing for being so negligent of the concernments of his Ghostly father Whereas you say it was unsubscrived I can hardly beleeve you yet if it be so it hath been a lapse of memorie But you are not In bona fide to object that omission to me who never had the confidence to signe any of your papers However Quod scripsi scripsis what I have written I have written And to give evidence that I am ready to mantaine what ever is in that Paper against all the fry of Jesuits transmit to me with a confident hand the copie which I sent and it shall be returned with my subscription manuall As to the alleagance that it was dyâ—ed to some Students before I sent it to be conveyed to you it is a grosse untruth For it was not communicated to them or to any else untill the week thereafter which I was the more easily inclined to doe hearing how busie your Romish proselyts were to disseminat your Papers and that with the addition of impudent calumnies But beleeve me I should not have accused you for your delay if at length you had supplied the omissions of your former Papers and done the work of an Opponent neatly and throughly as ye were required Sat cuò si sat benè But you must give me leave to give you a free Character of this Paper I finde it to be nothing but a Rapsodie of Railings Repetitions Tergiversations yea and shamefull flinching from your own principles So that if I mistake not it had been more for your credit utterly to have kept silence For Stultus est labor Ineptiarum By this time it appears that it is lost labour to presse you any further to make a Reply to the principall points of my former Papers For now you protest you will not doe it and you cloak your shamefull tergiversation with this pellucid excuse that these things in my Papers were out of the way That is if you may be beleeved impertinent But who beside you will say that it was impertinent for me to discover a fallacious Sophistication in the ground of all your discourse What ingenuous person would not have judged himself concerned to clear himself of such an imputation Yet though this hath been now foure times charged on you ye think it not pertinent to vindicat your self Who besides you but will acknowledge that it was pertinent for me to demonstrate that by your own discourse you had ensnared your self in Contradictions and had cut the sinews of your Romish and Tridentine faith What a poor Advocat then are you for the Romish cause and an unworthy Stipendiarie to your Master the Pope who have no more to say but that it is not pertinent for you now to speake to these things But what need I wonder at this Seeing you judge it impertinent to prove the Assumption of your own syllogisme which I had not onely requited you to doe but also condescended to demonstrate by many Mediums that you were tyed to doe it And yet it seems not pertinent to you either to prove it or to refell these my arguments Shall onely impertinencie be pertinent with you I doubt if that cowardly boast shall raise up your falling reputation that if I should answere according to the method which you prescribe that is if I would liberat you of the burthen of proving your Assumption then you would answere not only to all these my Digressions as for the salving of your credit you are pleased to terme them but also dispute at leasure with me about Logicall Rules and I know not what notionall whimsies concerning Formall and objective negations Quid dignum tante feret hic promissor hiatu When I compare your bigg but conditionall braging with your lean performances at present I remember of him in Plutarch who was termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Semper dicebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nunquam dabat He was liberall in promises but nothing at all in performances If you be so able to expede your self in these particulars what mean you by all these shifts and dilatours Quinon est hodie cras minus aptus erit If you were once become so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you cannot prove your Assumption I would so farr commiserat you as to grant you an exemption But till then how can you expect courtesie at my hands Might not a man of your years have learned so much discretion as not to prescribe methods of answereing to his Adversarie Vaine debates for victorie and not for truth doe not become grave persons Yet I purpose never to decline to exchange a
your own Doctors then it must be a sufficient ground and Test to discerne a True Religion from a false Your cavill concerning the ambiguity of Scriptures is frivolous For if Scripture had not sufficient objective grounds means of interpretation being duely used to clear its own genuine sense in all things necessarie to Salvation then were it not Perspicuous which is against the Hyphothesis laid down against which you have not adventured to move one Objection So that still it holds that if Scripture be perspicuous in all things necessarie to Salvation it must be a sufficient ground and test to discerne a True Reilgion from a false What therefore remains but that either you show the Scriptures not to be clear in all things necessary to Salvation or else that both the Religion of PROTESTANTS and Papists be brought to this Test and examined which of them are really conforme thereunto But next as to the other ground I argue thus Either the faith of the Catholick Church in the first Three Centuries was the True Christian Religion or not If not then there was no true Christian Religion at all Absit blasphemia If it was then what accords with it in its essentials must be the True Christian Religion and on the contrary what differs from it in essentials cannot be the true Christian Religion and therefore here againe I appeal you either to show an essential difference betwixt the ancient True Christian Religion in these ages and ours or that there is an agreement in essentials betwixt the ancient Religion in these ages your Romish Religion as it is expressed in that Formula fidei of Pope Pius the fourth or else to acknowledge that the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the True Religion and that your Romish Religion is but a Farrago of falshoods and Innovations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In your penult section you whisle like a child concerning the Clergies assistance In actu primo to give the true sense of Scripture and you call upon me to prove that our Clergie hath such an assistance As if it were a point of our faith that the knowledge of the Clergies infallible assistance for of that onely you must be understood were a necessary prerequisite before the true sense of Scripture can be known But have I not often told you that this is denyed by us and also often appealed you if you could to prove it else I would hold it for confessed that you could not doe it But to call you to your duety is Surdo canere Yea from this your assertion concerning the knowledge of the Clergies assistance I have showed you to be encircled in an inextricable Contradiction from which you have never attempted to expede your self Onely in your last Paper you flinched from your own principle as if you had onely affirmed that the Actus secundus presupposes Actum primum which none denyes Know therefore againe that a Doctor may give the true sense of Scripture and we may have ground enough To beleeve that it is the true sense which he gives though neither he nor we have an anteceden knowledge of his Infallible assistance in actu primo as a civill Judge may give the true sense of a municipall Law and I may have sufficient ground to beleeve that he hath sensed it aright though neiâ—â—er he nor I have antecedent knowledge that he hath Infallible assistance in act primo Though in all these things you have bewrayed shamefull weakenesse and as a Thersires declyned to examine what was reponed to you in all my Papers yet now like a vaiue glorious Thrasâ— in the conclusion you sing a Triumph but without a Victorie Spectatum admissi risum teneatis amici What means this insulting that you cry out of the poor posture out Religion is brought too Have you said ary thing that would have reduced the weakest Tyro in our Schools to a strait Have I slipped one Punctillo in any of your Papers which I have not confuted Hath not all you have writen been sitted Ad furfures Can you say the like of my Papers Yet you are bold to compare the Religion of PROTESTANTS to a Knâ—ve pretending Honestie and not able to prove it but Mutato nomine narratur fabula de iâ— He that would compare your Romish superstition with the Religion of PROTESTANTS might aswell compare Catiline with Cato the Rogue Ziba with Honest Mephibosheth or the strumper Thais with chast Lucretia But I shall propose a true Emblem of the stare of our Religion and yours from the state of the present debate betwixt you and me leaving the application to your own self Suppose that Titius and Sempronius stood at the barre and that Titius acclaimed the monopolie of Honesty to himself And withall accused his Neighbour Sempronius as a verie Knave because as Titius alleaged he could produce no grounds to prove his Harestie On the other hand Sempronius modestly shew how easie it were to recriminat and retote all these accusations upon Titius Yet though he might have desired Titius as the Accuser to prove his indytment or else to suffer Secundum Legem talionis and to be esteemed as an arrand Knave yet he would condescend so far as to give Grounds by which his Honesty might be proven But with this Proviso that both he and his Accuser Titius might be brought to the Test that the World might see who was the Rogue and who the Honest-Man The first Ground to which Sempronius appeales is the Law protesting that both he and his Accuser Titius may be judged by that Rule The other Test to which Sempronius referres himself for tryall Is the practise and example of men of untainted Honestie such as Aristides Fabricius Cato c. Protesting likewise that he be stigmatized as the Rogue whose conversation shall be found discrepant from theirs Tïtius though at first a bold Accuser yet not able to endure so accurate a tryall studies all the subterfuges his poor wit could invent And first he declines the Law alleaging it could not be the Ground of tryall because it is ambiguous and admits of diverse and contrarie senses nor can any give the sense of the Law except he be Iufallible Which gift of Infallibility Titius would have all men to beleeve though he cannot prove it to be peculiar to himself alone so as no sense of the Law may be admitted but that which he homologates And for the example of Aristides Fabricius and Cato c. They are too strict Paterns for Titius yet not dareing openly to condemne them he makes this evasion What Knave sayes he is there that may not pretend conformitie both with these and also with the Law But Sempronius gravely answers that however Knaves might pretend conformity both to the Law and Practises of Good-Men yet they had it not And againe he solemnly protests that the matter might be put to exact tryall whether the Accusers or his conversation were agreeable to the Law and these untainted
but commend yowr ingenuity in that yow confesse cleirly that all the things that yow have spoken hithertoo in so long lybells ar not true grounds but onely reasons to show that yow wer not obliged to produce grounds for the truth of yowr Religion and so yow Disowne and recant them all as taken under this formalitie But let them be called as yow please either grounds or shifts to disoblige yow from producing of grounds yet the mâ—ine point remains alwayes that they may be with as great reason assumed be an false Religion as be yow and so all this time yow have been pleading â—swell for an false Religion as for yowr own After yow have Disclaimed and recalled under the formalitie of grounds all things that yow so copionstie have spkoken of hithertoo Now you prodoce your Achilles in which yow professe that yow will own as a ground of the truth of yowr Religion to wit Scripture taken as containing perspicuously all things necessarie to Salvation So that Scripture taken under this formalitie is the onely ground distinctive of your Religion from all false Religion But let us goe on here sofilie that it may appeare better the juglings that lurbs under this answere and the labyrinth and obscuritie that yow have involved yowr self in For first by Scripture of which yow affirme that it is a distinctive of yowr Religion from all false Religion must be understood the letter of Scripture taken in the true and genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost So that to containe all things necessarie to Salvation with perspicuitie is affirmed of the letter of Scripture taken with this true sense as contradistinguished from all false sense Ergo it cannot serve for a distinctive ground of yowr Religion from all false Religions except first yow prove that the sense which yow give to the letter of Scripture is that true and genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost and that all other senses which doe not coincide with yours are false and erronious Because according to your self Scripture is not a ground to distinguish your Religion from a false Religion but in so farr as it is suppoued to containe and that with perspicuitie all things necessarie to Salvation and againe it does not containe this but so farr as it suppons and is taken for the letter of Scripture with the true and genuine sense Now I ask how can you assume the letter of Scripture taken with the true sense for a ground to prove your Religion to be true and to be distinguished by this from a false Religion Except first yow show with pregnant and convincing reasons that this sense which yow give to the letter of Scripture is that true genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost Neither does it avail yow that which yow now here infinuate that the sense which yow give must be the true sense For the conformitie it hath with the sense holden by the Church in the first three Centuries Because this claime to Amiquity is common to all Sexts And so yow cannot mak vse of it except first yow bring some solid reason to prove your claime to be more just then theirs Secondly I ask yow how can yow affirme so boldly that all things necessarie to Salvation ar contained and that perspicuously in Scripture except first yow draw up A list or a catalogue of all things that are necessarie to Salvation as contradistinguished from all other things not necessarie and whereof a great pairt ar likewise eleirly contained in Scripture and Scripture it self makes no mentione to distinguish the one from the other For according to the rules yow gave your self it cannot be but blindlings affirmed That all the peices of Gold that one hath in his purse ar upright Gold except they be all produced to be tryed Thirdly you say that all things necessarie to Salvation are perspicuously in Scripture but with this limitation and supposition That the means for the interpretation be duely used so that Scripture is not of it self alone so perspicuous in all things necessar to Salvation except there interveene the due use of certaine middes to attaine to the true sense of Scripture But heir againe yow plunge your self in a new labyrinth of obscuritie for I ask what ar thir means and what you mean by the due use of them And whether the people without your preaching can duely use thir means by the due use of them attaine to the knowledge of all things necessar to Salvation as well as your Clergie men can doe whether a false Religion and acknowledged by your self to be a false Religion may not use duely thir middes aswell as yow Now I know all thir things will be called by yow nonsense childish things and not worthie of the sublimitie of your understanding and such railing will be all the answere that I will get Likewise when you was asked whether a man can beleeve a thing to be true precisly for this motive because it is revealed and spoken by GOD unlesse he be assured that GOD speakes by the mouth of him that propons such a thing To this you answere here That a Preacher may propone and give the true sense of Scripture and the hearer may have sufficient ground to beleeve the thing proponed to him though he have no antecedent knowledge conifying him that the Proponer hath such assistance that he cannot propone a false revelation in place of a true as a Iudge may give the true sense of a municipall Law and the hearer may have sufficient ground to beleeve that the sense given is the true sense though he have no antecedent knowledge that the Judge hath infallible assistance But in this answere yow 〈◊〉 your self altogether Ignorant of the nature of supernaturall faith Since supernaturall faith is not everie sort of assent and adhesion but an assent above all things and an adhesion with such firmnes as can be given onlie to the supreame authoritie of GOD when he speakes a thing Now I aske how is it possible that the intellect who in matters of faith hes no other motive to induce it to assent bot the meer authoritie of the speaker can produce any assent whereby it adheres above all things and with all sort of firmnes to a thing which it knowes not otherwise to be true bot precislie because GOD hes spoken it and revealed it except there preceed a knowledge certifying that GGD speakes by the mouth of him that propones such a thing and that he cannot deceive him in saying GOD to have spoken a thing which he hes not spoken or else one would either suspend his assent or else not give it in that highe degree of firmnes and adhesion which is necessarly required to supernaturall faith and which he is oblidged to give in case he knew certaâ—nlie that GOD speakes by the mouth of such a man And the example which you bring of a Judge giving the sense of the law confirms manifestly that yow ar altogether Ignorant
divinis literis commendetur If any thing else be recommended in the Scriptures But First he calls our two Sacraments in the former place the two twin Sacraments without any such addition Secondly the addition he makes in the latter place is only Hypotheticall therefore no positive inference can be deduced from it as if Austin had believed that there were more proper Sacraments then two Thirdly I have already shewed that Austine in a Large sense called many things by the name of Sacrament which are not proper Sacraments such as the signe of the Crosse Exorcisms Polygamie Yea sometimes he reckoned improper sacraments with the proper as the signe of the Crosse with Baptisme in his Enâ—rrat on Psal 141. Why then in this additional hypothesis may he not be supposed to point at Sacraments improperly so called Especially seeing Fourthly if here he meaned that here were more properly so called Sacraments he should manifestly contradict himself who had immediatly before said that they were numero paâ—cissima the fewest in number and else where Gemina two twin sacraments And lib. 3. de doctrinâ Christianâ cap. 9. Fewer in number then the Jewish sacraments pauca pro multis cademque factu facillima instancing also particularly in Baptisme and the LORDS-Supper only But it may suffice against you Romanists that Austine doth no where affirme Sacraments to be precisely seven Let all the Romish antiquaries try where they can find ground in Austine or in any one Ancient Father for their precise septenarie Had there been more then two would Justine Martyr in his second Apologie where he gives an account of the Worship Ordinances and Sacraments which Christians went about to apologize for the Christian Religion would he I say only have made mention of Baptisme and the Lords Supper How destitute you are of Antiquitie in this matter may appear by this that Bellarmine lib. 2. de sacram in genere cap. 25. could produce none for the definit number of your seven Sacraments ancienter then Lombard who lived in the twelfth Centurie nor any Council before the Florentine a late Council about the middle of the fifteenth Conturie and neither free nor general As beside others learned Stilling fleet hath demonstrated in his rationall account of the PROTESTANT Religion part 1. cap. 1. § 13. out of Sylvester Sguropulus who was present at the most secret transactions of that Florentine Assembly and your Cassander in consult art 13. hath noted that Lombard was the first Author who introduced the definite number of seven Sacraments and yet neither He nor the Florentine Council declare these your seven Sacraments to be Sacraments properly so called or that there be seven precisely neither more nor lesse Yea Spal de Repab Eccles lib. 5. cap. 4. num 21. spares not to affirme that the Article concerning seven Sacraments was never either â—hsâ—â—ssed or defyâ—ed concâ—liâ—râ—â—er in publick face of Council at Florence So that your present Romish Article of a precise septenarie can iâ— seems 〈◊〉 no higher câ—â—ciliarie Authority then from the desinition of â—o â—â— late Trent Conventicle Is it probable that the Author of the Catechisms commonly attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem or of the six bookes de Sacramentâ—s which goe under the name of Ambrose would have passed your seven Sacraments in silence and satisfied themselves with mentioning our Two Baptism and the LORDS-Supper if the Church in their time had believed that there were seven proper Sacraments Were it not a great absurditie if a man should undertake to write a Tractat of the Planets or of the Pleiades both which are in number seven and yet never mention but two of them To what straites is your Bellarmine reduced Lib. 2. de sacram cap. 27. when he hath no better Evasion then to say as I hinted before That the designe of Ambrose and Cyrill in these bookes was only to instruct Catechumens and therefore it was not needfull that they should make mention of all the Sacraments Is not this both False on the matter so farre as it concernes these six bookes of Ambrose for they were not only designed for the instruction of Catechumens as Chamier Featly and other our Divines have largely demonstrated and also Frivolous For suppose it were granted that these Bookes had been writen only for Catechumens yet what is more usual in Catechisms then to set down all the Sacraments Looke to Catechisms both Popish and PROTESTANT if it be not so Hath not your Roman Catechism set forth by the command of Pope Pius the fifth all your seven pretended SACRAMENTS Though Catechumens be not presently admitted to all Sacraments yet ought they not to learne what they all are that they may be the better prepared to receive them in due time Or why should the other five be rather kept up from the notice of Catechumens then Baptisme and the LORDS-SUPPER Are there not more Mysteries in the Eucharist especially according to your fancies of Transubstantiation then in any other Sacrament If any then of the Sacraments should have been concealed from the Catechumens should it not have been that of the Eucharist I deny not that Cyrill Ambrose and other Auâ—sents doe make mention of Chrisme and indeed Chrisme was anciently used Yet suppose that by Chrisme they had meaned a peculiar and Distinct Sacrament this would come farre short of the Popish five spurious Sacraments Bot learned PROTESTANTS have shewed that the Chrisme mentioned by Cyrill Ambrose and others was no pecuculiar and distinct Sacrament but an Appendix of Baptisme and a Mutable Ceremonie at the Churches pleasure lyke a. Kneeling betwixt Easter and Whitsuntide the Love feasts c. Hence the same Ambrose lib. 1. de sacramentis cap. 2. Venimus sayeth he ad fontem Ingressus es unctus es quasi Althleta That is We came to the water thou went in thou was anointed as a Wrestler And Tertullian de Baptismo cap. 7. Exinde egressi de lavacro perungimur benedictâ unctione That is being come out of the laver we are anointed with the blessed unction Yea the Author of the Tractat De Spiritu Sancto ad Amphilochium which goes under the name of Basil cap. 27. acknowledges that there was no Scriptural warrant for that Unction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is What writen word hath taught this anointing with oyle Surely then this Anointing was but a Ceremony which the Church brought in by her own power and therefore might be laid aside by the same power And consequently was no Proper Sacrament which by the confession of Romanists and according to the Tridentine definition most all be instituted by IESUS CHRIST Himself In a word our Divines have frequently produced Fathers asserting our Two Sacraments directly yea and calling them Gemina which seems clearly Exclusive of others But Romanists to this day could never produce one Father that makes mention of their seven Sacraments either in so many words or yet that said so much on the matter from which a precise