sensible substance after Consecration Joh. 2.9 they tasted the water turned into Wine and were convinced P. But the Body of Christ here is not a sensible thing R. But Bread and Wine are sensible things P. But They are not There and so are no objects of sense R. But all our senses say that They are there and by them we must judge P. Your senses perceive nothing but Accidents and your understanding must believe God and so as you noted out of Aquinas before there is no deceit either of sense or Intellect R. Though this be answered fully before I will again tell you That these two notorious falshoods are all that you have to say against Humanity in this case that 's worth the noting I. It is false that you say that sense perceiveth not substance When I take up a staff or stone in my hand I do not only feel Roughness or Smoothness c. but a substance It is a quantitative and qualitative substance which I feel taste smell see and hear And this I perceive by sensation it self as the medium to the Intellect It is not the sense indeed but the Intellect that giveth it the Logical notion or definition of a substance but it is the sense it self that by sensation perceiveth it and to deny this is to deny all sense And if it were not so How could any such substance be known when it cannot come into the Intellect but by the sense II. ☞ Your great cheat or errour is by confounding the first and natural-necessary perception of a sensibile sensatum or incomplex object by the Intellect with the second conception of the Names of things or of Organical second notions and the third conception of them Artificially by the use of these names and Organical notions and the fourth perception of Consequents from those conceptions To know by Believing is but the third or fourth sort of knowledge and presupposeth the two first If a man had never heard a name or word in his life yet by sensation as soon as he saw smelt tasted heard handled things his Intellect would have had a perception of the Thing it self as it was sensate And this is the Intellects first perception And this is it which falleth under our question Whether the Intellect in this first perception of a substance or Thing as sensate be deceived or not when the Thing hath the Conditions of an object before mentioned 2. Next this we learn or invent Names and organical notions for things And whether these be true or false and whether they be apt or inept is all one This is but an arbitrary work of art 3. Next this we conceive of things by the Means of these Names and second notions and examine the Congruence and so we define them And this is but a work of Artificial Reasoning and presupposeth the first Natural necessary perception Now Faith belongeth partly to this and partly to the fourth which is The raising of Conclusions and the weaving of methods and presupposeth the first yea and the second It is but an assent given by the means of an Extrinsick Testimony of God that this particular Word is True c. Now if the Intellect in its first Perception natural and necessary of the Thing it self as sensate be deceived if faith should be contrary to it 1. It must be such a Faith which is the immediate contrary perception of a sensate object which is no faith nor is any such possible properly called faith 2. And if faith can come after and undeceive the Intellect by saying that God saith otherwise yet this would be no prevention of its deception but a cure presupposing the said deception as the disease to be cured So that to say as Aquinas that faith preventeth the deceit of the Intellect is a falshood contrary to the nature of man and his natural way of acting as he is composed of soul and body I have said this over again lest errour get advantage by the brevity and unobservedness of that which I said before CHAP. VII Argum. 5. All these miracles have not the least proof yea the Scriptures fully direct us to a cross interpretation of the Papists pretended proofs which also are renounced by themselves I Know of no Scripture proof in the World that the Papists pretend to but the words This is my Body and This is my Blood and such like And that these are no proof I shall fully prove to any impartial man I. The very nature of the Sacrament instituted by Christ with his expressed End command our Reason to expound the word is of signification representation or exhibition and the word Body and Blood of a new Relative form only that is of a body and blood Representative which is all one in effect As a piece of Gold Silver or Brass is by the law and stamp turned really into the Kings Current Coine and so hath a new Relative form so that you may truly say that there is a change made of the Gold or Silver into the Kings Coyn and it is no more to be called meer Gold or Silver though it be Gold and Silver still because the form denominateth and the new form is now that in question which must denominate Or as a Prince that is marryed in effigie or by a Representative to a woman is not there personally and yet it is aptly said This is the Prince which is betrothed or marryed to thee Or as we say of Pictures This is Peter or Paul or John Or as when we deliver a man possession of a House by a Key or of Land by a twig and a turf or of a Church by the belrope c. and say Take this is such a House or such a piece of Land or Church c. As this is ordinary intelligible speech among all men so Christ tells them that he would be so understood 1. In that his Real natural body spake this of the Bread and Wine which was not his natural body His real natural body was present visible entire unwounded his blood unspilt and did eat and drink the other as the Papists hold as being the same And can any living man imagine that the Disciples who understood not his Death Resurrection Ascension c. yet understood by these four words when they saw Christs body alive and present that this Bread and Wine was that same Body and Blood without any more questioning 2. In that he bids them Do this in Remembrance of him which plainly speaketh a commemorating sign Who will say at his last farewell when he is parting with his friends I will stay among you or keep me among you in Remembrance of me So for Christ to say Eat me in remembrance of me were strange II. It may put all out of Controversie to find that Christs words of one half of the Sacrament are as they confess figurative therefore the other must be so judged also Luk. 22.20 This Cup is the new Testament in my
it me with such evidence as may make it indeed my own The Lord Unite us by Truth Love and Humility Amen Septemb. 1. 1673. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS PART I. WHat is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists pag. 1. Chap. 1. The occasion of the Conference with an humbling consideration to staggerers ibid. Chap. 2. The Conditions of the Conference p. 6. Chap. 3. What is the Religion of the Protestants Of the name Protestant The Augustane and other Confessions The thirty nine Articles The Essentials of Christianity to be distinguished from the Integrals and Accidentals p. 9. Chap. 4. What is the Papists Religion out of Veron Davenport c. p. 25. PART II. Fourteen Principles in which the Papists and Protestants seem agreed by which the Protestant Religion is by the Papists confessed and maintained to be all true p. 40. PART III. Twenty five Charges against Popery enumerated to be all in order proved as Reasons why no one that hath Religion or Sense and Reason should turn Papist p. 61. PART IV. The first Charge made good viz. against Transubstantiation In which Popery is fully proved to be the shame of Humane Nature contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTVRE and TRADITION or the Judgement of the antient and the present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels p. 75. Chap. 1. The first Reason to prove that there is Bread after the Consecration from the certainty of the Intellects Perception by the means of sense ibid. Twenty Reasons against the denying of common senses p. 77. Chap. 2. The Papists Answers to all this confuted p. 88. Chap. 3. The second Argument against Transubstantiation from the contradictions of it p. 96. Chap. 4. The third Argument from the certain falshood of their multitudes of feigned Miracles in Transubstantiation Thirty one Miracles in it enumerated with Twenty aggravations of those Miracles p. 99. Chap. 5. The Minor proved viz. That these Miracles are false or feigned p. 110. Chap. 6. Arg. 4. Transubstantiation contrary to the express Word of God p. 117. Chap. 7. Arg. 5. All these Miracles are proofless yea the Scripture abundantly directeth us otherwise to expound This is my Body p. 123. Chap. 8. Arg. 6. Transubstantiation nullifieth the Sacrament p. 128. Chap. 9. The Novelty of Transubstantiation as contrary to the faith of the antient Christians And the singularity contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of most of the Christian world p. 132. Chap. 10. The second part of the Controversie That it is not Christs very flesh and blood into which the Bread and Wine is turned p. 146. Chap. 11. The Conclusion The Scandal of our difference removed Whether the falshood of one Article prove the Papists foundation false Whether it do so by the Protestants Whether Papists have any more Infallibility than others The necessity of discerning the Essentials of Christianity The distinction of Explicite and Implicite faith considered How come so many Princes Nobles Learned men and whole Nations to be Papists All Christians besides Papists are of one Church though of many opinions How come so many among us at home of late inclinable to Popery What hope of Concord with the Papists How to help them off their Councils Snares in the point of Transubstantiation Of their denying the Cup to the Laity p. 152. Reader I Hope the Printers Errata are not many and I am discouraged from gathering them because I see men had rather err themselves and calumniate the Author than take notice of them So hath Mr. Danvers done by me in a Book against Infant Baptism where as an Introduction to abundance of mistakes in History he abuseth his Reader by several scraps of a Book of mine so curtail'd as to be insufficient to signifie the sense And among them feigneth me to write Chr. Direct p. 3. pag. 885. l. 13. to Institute Sacraments as that which man may do instead of Nor to Institute Sacraments and so maketh his credulous flock to believe that I assert that very thing which I write against Though the place was markt with a Star in the Errata and the Reader desired specially to Correct it But such dealing is now grown so common with such men that we must bear it as the effect of their disease PART I. What is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists CHAP. I. The occasion of the Conference D. SIR I am come to crave your help in a matter of great importance to me I was bred a Protestant but the Discourses of some Roman Catholicks have brought me into great doubts whether I have not been all this while deceived And though I cannot dispute the case my self with you I desire you to dispute it in my hearing with a Catholick Priest whom I shall bring to you R. With all my heart But let me first ask you a few Questions Quest 1. Did you ever understand what the Protestants Religion is D. I take it to be the 39 Articles Liturgie and Government of the Church of England R. No wonder if you be easily drawn to doubt of that Religion which you no better understand Can you hold it and not know what it is Quest 2. Do you know what it is to be a Christian D. It is to believe in Christ and to Love and obey Him Our Baptism is our Christening R. Very true And in your Baptism you are Dedicated and Vowed to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil Quest 3. And have you been a true Christian and lived according to this Vow Have you obeyed God more than the desires of your flesh Have you preferred the Kingdom of Heaven before all the pleasures honours and riches of this world Have you sincerely submitted to the healing saving Doctrine Law and example of Christ and to the sanctifying motions of his Holy Spirit And have you lived soberly righteously and Godlily in the world and made it your care and business to deny your self and mortifie all fleshly inordinate desires as it is the care of sensual men to gratifie them D. I have had my faults as all men have but I hope none can say but I have lived honestly towards all And if I have been faulty in drinking sports or gaming it hath been to no ones injury but my own R. I ask you not whether you are a sinner For so are all men But whether you are a truly Penitent Converted sinner and whether yet you are true to your Baptismal Vow and Covenant Can your Conscience say that you Love and Trust and obey God and your Redeemer before all the world and that you love not Pleasure Riches and Honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven and that it is more of the care and business of your life to Know and Love and serve God better and to make sure of your salvation than to please your flesh or prosper in the world In a word Do you heartily and in
know the Sense and the sense but a means to know the Things viz. God Christ Grace Glory c. And as they have the same God Christ Spirit Grace Glory c. to be the real objects of their Religion so have they the same Do-Doctrine and Law in sense which is in the Originals P. Q. 3. And I pray you How shall the unlearned be sure that the Translations are true as to the sence when you have no Divine Infallible Translators R. I also ask you 1. How was all the Greek Church for many hundred years sure of the soundness of the Translation called the Septuagint or that of Aquila Theodot Symmachus c. when it is certain that in many things they were all unsound 2. How was the Latine Church sure of the soundness of their Translation before Hierome amended it And how have you been sure since then when Pope Sixtus and Pope Clement have made so many hundred alterations or differences Had you then Infallible Translators And why then do your Translators as Montanus and others still differ from that Vulgar Latine 3. And how do all your unlearned persons know that you give them not only the true sence of the Scriptures but of all your Councils or Traditions But I will answer you directly We still distinguish the Essentials of our Religion from the Integrals and Accidentals 1. The unlearned may be certain that the Essentials are truly delivered them in sence Because they have them not only in the Scripture but by Vniversal certain Tradition in the constant Vse of Christian Baptism and in the use of the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue in all the Church-assemblies And they may easily know that mens tempers Countreys Interests opinions in other points and sidings are so various that it is not a thing possible without a miracle that all these should conspire both in a false Translation and Vniversal assertion and Tradition of all these Essentials For the effects must be contrary to a torrent of Causes The Papists Protestants Arians Greeks Socinians Lutherans Calvinists Anabaptists Separatists c. have so much animosity against each other that undoubtedly if any party of them did falsifie Scripture even in the Essentials which are easily discerned multitudes would quickly detect it and contradict them And this the unlearned may surely and easily discern But as for all other less necessary texts of Scripture neither you nor we learned or unlearned are certain that they are perfectly translated nor are they by any one perfectly understood nor are they sure by reason of the various readings which copie of the original is absolutely faultless 2. But suppose that an unlearned weak Believer were not absolutely certain as he may be that the very essentials of Christianity are truly opened to him he may yet grow up to better understanding and he may be saved with some doubtings of Christianity it self so be it his Faith be more prevalent than those doubtings upon his Heart and Life P. Is it a safe Religion which you your self describe When no man can be sure that he rightly understandeth all the Scriptures and when your believer is uncertain even of Christianity it self Let D. Judge whether this be a sure Religion R. The word of God is absolutely certain in it self but that so much uncertainty may be in believers I will make you to your shame confess your self and recant these insinuations Q. 1. Dare you say that all your Church or any one man even the Pope himself doth understand all the Scripture or can perfectly and infallibly translate each word You dare not say it Else why did he never once pretend to give us either an unerring Commentary or Translation And why have you such great diversity of both Q. 2. How much less dare you say that any of you perfectly understand all the Councils which are the rest of your Religion No nor that you have certainty which are the true Copies of them all else why do Caranza Crab Surius Binnius Nicolinus c. give give us such various Copies And yet you confess the Scriptures to be Gods word and with the Councils to contain your Religion Q. 3. If God have promised salvation to all that truly hold and practise the Essentials the Baptismal Covenant doth the difficulty of other points in Genealogie Chronologie History by matters either make our salvation ever the less certain or any way impeach the word of God What disgrace is it to a man that besides Head and Heart he hath fingers and toes and nails and hair No more is it to the Scripture that as our entire Religion it containeth even Integrals and Accidentals Q. 4. And as to a Doubting Believer I ask Dare you say that all those were Infidels or in a state of damnation who said See the Roman Catech. where this is confest Cap. 1. q. 1. pag. 9. Lord increase our faith or Lord we believe help our unbelief or to whom Christ said Why are ye afraid O ye of little faith or that said Luk. 24. We trusted that this had been he that should have delivered Israel Or if a man should doubt even of the Life to come and yet his Faith be so much more powerful than his doubts as that he resolveth to prefer his hopes of Heaven before all this world and to seek it on the most self-denying terms even to the laying down of life it self are you sure that this man shall be damned But this is the Course of pievish wranglers To maintain their own opinions and put a face of certainty on their own conclusions they stick not to damn almost all the world For it will be no less if all doubting believers must be damned 5. It is a gross delusion to pretend that there is a necessity that All Gods Infallible word must needs be taught us by as Infallible Inspired Prophets or other persons as those that first delivered it Translation is but the first part of exposition And must we have none but Infallible or Prophetical Expositors 6. Is it All the Scriptures or but some part that your Pope or Councils can Infallibly both translate and expound If but some we need not their Infallibility or Inspiration for the most plain and necessary parts It is and can be done without them If it be All how impious and cruel are they that would never do it to this day 7. And why use all your Expositors the common helps of Grammars Lexicons Teachers long studies and yet differ de side even of the sense of many a text of Scripture when all is done if your Pope have the gift of Infallible Translating and expounding all P. Remember that your selves derive your Essentials from Tradition R. Yes and our Integrals to What objective presence to the senses eyes and ears of those that heard Christ and his Apostles and saw their miracles was to the first Converts in those times that partly Tradition is to us or the necessary medium
what Turks did ever exercise such Inhumane fury Besides their burning and tormenting men as Hereticks that will not do all this and more and will not say as they require them XI Reason Their Church indeed is invisible while they deny it and an unknown thing For 1. Men are forced into it by such bloody Laws as that they cannot rationally be known to be Consenters 2. And they have no certain faith to constitute a Church-member For they hold that his obligation to believe is according to his inward and outward means of which no man can possibly judge And so no man can know whether himself or another have that faith which is required as necessary to salvation And many of them say That they that believe not in Christ have saving faith and are in the Church if they had not sufficient means XII Reason The Papacy doth intolerably tyrannize over Kings and teach such Doctrines of Perjury and Rebellion as their very Religion as is not in the practice of it to be endured in any Kingdom nor dare they fully practise it The Crowns and Lives of Princes being at the mercy of the Pope As the said Laterane Council sheweth XIII Reason Their Church is oft Essentially unholy heretical and wicked because the Pope is often so who is an Essential part of it And therefore it is not the holy Catholick Church General Councils have upon examination judged their Popes to be Hereticks Schismaticks Adulterers Murderers Simonists yea guilty of Blasphemy or Infidelity it self And the Church cannot be Holy whose Essential part is so unholy XIV Reason Their Churches succession is so notoriously interrupted and their Papacy so often altered in its causes as that it is become a confounded and a meer uncertain thing So many notorious or judged Hereticks Simonists Murderers Sodomites Adulterers have possessed the Seat who were therefore uncapable that the line of succession must needs be interrupted by them And so many wayes have they been made or elected sometimes by the people sometimes by the City-Presbyters sometimes by Emperours sometimes by Cardinals sometimes by Councils that if any one way of Election be necessary they have lost their Papacy long ago If no one way be necessary then the Turk may make a Pope XV. Reason Their Church called One is really two in specie one Headed by a Pope and another by a General Council For while the Head or Supream Ruler is an Essential part and one part of the people own one Head and another part own another Head as they do the Churches thus constituted cannot be One. And also de individuo there have been long two or three Popes at once and consequently two or three Churches And to this day none knoweth which was the right XVI Reason They plead for a Church which never had a being in the world that is All Christians Headed by one Pope When all the Christian world did never take him for their Head nor were governed by him to this day XVII Reason They dreadfully injure the holy Scriptures as if Jesus Christ and all the Prophets and Apostles in all those Sacred Records had not had skill or will to speak intelligibly and plainly to deliver us the doctrines necessary to salvation But they make their Voluminous Councils more intelligible and sufficient as if they had done better than Christ and his Apostles And when men must only Discern Gods Laws and Judge Causes by the Law they make themselves Judges of the Law it self that is of God the Judge of all and of the Law by which they must be judged XVIII Reason There is no other Sect of Christians under Heaven which hath so many differences among themselves or have written so many Books against one another as the Papists And though many of them are of great importance yea some are about the very Essence or Constitutive Head of their Church yet have they no handsomer way to palliate all by than by saying that these are but Opinions and no Articles of faith and the Infallible Judge dare not decide them No though it be diversity of Expositions of Gods own Word yet Commentators still differ without any hope of a decision as if Gods Word were not to be believed but were only the matter of uncertain Opinion till the Pope and Council have expounded it and no more Scripture is de fide than they expound XIX Reason Perjury is made the very Character of their Church or the brand by which it is stigmatized As is visible 1. In the Trent Oath imposed on their Clergy which whoever taketh he is immediately perjured and 2. By their disobliging men from Oaths and Vows even the Subjects of Princes from their Oaths of Allegiance whenever the Pope shall excommunicate them and give their Dominions to others as is decreed Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. XX. Reason They are guilty of Idolatry in their ordinary Worship by the Mass while they worship Bread as their Lord God Nor will it justifie them to say that if they thought it to be Bread they would not worship it Any more than it would justifie Julian to say that he would not worship the Sun if he thought not that it was God And they confess that if it prove to be still Bread their Worship will prove Idolatry and we desire no other proof And I am not able to justifie their sending God his Worship by a Cross Crucifix or other Image as a medium cultum from being a gross Violation of the second Commandment which they leave out XXI Reason Their Religion greatly tendeth to Mortifie Christianity and turn it into a dead Image by destroying much of its life and power 1. By befriending Ignorance and hiding the holy Scripture forbidding all the people to read them in a known tongue without a special license blaspheming Gods Word as if so read it had more tendency or likelihood to hurt men than to profit them to damn them than to save them when they will say otherwise of all their own Vulgar postils and such like writings 2. And by teaching the people a blind devotion viz. to pray in an unknown tongue and to worship God by words not understood 3. And by making up a Religion much if not far most of external formalities and a multitude of ceremonies and the opus operatum of their various Sacraments As if God delighted in such actions as befit not the acceptance of a grave and sober man or as if Guilt and Sin would be wiped off and charmed away into virtue and holiness by such corporeal motions shews and words XXII Reason Their Religion though it thus tend to gratifie the ungodly by deceitful remedies and hopes yet is very uncomfortable to the godly For 1. By it no man can know that he is a true believer and not a child of Hell much less that he shall be saved For they teach that no Divine can tell them what Articles are necessary to be believed to salvation
You hear his conditions you shall hear my answer 1. The Case which you told me you were in doubt of and desired satisfaction in was Which is the True and Safe Religion This he refuseth to Dispute Pretending that we cannot dispute of our whole Religion at once But did you never hear him give any Reasons against our Religion If he have Why can he not do it now I expect not all in a word but let him give them one by one and say his worst I am sure I can give you many against theirs And we will after debate them particularly as largely as you please 2. If Writing be it that you desire for your satisfaction I ask you whether you have read all or the fourth part of what is written against Popery already Have you read Dr. Challoner of the Catholick Church Dr. White Dr. Field Dr. Downame of Antichrist Chillingworth Dr. Abbot Dr. Willet Bishop Vsher Bishop Morton Dr. Stillingfleet and an hundred more Why should I expect that you should read what I shall write if you will not read what 's written already 3. Can you stay so long unresolved without injury to your soul till he and I have done writing You cannot but know that from Sheets we must proceed to the writing of Volumes in answering each other as others have done And this is like to be many years work for men that have other business And how know you that we shall all Live so long 4. Are you able when it cometh to tedious Volumes to examine them and find who is in the right Or will you not rather take him to conquer who hath the last word And it 's like that will be the longest liver 5. And as to a strict syllogistical form do you understand that best I avoid it not but shall consent to use it as far as you understand it Do you know all the Logical forms of arguing all Moods and Figures and all the fallacies Or do you not perceive that you have broken your promise with me and brought a friend of darkness who cometh purposely to hide the truth D. I must needs profess that the Question which I would have debated is Which is the True and Safe Religion And that it is not tedious writings nor long delayes but present conference which must satisfie me And that it is plain Scripture and Reason that must satisfie me who understand not Logick I pray let me hear your own Conditions which you think more just R. The Conditions which the nature of the Cause directeth us to are these I. That we first truly state the question to be disputed For we cannot dispute till we are agreed of what That is 1. That we agree what we mean by our Religion and 2. That I tell you what is the Religion of Protestants which I undertake to defend And that he tell us what is the Religion of the Romanists which must be compared with it II. That our Conference consist of these several parts 1. That premising the principles in which we are agreed I tell you the Reasons why you should not be a Papist 2. That he tell you the Reasons why you should turn Papist or what he hath against Our Religion 3. That then we come to dispute these Reasons distinctly where I will prove my charges against them and he shall prove his charges against us one by one III. And that in all our disputes we shall consent 1. Not to interrupt each other in speech but if the length seem to overmatch the hearers memory we will take brief Notes to help our memories as we go and crave the recitation of what shall be forgotten For the strength of Truth lyeth so much in the connexion of its parts that when it is mangled into scraps by uncivil interruptions it is deformed and debilitated and cannot be well understood 2. That we bind our selves by solemn promise to speak nothing which we unfeignedly judge not to be truth nor any thing designedly to hide or resist the truth which we discern These terms are so just and necessary that I will avoid him as a fraudulent wrangler who will deny them For I come not to scold nor to try who hath the strongest Lungs the nimblest Tongue or the lowdest voice or the greatest confidence or fiercest passion but to try who hath the truth and which is the true way to Heaven For the servant of the Lord must not strive especially about words and barren notions for that doth but tend to increase ungodliness D. Your Method is so reasonable and so suited to my own necessity that I must profess no other can so much tend to my satisfaction And therefore I hope it will not be refused Here after long opposition the P. at last agreeth to these terms CHAP. III. What is the Religion of the Protestants R. I. THe word Religion is sometimes taken Objectively And so I mean by it The objects of Religious Belief Love and Practice which are 1. The Things themselves which are the principal objects called by Logicians The Incomplex terms 2. The organical object or the Revelation of these Things containing 1. The Words or other Signs 2. The sense or notions signified For instance Matth. 17.5 This is my Beloved son in whom I am well pleased Here 1. The Real Incomplex object is Christ Himself the beloved Son of God and God the Fathers well-pleasedness in him 2. The signal part of the organical object or Revelation is the Words themselves as spoken then and written now 3. The signified notions are the Meaning of the words and are the chief part of the organical object that is the Divine Revelation The word Religion is of larger extent in its sense than Faith For it containeth all that Revelation which God hath made Necessary to salvation which is twofold 1. That which is to inform the understanding with necessary knowledge and faith 2. That which is necessary to a Holy Will and a Holy Life to the Love of God and man and to well doing which are Precepts Promises and Threatnings II. The word Religion is oft taken also subjectively as they speak For the Acts and habits of Love and Obedience Now I suppose we are agreed that it is not Religion in this last sense that we are to dispute of which is as divers as persons are But it is that which we call Objective Religion even the Organical part directly And if by all this D. understandeth us not in plainer words our Question is Of the True Divine Revelation viz. Which is the True Rule of Faith Will and Practice that which is held to be such by the Protestants or that which is held to be such by the Papists P. I grant you that this is the state of the Question R. I here declare to you then What is the Religion of the Protestants IT IS THE LIGHT and LAW OF GOD CONCERNING HOLY KNOWLEDGE and BELIEF HOLY WILL and PRACTICE CONTAINED IN NATURE and THE
The words could not come down to us without some to deliver them We have the Bible by Tradition and we have practical Tradition of Baptism and the Creed by it self and that in many languages where we are sure we have all the necessary sence But do you remember that this is Vniversal Tradition and not meer Roman Tradition such as is certain by moral Evidence even the consent of all that are yet of cross opinions and Interests as to matter of fact Historical Evidence and not the pretended certainty of a Pope and his favourites phanatically claiming a spirit of Infallibility But I am not now disputing with you I am only telling you that the Protestant Religion is nothing but Christianity and the Scriptures And all our Confessions are our Religion besides Consent but as our Sermons and Treatises are which vary as they are various expressions of mens various subjective faith while Gods word varyeth not P. If the Bible be your Religion then the Ceremonial Law of Moses is your Religion For that is part of the Bible R. You study what to say against another and never think how it concerneth your selves 1. Is not the Bible at least Part of your Religion You dare not deny it And is the Ceremonial Law of Moses therefore your Religion 2. I told you that as a perfect man hath hair and nails which are but Accidents so the Bible hath more than the Integrals of our Religion 3. The Ceremonies of Moses in that sense as now they are delivered to us in the Bible are parts or appurtenances of our Religion That is the historical narrative of those Abrogated Laws which now bind us not as Laws but tell us as the Prophesies what was heretofore and how Christ was fore-typified and what intimations of Gods will we may gather from the history And the abrogated Laws are no otherwise delivered to us and so we must use them P. If the ten Commandments be your Religion you must keep the Jewish seventh day Sabbath so that neither there can you fix R. The same answer will serve 1. The ten Commandments are no otherwise part of our Religion thâ—n they are of yours 2. They are a Law to us as delivered and expounded by Christ and in Nature and the seventh day is an abrogated part of Moses Law P. If the Creed be your Religion you must take the Article of Christs descent into Hell to be necessary to salvation R. 1. Is the Creed no part of your Religion As you answer so may we 2. I did not tell you that the Creed had no more than the Essentials I told you that all the Essence of Christianity is in the Baptismal Covenant And he that understandeth that understandeth it all And that the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Christian Decalogue are the exposition of it But the Exposition may have somewhat more than the Essentials 3. The Creed was not written first in English nor Latine And Christs descent to Hades is more needful to be believed than his descent to Hell as the word is commonly taken in English But to conclude remember 1. That I profess here to own and plead for no other Religion as we explained the word but Gods Law of Nature and Scripture 2. That I profess to perswade D. to no other And you cannot make me a Religion against my will CHAP. IV. What is the Papists Religion R. I Have plainly told you what my own and the Protestants Religion is viz. Nothing but Christianity contained Integrally in the holy Scriptures And the Essentials being the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords prayer and Christian Decalogue are delivered to us both in the said Scriptures and by distinct Tradition which also hath brought down to us the Scripture it self Not a Tradition depending on the pretended Authority of the Roman Pope or party or on any other that shall pretend the like But that Historical Evidence of matter of fact which is surelier given us by all sorts of Christians taking in the Concord of many Hereticks Infidels and Enemies which evidence dependeth not on the credit of supernatural Revelation but on the natural credibility yea and certainty of such universal Circumstantiated Concordant testimony and is necessarily antecedent to the Belief of supernatural Revelations in the particulars as sight and hearing were in the auditors of Christ and the Apostles seeing these two Acts of Knowledge Whatever God saith is True and This God saith must necessarily go before our Belief or Trust that This is True because God saith it And so we run not in a circle and need not a supernatural faith for the founding of our first supernatural faith that is A first before the first Without fraud or obscurity this is our faith and Religion Now do you as honestly and plainly tell me What is Yours which D. must be perswaded to For I confess that I take it to be an unintelligible thing and despair that ever you give any man a certain notice what it is which may be truly called the Religion of your Roman-Catholick-Church P. I shall make you understand it if you are willing But 1. Note that Religion being a larger word than faith includeth also Practice or Manners we must give you a distinct account of each For they have not the same Causes Our Faith is Divine But our Manners or Practice must follow the Laws of the Church as well as the Immediate Laws of God These must not be confounded R. Man hath three faculties Intellective Volitive and Vitally Executive or Active Our Religion subjectively must be in all viz. The Sanctity of all by Holy Life Light and Love And therefore the Rule which is our objective Religion doth extend to all to Intellect Will and Practice And surely for All there is a Rule directly Divine given by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost or Christs own words and subordinate Rules by Christs Ministers which are directly Humane and no otherwise Divine than as God hath in General authorized them thereto Even as the Soveraign hath the only Vniversal Legislative power and Magistrates by Him are authorized to subordinate mandates and acts of Government And so we have a Divine Faith and Revelation and a subordinate Humane faith and Ministerial Revelation or Preaching We have Divine Perswasions and subordinate Perswasions of men We have Divine Laws yea and executions and we have Humane subordinate Laws and executions If you resolve to call the Humane Divine so far as they are indeed Authorized by God I will not quarrel about words But remember 1. That so you must do also on the same reasons by the Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents who are as much authorized by God to their proper Government 2. And I hope you mean not to Confound these Humane Laws with Gods own Vniversal Laws nor humane faith with Divine faith And be it known to you It is the Divine Revelations and Laws as distinct from the Humane which we are
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
including Godliness which is its final part R. By Christianity I mean both our Believing Loving and obeying Christ as the way to the Father and our Believing Loving and Obeying God our Father as the end of Christs Mediation The Knowledge of God and the Mediator being Eternal Life Joh. 17.3 And as Taking a man for my Physicion is taking him by his medicines to help me to my health and so Health is finally included so taking Christ for my Saviour is to take him by faith to be the means of bringing me to the Love of God and to Glory And so I include Godliness in Christianity and the Law of Nature in the Law of Grace P. We are agreed on the truth of this but not of the medium by which it must be made known to us R. At the present I ask no more than that we agree in Christianity as the true and sufficient Religion and way to life The tenth Principle That Baptizing is our Christening And that all that are truly Baptized are Christians and members of the visible Church untill they Apostatize or are justly excommunicate at least P. I grant you all this as a common Principle with Christians R. Then you grant us 1. That our Religion is the True Religion of Gods appointment sufficient to salvation For it is Christianity which you confessed to be such 2. You grant that we are baptized into the true Catholick Church which is the body of Christ The eleventh Principle That all that are truly Baptized have the pardon of all their sins and have present right to salvation if they so die R. I mean that they that are Internally true Consenters to the baptismal Covenant and are baptized have all these benefits of Baptism And that Infants have them as rightly dedicated to God and baptized Do not you Consent to this P. Yes you know we do R. Then you fully grant that all among the Protestants who in Infancy or at age are truly baptized are in a state of salvation Why then would you make people believe that there is no salvation in our Churches when you grant the right to all that are Baptized P. But you are not Baptized by lawful Ministers R. Take heed what you say Your party holdeth that even Schismaticks and Hereticks Baptism is valid if they have all that is essential to Baptizing in the doing of it Yea that a lay mans or womans baptizing is valid If you deny it I will shame you by producing the common consent of your Doctors and your censure of Cyprian and making the contrary doctrine to be a Heresie P. But you have not all that is essential to Baptism because you are not intentionally Baptized into the true Catholick Roman Church For while you are not subject to the Pope you are not baptized into the Church and therefore Bellarmine sheweth that indirectly we are obliged to the Pope by baptism which you intend not R. Come come strive not against your knowledge 1. If our Baptism have not all that is essential why do you never rebaptize Protestants when they turn to you Do you not find that you condemn your selves 2. Why do not you your selves put the name of the Pope into your words of baptism 3. Doth your Tradition tell you that the ancient Churches did baptize men into a subjection to the Pope 4. Did any of the Primitive Christians baptize men into the name or subjection of Peter or any Apostle 5. Doth not Paul expresly renounce it as to himself and Peter 1 Cor. 1.12 13 14 15. Every one of you saith I am of Paul and I of Apollo and I of Cephas and I of Christ Is Christ divided Was Paul Crucified for you or were ye baptized in the name of Paul c. 6. Did not Christ himself tell us all that was Essential to baptism in his institution Matth. 28 without making any mention of Peter or the Pope P. I cannot deny but our doctrine inferreth that all that are baptized among you have a true Sacrament but not the Benefit of it and so are not in a state of pardon and salvation Or at least when you come to age by refusing the Pope you turn Hereticks and lose it R. I know some of your divided writers say that we have Sacramentum but not Rem Sacramenti But 1. You say that a Character is imprinted by Baptism and all sin done away and the person in a state of life unless he come feignedly which you will not charge on Infants nor can you prove it by those of the Anabaptists themselves that are baptized at age And saith Aquinas when the fiction ceaseth the fruits of baptism are obtained 2. And it will be long ere you will prove that to be baptized into the name of the Trinity is uneffectual if we leave out the Pope 3. And you will hardly make a man understand what you mean by the validity of the Baptism of Hereticks and Schismaticks if it neither take the Baptized into the true Visible Church nor the invisible or a state of saving grace And as to Infants losing it as you say at age by Heresie 1. Will you save all the Anabaptists that are baptized at age If their baptism put them into a state of salvation and they continue just of the same faith and mind that they were baptized in sure that faith which put them in a state of salvation will keep them in it or not be damning through defectiveness to morrow which made them heirs of Heaven to day But you cannot make your doctrines hang together 2. And they that are Baptized in Infancy are baptized into the same faith which they continue in at age The Minister intendeth no other The Parents Sponsors c. intend no other And will that prove defective even to Salvation after which was saving then 3. If Baptism make us Christians and if Christianity be the true Religion sufficient in suo genere to salvation then we that continue in the Christianity which we were baptized into by your confession continue in the true saving Religion And this is all our Religion P. It is not every one that owneth Christianity that shall be saved Hereticks own it in general and yet contradict it by their Heresies R. It is every one that truly owneth Christianity in mind and will that shall be saved else Christianity were not a saving sufficient Religion The question is not whether objective Christianity or faith be sufficient to save him that believeth not or is not subjectively a Christian nor whether the doctrine of faith be sufficient in omni genere But whether it be a sufficient doctrine or obâ—ective faith in suo genere If a Heretick deny any essential part of it he believeth not that which he really understandingly and prevalently denyeth It is but the Name of Christianity and not the Thing which he owneth who disowneth any of the essence Our question is now whether our professed objective Faith be true and sufficient
no faithful History doth deny And then I need not prove that Transubstantiation is against the most General or Common Tradition For all these Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. profess to follow the Religion which they have received from their Ancestors as well as the Papists do And if the Papists be to be believed in saying that this is the Religion which they received from their forefathers Why are not the other to be believed in the same case And if the Popish Tradition seem regardable to them Why should not the Tradition of twice or thrice as many Christians be more regardable And if in Councils the Major Vote must carry it Why not in the Judgement and Tradition of the Real body of Christs Church As for their trick of excepting against them as Schismaticks and Hereticks to invalidate their Votes and Judgement we despise it as knowing that so any Usurper that would make himself the sole Judge may say by all the rest of the world But as they judge of others they are justly judged by others themselves CHAP. X. The second part of the Controversie Whether it be Christs very Flesh and Blood into which the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated R. OUr first Question was Whether there be any Bread and Wine left after Consecration Our second is Whether Christs Real Flesh and Blood be there as that into which the Bread and Wine are changed And herein 1. I do freely grant that the change of Christs Body by Glorification is so great as that it may be called though not a Spirit yet a spiritual body as Paul 1 Cor. 15. saith Ours when Glorified shall be that is A body very like in purity simplicity and activity to a Spirit And the general difference between a spirit and body was not held by many of the Greek Fathers as it is by us And if the second Council of Nice was Infallible no Angel or other Creature is Incorporeal Or as Damasus saith They are Corporeal in respect to God but Incorporeal in respect to gross bodies The perfect knowledge of the difference between Corpus and Spiritus except by the formal Virtues is unknown to mortal men 2. I grant therefore that our senses are no Competent Judges Whether Christs true body be in the Sacrament no more than Whether an Angel be in this room There are bodies which are Invisible 3. I grant that it is unknown to us how far Christs Glorified body may extend Whether the same may be both in Heaven and on earth I am not able nor willing to confute them that say Light is a Body nor them that say It is a spirit nor them that say It is quid medium as a nexus of both I mean Aether or Ignis visible in its Light And it is an incomprehensible wonder if Lumen be a real radiant or Emanant part of the Sun that it should indivisibly fill all the space thence to this earth and how much further little do we know So for the extensions of Christs body let those that understand it dispute for me 4. And I will grant that it is very probable that as in Heaven we shall have both a Soul and Body so the Body is not like to have so near an Intuition and fruition of God as the soul And whether the Glorified Body of Christ will not be there a medium of Gods Communication of Glory to our bodies yea and his glorified soul to our souls as the Sun is now to our eyes I do not well understand only I know that it is his prayer and will that we be with him where he is to behold his Glory and that God and the Lamb will be the Light of the Heavenly Jerusalem 5. And I am fully satisfied that it is not the signs only but the Real Body and Blood of Christ which are given us in the Sacraments both Baptism and the Eucharist But how given us Relatively de jure as a man is Given to a Woman in Marriage or as a house and land are delivered to me to be mine for my use though I touch them not Thus 1. A right to Christ is given us 2. And the fruits or benefits of his Crucified body and shed blood are actually given us that is Pardon and the Spirit merited for us thereby 6. And among the Benefits given us besides the Relative there are some such as we call Real or Physical terminatively and hyperphysical originally ut à Causa which are the spirit of Holiness or the Quickening Illuminating and Sanctifying influence of the spirit of Christ upon our souls And the Sacrament is appointed as a special means of communicating this 7. I have met with some of late who say that Indeed Christs Body and Blood in his humbled state were not really eaten and drunk by the disciples at his last supper For the flesh profiteth not to such a use But that his Glorified Body is spiritual and is extensively communicated and invisibly present under the form of Bread in the Sacrament and that as we have a Body a sensitive life and an Intellectual soul so Christ is the life of all these respectively viz. His Body is made the spiritual nourishment of our Bodies his sensitive soul for which the word Blood is put because it is in the blood in animals is the food or life of our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul of ours And to these uses they assert the Real presence and oral participation of Christs Glorified body To all which I say 1. Whether or how far an invisible spiritual Body is present sense is no judge nor can we know any further than Gods word telleth us 2. That Christ in his Glorified soul and Body is our Intercessour with God through whom we have all things we must not doubt 3. That Christ in his Humane and Divine Nature now in Heaven is that Teacher who hath left us a certain word and that King who hath left us a perfect Law of Life whom we must obey and a promise which we must trust we must not question 4. That the Holy Ghost who is our spiritual Life is given us by from and for Christ our Mediator we must take for certain truth But though in all these respects Faith apprehendeth and liveth upon Christ yet that moreover his Glorified Body in substance either feedeth or by contact purifieth our Bodies and his sensitive soul our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul our Intellectual souls as if in themselves and not in their effects only they were thus communicated to us I understand not either by any just conception of the thing it self or any proof of it from the word of God But if any can help me to see it I shall not refuse instruction Nor can I see why the soul of Christ should be said to be given in the Wine only and not in the Bread Nor why by this kind of Communication he may not as truly be said to be given us in
Italians maintain that Christ is in the Sacrament when they do not believe that he is in Heaven 11. And many Nicodemites think that a man needs not expose himself to danger for his faith but may keep it to himself and do as his neighbours do especially where they have no other society to joyn with they think it better to joyn with the Popish Churches than none 12. And I have reason to think that it is but few among the multitude that understand indeed what the Papists hold while they go with them in the general Name and profession And in particular about Transubstantiation When even the subtle Schoolmen are not agreed of its proper sense as Durandus his instance for one doth prove I do not think that one of an hundred that receiveth their Eucharist doth in his heart believe that It is not Bread But some think that their Church it self meaneth otherwise And some say It is not for such as I to contradict them and dispute but I will leave every one to think as he will and so will I. 13. And as for Princes and Lords abroad Those that have once escaped Popery will take heed how they entertain it again unless lust and folly have sold them for a prey But they that live where their subjects are Papists dare not venture to shake so great a fabrick lest they overthrow themselves For 1. People are tumultuous 2. The Popish Clergie are rich and powerful and exceeding numerous 3. Religion is a thing that men are tender and tenacious of who are seriously of any 4. The Popish doctrine of deposing and killing excommunicate Kings maketh many Princes flatter the Priests for fear of losing â—heir lives They think that it is better make some advantage of the Popes friendship than to have such an enemy whose Knives and poison have easie access and whose armies we must watch against in peace as in a continued War and we know not when they are in our own houses or near us nor where nor when we are in safety 14. And alas the Great ones of the World have the greatest Temptations and not the weakest lusts and passions and have more of worldly and carnal Interest to carry them away 15. And the Papists Religion is notably suited to their lusts and carnal ends All which and much more may tell you that it no wonder that so many forreign Princes and States and Nobles can cleave to so sensless a way as Popery D. II. But how come so many among us in England to turn Papists of late years where Popery is discountenanced by the King Parliament and Laws R. Many of the same Causes do this which I need not reherse And 1. Too many both Noble and ignoble are prepared by their Lusts and by a vicious life There are many things in Popery which greatly accommodate a carnal mind and a debauched guilty Conscience which the Christian Protestant Religion affordeth not And a profligate flagitious person is likeliest to be forsaken of God and to be given up to believe a lye seeing they received not the truth in the love of it that they might be saved 2 Thess 2.10 11 12. I fear nothing so much as lest men turn Heart-Infidels and Tongue-Papists as the suitablest Reserve lest Christian Religion and the life to come should prove a truth And indeed great sins Cry for great Vengeance And what Greater than for Mind Will and Life to be forsaken of God 2. And alas except Lawyers Physicions and others bred up to Studies and Employments how few are there of Nobility or Gentry that are hard studying men And the great Mysteries of Religion will not be well learned and defended by a life of eating drinking playing jeasting gaming hawking hunting visitings of empty company lustfulness worldliness or vain-glorious pomp No men grow wise or Christians indeed by such a course 3. And indeed the Popish Priests are more industrious than too many of our Incumbent Ministers for which they are Commendable in their way The Erroneous are oft more zealous than the Orthodox And they that apprehend themselves between fear and hope are usually more industrious than they that by possession are secure which maketh the lower side so oft get up and the upper side go down And I would I might not say that our Ministers are too few of them able to deal with a trained Sophister Some are unable in this particular cause because they take it as a baffled pack of notorious Errors and thought that few sober persons were in danger of it And so they have honestly bent their studies and labours to the winning of sensual persons from their sins and are unfurnished in the Popish Controversies knowing that they can refer them to multitudes of Books which are unanswerable But alas too many also are unable through meer ignorance lowness of parts and gross insufficiency or negligence not only in this but other parts of their Ministerial work 4. And we have incurred no small dammage and danger by ignorant Over-doing against the Papists Partly with the self-wise Sectaries calling many laudable or blameless things by the Name of Popery Antichristianity and Idolatry because they are cross to their pre-judging partial conceits And partly by some unsound doctrines which some defend as parts of the Protestant Religion And partly by magnifying verbal differences and making a noise about them as if they were real and such as salvation lyeth on For want of skill to state a controversie and discern a verbal difference from a real And when a Papist can but shew their Novices one such palpable error in the Writings of a Protestant What sad work will he make with it and still harp upon that string and perswade the people that the rest of our differences are such like And thus many Overdoing well-meaning ignorant men both Ministers and people have unwittingly done as much to harden Papists and increase their numbers almost as if Satan had hired them as Spies to betray the Churches and Cause of Christ Yea and if one better studied in these points shall go a sounder and more successful way to work and take these weapons out of the Papists hands which some ignorant Protestants have given them the same mens blind zeal will rage against them as some did against Chillingworth Anthony Wotton and divers others our greatest Champions as if it were not themselves but these that were befriending Popery So that they neither can confute them soundly themselves nor will suffer others but zealous Protestants assault Christs ablest servants at their backs while their faces are towards the adversaries whom they oppose 5. But nothing among us except Ignorance and wickedness increaseth them more than the scandal of our numerous and some of them abominable Sects When the people see many zealous professors turn Quakers or Ranters or Seekers or Antinomians or Socinians or Familists and shall see the more tolerable parties Episcopal Presbyterian Independant Erastian Separatists and Anabaptists
But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one