of his may informe you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospell came unto us Which Gospell truly the Apostles first preached and after wards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our faith Vpon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrine some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledg of the ten Commandements and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but somethings to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus saies that the Apostles wrot what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145 So that at the most you can inferre from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146 Neither because as He saies it was then easy to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolike Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentalls of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 yeares after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it selfe and hereticall to all other that it is as easy but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrine and then to find the truth by the Church 147 As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your assertion Neither will I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so farre as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answere that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your selfe were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny that the ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus's time then they were all at unity about matters of faith which unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountaine and they had no other then of Apostolike Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variasse debuerat Error Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischiefe is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say this is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and cleare truths we must expect nothing but certain and cleare contradictions 148 Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and syncere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithfull men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the carefull keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus saies The Apostles fully deposited in the Church all truth yet he saies not neither can we inferre from what he saies that the Church should alwaies infallibly keep this depositum entire without the losse of any truth and syncere without the mixture of any falshood 149 Ad § 25. But you proceed and tell us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it selfe For either they have certain and Infallible meanes not to erre in interpreting or no◠If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith If they have and so cannot erre in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to heare and determine all controversies of faith and so they may be and are Iudges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Iudge of Controversies beside Scripture alone And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the doctrine of Papists is destructive of it selfe For either they have certain and infallible meanes not to erre in the choice of the Church and interpreting her decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerely a phantasticall ground for infallible faith nor a meet Iudge of Controversies For unlesse I be infallibly sure that the Church is Infallible how can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she saies is Infallible If they have certain infallible meanes and so cannot erre in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her decrees then they are able with Infallibility to heare examine and determine all controversies of faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Iudge of controversies besides the Church alone Nay
us of innumerable grosse damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the beleife of this Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefes that it is more likely to ensnare thē into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of faith which is apt as experience shewes to mis-guide men into this pernitious errour That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they doe not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd by me I believe the Roman Church to be infallible if your doctrine be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrine be true would without controversie be better then the latter 80 But say you by this kind of arguing one might inferre quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all points necessary to Salvation what need have wee of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much lesse why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the beliefe of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither does it follow so well as D. Potters argument followes That if the Apostles Creed containes all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechismes wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all points of belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters then an apple is like an oister 81 But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us newes and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better then now they have done This is D. Potters inference out of your Doctrine and truly if you should grant this this were newes indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus farre that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no newes at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should profer me a curtesy and pretend that he would oblige himselfe by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and in stead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subscribe to it and be thankfull Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberall 82 You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed containes not all things necessary Ergo It is not Profitable Or the Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient meanes Ergo She must teach us without meanes These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potters book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrine were true another and a farre shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed unprofitable because he saies another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he laies a necessity upon the Church of teaching without meanes or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtill that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechismes or Councells or any other meanes which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not choose amisse 83 Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must haue taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other meanes This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which followes that the Apostles if your doctrine be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we haue if insteed thereof they had commanded in plain termes that for mens perpetuall direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to haue taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion For then the Church not having learnt it of them could not haue taught it us This therefore I doe not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they haue written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrine which they did preach and done all otherthings as they have done besides the composing their Symbole◠I say if your doctrine were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficiall to the Church of Christ if they had never compos'd their Symbole which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple beliefe and no distinctiue mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so But insteed thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would haue been certainly effectuall for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of faith 84 Whereas you say If we will belieue we haue all in the Creed whē we haue not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell
convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unlesse he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the word of God And then no reason can be greater then this God sayes so therefore it is true 63 Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture then the infallibility of your Church appeares to be confirm'd by it and consequently must be so foolish as to believe your Church exempted from error upon lesse evidence rather then subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to doe any thing so unreasonable 64 If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confess'd to be but only Prudentiall and probable That is with a weak foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergoe any such difficulties 65 Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must bee prepar'd in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretique and command me not to obey him And I must be prepar'd in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should doe the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope then the law of Christ. Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Soveraign in lawfull things though an Heretique though a Tyrant and though I doe not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angell from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospell of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathemâ— to him 66 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to flesh and blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the world prevail'd and enlarg'd it self in a very short time all the world over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintaines her authority over mens consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging falle stories by obtruding on the world suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by warres by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of carnall meanes whether violent or fraudulent 67 Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this world but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition by it seekes to entitle himselfe directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the world And besides it is evident to any man that has but halfe an eye that most of those Doctrines which you adde to the Scripture doe make one way or other for the honour or temporall profit of the Teachers of them 68 Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in spirit and truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousnesse for which Christ shall judge the world 69 Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Vniversall never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernaturall worke of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seeme to give attestation to some parts of your doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickednesse of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirme false doctrine that they which love not the truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seeme to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world 70 If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my selfe Salvation without effectuall dereliction and mortification of all vices and the effectuall practice of all Christian vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sinne and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let in to heaven at a posterne gate even by any act of Attrition at the houre of death if it be joyn'd with confession or by an act of Contrition without confession 71 Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meeknesse fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the world love of God and the love of man kind In a word of all vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The summe whereof is in manner compriz'd in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5. 6. and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodnesse of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather then any other came from God the Fountain of all goodnesse And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universall Sanctions Not every one that sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the ruine descended and the stood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall
have been accomplished in and by the Catholicke Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6 Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the doctrine of Protestants contrary to the doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I meane those fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves doe very frequently and very confidently appeale 7 Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to preach Protestant Doctrine 8 Because Luther to preach against the Masse which containes the most materiall points now in controversy was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Divell himselfe disputing with him So himselfe professeth in his Book de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himselfe to follow the Divell 9 Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the begining maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controversy writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10 Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councells or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible meanes of suppressing Heresy or restoring unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow brieâ—ly and in order 43 To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwaies visibly prfessed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed nor foretold that there shall be alwaies a visible company of men free from all error in it selfe damnable Neither is it alwaies of necessity Schismaticall to separate from the externall communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church suppos'd to want nothing necessary require me to professe against my conscience that I believe some error though never so small and innocent which I doe not believe and will not allow me her communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismaticall and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records farre more creditable then these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirm'd and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sunne doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this book by the confession of all sides confirm'd by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after ages great signes and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrine and that I am not to believe any doctrine which seemes to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angell from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signes of false doctrine then much to regard them as certain arguments of the truth Besides setting aside the Bible the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and died in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seemes to me no strange thing that God in his Iustice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the professors of the Roman Doctrine have to abuse the World To the fourth All those were not Heretiques which by Philastrius Epiphanius or S. Austine were put in the Catalogue of Heretiques To the fift Kings and Nations have been and may be converted by men of contrary Religions To the sixt The Doctrine of Papists is confess'd by Papists contrary to the Fathers in many points To the seaventh The Pastors of a Church cannot but have authority from it to preach against the abuses of it whether in Doctrine or practice if there be any in it Neither can any Christian want an ordinary commission from God to doe a necessary work of Charity after a peaceable manner when there is no body else that can or will doe it In extraordinary cases extraordinary courses are not to be disallowed If some Christian Lay-man should come into a country of Infidels had ability to perswade them to Christianity who would say he might not use it for want of Commission To the eighth Luthers conference with the Divell might be for ought I know nothing but a melancholy dreame If it were reall the Divell might perswade Luther from the Masse hoping by doing so to keep him constant to it Or that others would make his diswasion from it an Argument for it as we see Papists doe and be afraid of following Luther as confessing himselfe to have been perswaded by the Divell To the ninth Illiacos intra muros peccatur extra Papists are more guilty of this fault then Protestants Even this very author in this very Pamphlet hath not so many leaves as falsifications and calumnies To the tenth Let all men believe the Scripture and that only and endeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others and they shall finde this not only a better but the only meanes to suppresse Heresy and restore Unity For he that believes the Scripture sincerely and endeavours to believe it in the true sense cannot possibly be an Heretique And if no more then this were requir'd of any man to make him capable of the Churches Communion then all men so qualified though they were different in opinion yet notwithstanding any such difference must be of necessity one in Communion The Preface to the READER GIVE me leave good Reader to informe thee by way of Preface of three points The first concernes D. Potters Answere to Charity Mistaken The second relates to this Reply of mine And the third containes some Premonitions or Prescriptions in case D. Potter or any in his behalfe thinke fit to rejoyne 2. For the first point concerning D. Potters Answere I say in generall reserving particulars to their proper places that in his whole Booke he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question which was Whether both Catholiques and Protestants can be saved in their severall professions And therefore Charity Mistaken judiciously pressing those particulars wherein the difficulty doth precisely consist proves in generall
there was no Scripture or written word for about two thousand yeares from Adam to Moyses whom all acknowledge to haue been the first Author of Canonicall Scripture And againe for about two thousand yeares more from Moyses to Christ our Lord holy Scripture was only among the people of Israel and yet there were Gentiles endued in those daies with divine Faith as appeareth in Iob and his friends Wherefore during so many ages the Church alone was the Decider of Controversies and Instructer of the faithfull Neither did the word written by Moyses depriue the Church of her former Infallibility or other qualities requisite for a Judge yea D. Potter acknowledgeth that besides the Law there was a living Iudge in the Iewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in cases of moment as all points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successiuely upon severall occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently knowne to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide CoÌ„troversies in Religion That some time Churches had one Iudge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or yeares as new Canonicall Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of faith or Iudge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in Gods Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibilitie either to write new Canonicall Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent heresies or infallibilitie to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistants of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soule is before the letter and speech before Bookes and sense before stile Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or subtraction from the former power and infallibilitie of the Church would haue brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost then gained by holy Scripture which ought to be far from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies infallibilitie setled in a living Iudge is incomparably more usefull and fit then if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility in the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milke of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted fountaine If Protestants will haue the Scripture alone for their Iudge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibilitie went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himselfe teacheth That the Church is still endued with infallibility in points fundamentall and consequently that infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the comming of Scripture was deprived of infallibility in some points and not in others He affirmeth that the Iewish Synagogue retained infallibility in her selfe notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly depriue the Church of Christ of infallibilitie by reason of the New Testament Eâ—pecially if we consider that in the Old Testament Lawes Ceremonies Rites Punishments Iudgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Iewes then in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of infallibility more then the Iewish Synagogue D. Potter 1 against this argument drawne from the power and infallibilitie of the Synagogue objects that we might as well inferre that Christians must haue one soveraigne Prince over all because the Iewes had one chiefe Iudge But the disparitie is very cleare The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ 〈◊〉 so their civill government of Christian Common wealths or kingdomes The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Iewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or family to an Army to a body to a kingdome c. all which require one Master onâ— Generall one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fiet Vnm ovile joyned Vnus Pastor One sheepfold one Pastour But all distinct kingdomes or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to salvation that all haue recourse to one Church but for temporall weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporall Prince kingdome or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas kingdomes haue their severall Lawes different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Iewes there was one Power and Iudge to end debates and resolue difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24 This discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus in these words What if the Apostles had not left Scriptures ought we not to haue followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yeeld ossent who belieue in Christ having salvation written in their hearts by the spirit of God without letters or Iuke and diligently keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receiue the truth from Gods Church seeing the Apostles haue most fully deposited in her as in a rich storehouse all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought wee not to haue recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receiue what is certaine and cleare concerning the present question 25 Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructiue of it selfe For either they have certaine and infallible meanes not to erre in interpreting Scripture or they haue not If not then the Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith nor a meet Iudge of Controversies If they hâ—ue certaine infallible meanes and so cannot erre in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to
above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptions tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priests Qualifications and Intentions 69 Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptisme a Casuall thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yeild me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Reall presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the consecrators true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fift demonstration of the same conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountaine neither doe I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the subject affords variety 70 Sixtly therefore I returne it thus The faith of Papists relyes alone upon their Churches infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudentiall motives Dependance upon prudentiall motives they confesse to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71 Seventhly The faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain then a most certain possibility to erre What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and all must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72 Eightly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds then a man may have for the beliefe almost of any Religion As some believe it because their forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Country where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetuall succession of Professors of all their Doctrine Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more professors of it then the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compasse Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deale ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground then any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alleadge but that with you rather then with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73 Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenâ—'d with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other nationall languages in respect of those that are licenc'd to read them This I presume you will confesse And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meere men subject to the same Passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translatours And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and all relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74 Tenthly and lastly to lay the axe to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorrupted word of God yet others among you and those as good zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75 First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authenticall infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76 Vega was present at the Councell of Trent when that decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authenticall and not to be rejected upon any pretense whatsoever At the forming this decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councell as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it by the President of it the Cardinall S. Cruce And yet he hath written that the Councell in this decree meant to pronounce this Translation free not simply from all error but only from such errors out of which any opinion pernitious to faith and manners might be collected This Andradius in his defence of that Councell reports of Vega and assents to it himselfe Driedo in his book of the Translation of Holy Scripture hath these words very pregnant and pertinent to the same purpose The See Apostolike hath approved or accepted Hieroms Edition not as so wholly consonant to the Originall and so entire and pure and restored in all things that it may not be lawfull for any man either by comparing it with the Fountaine to examine it or in some places to doubt whether or no Hierome did understand the true sense of the Scripture but only as an Edition to be prefer'd before all others then extant and no where deviating from the truth in the rules of faith and good life Mariana even where he is a most earnest Advocate for the Vulgar Edition yet acknowledges the imperfection of it in these words The faults of the Vulgar Edition are not approved by the Decree of the Councell of Trent a multitude whereof we did collect from the variety of Copies And againe We maintaine that the Hebrew and Greeke were by no meanes rejected by the Trent Fathers And that the Latine edition is indeed approved yet
be what can it be but curiosity to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your selfe herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as farre to seek as wee in this point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter fundamentall and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Buriall his descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be points of their own nature and matter fundamentall Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63 But you will say at least they give this certain rule that all points defined by Christs visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonicall and submits himselfe indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things fundamentall and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides what certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I doe not understand and as little why all points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your selfe to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamentall truth's But you will say D. Potter himselfe acknowledges that we doe not erre in Fundamentalls If he did so yet me thinkes you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemne of errour in many other matters Perhaps excesse of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably then he should doe But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hope that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaimes them damnable and such as he feares will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64 Ad § 20. 21. 22. 23. In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potters Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your selfe in stead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed containes not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptisme is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my Answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For D. Potter as you have also confessed never said not undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposall not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Neither of these objections doe any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrine all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonicall Nor the second because Baptisme is not a matter of Faith but practise not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at then builâ—s upon in answering these objections as the Creed's being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregory of Valentia in the place above cited seemes to me to confesse to have been the Iudgement of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creed's intimating the authority of Canonicall Scripture and making mention of Baptisme These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirme that the Creed containes all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some point of simple belief necessary to be explicitly believed which is not contained either in termes or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confesse I cannot But all this while you doe but trifle and are so farre from hitting the marke that you rove quite beside the But. 65 Ad § 23. 24. 25. Potterâ—emands â—emands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed then the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgement of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to doe and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which containes not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of siâ—ple â—aith Now though the Apostles Beleife be in the former sense a larger thing then that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your selfe have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingnesse to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large and therefore it is not an abridgement of them Those that are out of it it comprehends not at all and therefore it is not an abridgement of them If you would call it now an abridgement of the Faith this would be sense and signify thus much That all the necessary Articles of the Christian faith are compriz'd in it For this is the proper duty of abridgements to leave out nothing
malice If these mens conceits were true the Church might come to be wholly divided by wicked Schismes and yet after some space of time none could be accused of Schisme nor be obliged to returne to the visible Church of Christ and so there should remaine no One true visible Church Let therefore these men who pretend to honour reverence and believe the Doctrine and practise of the visible Church and to condemne their forefathers who forsooke her and say they would not have done so if they had lived in the daies of their Fathers and yet follow their example in remaining divided from her Communion consider how truly these words of our Saviour fall upon them Woe be to you because you build the Prophets sepulchers and garnish the monuments of just men and say If we had been in our Fathers daies we had not been their fellowes in the blood of the Prophets Therefore you are a testimony to your own selves that you are the sonnes of them that killed the Prophets and fill up the measure of your Fathers 46 And thus having demonstrated that Luther his Associates and all that continue in the Schisme by them begun are guilty of Schisme by departing from the visible true Church of Christ it remaineth that we examine what in particular was that Visible true Church from which they departed that so they may know to what Church in particular they ought to returne and then we shall have performed what was proposed to be handled in the fift Point 47 That the Roman Church I speak not for the present of the particular Diocesse of Rome but of all visible Churches dispersed throughout the whole world agreeing in Faith with the Chaire of Peter whether that Sea were supposed to be in the City of Rome or in any other place That I say the Church of Rome in this sense was the visible Catholique Church out of which Luther departed is proved by your own confession who assigne for notes of the Church the true Preaching of Gods word and due administration of Sacraments both which for the substance you cannot deny to the Roman Church since you confesse that she wanted nothing fundamentall or necessary to salvation and for that very cause you think to cleare your selfe from Schisme whose property as you say is to cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation the Church from which it separates Now that Luther and his fellowes were born and baptized in the Roman Church and that she was the Church out of which they departed is notoriously known and therefore you cannot cut her off from the Body of Christ and hope of Salvation unlesse you will acknowledge your selfe to deserve the just imputation of Schisme Neither can you deny her to be truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not fundamentall For your selfe avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may erre in such points Moreover I hope you will not so much as goe about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrines and you cannot deny but that England in those daies agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirme the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church doe by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintaine that the Roman Church is free from fundamentall and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the Hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelots amongst us haue proceeded to heavier censures their zeale may be excused but their Charity and wisdome cannot be justified 48 And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismaticall Grecians doe in most points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which point D. Potter also confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrisme Extream unction All the seaven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Almes for the dead Monachisme That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Iâ—remiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana confessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirme that the Doctrines debated between the Protestants and Rome are only the partiall and particular fancies of the Roman Church unlesse happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudiâ—s a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresy of the Grecians that the Holy Ghost proceeds not from the Some I suppose that Protestants dissvow them in that error as we doe 49 D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiccliffe Husse or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knowes that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Ages not in all Countries But confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselues and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held doctrines manifestly absurd and damnable heresies 50 The Waldenses began not before the year 1218 so farre were they from Vniversality of all Ages For their doctrine first they denied all Iudgements which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this meanes to make their Master Waldo a meere lay man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes nor Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a barne Fiftly that men ought not to take an oath in any case Sixtly
Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I doe not understand by your Religion the doctrine of Bellarmine or Baronius or any other privat man amongst you nor the Doctrine of the Sorbon or of the Iesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or professe to agree the Doctrine of the Councell of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I doe not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechisme of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherin they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the beliefe of it of others without most high and most Schismaticall presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe hope impartiall search of the true way to eternall happinesse doe professe plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councells against Councells some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of another age Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it selfe from the fountain but may be plainly prov'd either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ or that in such an age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will professe according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly loose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this book and require whether I believe it or no and seeme it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with hand and heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger then this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgement from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the lesse for differing in opinion from me And what measure I meat to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man then this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57 This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily perswaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely thē if I had guided my selfe according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secur'd by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to finde the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto mee And then all necessary truth being as I have prov'd plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his faith how is it possible he should faile of Salvation 58 Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been ancient The Scripture is more ancient Is your Church a meanes to keep men at vnity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and wil obey it in unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church universall for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more universall For all the Christians in the world those I mean that in truth deserve this name doe now and alwaies have believed the Scripture to be the word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God all Christians besides you deny it 59 Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confesse that your selves are surer of the truth of the Scripture then of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proofe then of the thing proved otherwise it is no proofe 60 Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61 Fiftly to follow the Scripture I have Gods expresse warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no cōmand at all much lesse an expresse cōmand Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to doe so in these words call no man Master on earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by faith Bee not high minded but feare The spirit of truth The world cannot receive 62 Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been reveal'd reason could never have discover'd but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not
thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not lawes for all Christians but Counsells of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall doe well if he doe observe them but he shall not sinne if he observe them not That they are for them who ayme at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sonnes of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content barely to goe to heaven and to be a doore keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to tast of Purgatory in the way he may obtaine it at any easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the doctrine of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountaine of holinesse goodnesse 72 Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall doe all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgement of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a Company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idlenesse refuse the trouble of a severe tryall of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part doe it not at all Or if they doe it they doe it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others then themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgement without a resolution to doubt of it if upon examination the grounds of it prove uncertain or to leave it if they prove apparently false My own experience assures me that in this imputation I doe you no injury but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your Doctrine among mortall sinnes For from hence it followes that seeing every man must resolve that he will never commit mortall sinne that he must never examine the grounds of it at all for fear he should be mov'd to doubt or if he doe he must resolve that no motives be they never so strong shall move him to doubt but that with his will and resolution he will uphold himselfe in a firme belief of your Religon though his reason and his understanding faile him And seeing this is the condition of all those whom you esteem good Catholiques who can deny but you are a Company of men unwilling and afraid to understand least you should doe good That have eyes to see and will not see that have have not the love of truth which is only to be known by an indifferent tryall therefore deserve to be given over to strong delusions men that love darknesse more then light in a word that you are the blind leading the blind and what prudence there can be in following such Guides our Saviour hath taught us in saying If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch 73 There remaines unspoken to in this Section some places out of S. Austin and some sayings of Luther wherein he confesses that in the Papacy are many good things But the former I have already considered and return'd the argument grounded on them As for Luthers speeches I told you not long since that we follow no privat men and regard not much what he saies either against the Church of Rome or for it but what he proves He was a man of a vehement Spirit and very often what he took in hand he did not doe it but over doe it He that will justify all his speeches especially such as he wrote in heat of opposition I believe will have work enough Yet in these sentences though he overreach in the particulars yet what he saies in generall we confesse true and confesse with him that in the Papacy are many good things which have come from them to us but withall we say there are many bad neither doe wee think our selves bound in prudence either to reject the good with the bad or to retain the bad with the good but rather conceive it a high point of wisdome to separate between the pretious and the vile to sever the good from the bad and to put the good in vessels to be kept and to cast the bad away to try all things and to hold that which is good 74 Ad § 32. Your next and last argument against the faith of Protestants is because wanting Certainty and Prudence it must also want the fourth condition Supernaturality For that being a humane perswasion it is not in the essence of it supernaturall and being imprudent and rash it cannot proceed from Divine motion and so is not supernaturall in respect of the cause from which it proceedeth Ans. This litle discourse stands wholly upon what went before and therefore must fall together with it I have proved the Faith of Protestants as certain and as prudent as the faith of Papists and therefore if these be certain grounds of supernaturality our faith may have it as well as yours I would here furthermore be inform'd how you can assure us that your faith is not your perswasion or opinion for you make them all one that your Churches doctrine is true Or if you grant it your perswasion why is it not the perswasion of men and in respect of the subject of it an humane perswasion I desire also to know what sense there is in pretending that your perswasion is not in regard of the object only and cause of it but in nature or essence of it supernaturall Lastly whereas you say that being imprudent it cannot come from divine motion certainly by this reason all they that believe your own Religion and cannot give a wise and sufficient reason for it as millions amongst you cannot must be condemn'd to have no supernaturall faith or if not then without question nothing can hinder but that the imprudent faith of Protestants may proceed from divine motion as well as the imprudent faith of Papists 75 And thus having weighed your whole discourse and found it altogether lighter then vanity why should I not invert your conclusion and say Seeing you have not proved that whosoever erres against any one point of Faith looseth all divine Faith nor that any error whatsoever concerning that which by the Parties litigant may be esteem'd a matter of faith is a grievous sinne it followes not at all that when two men hold different doctrines concerning Religion that but one can be saved Not that I deny but that the sentence of S. Chrysost. with which you conclude this Chapt. may in a good sense be true for oftimes by
THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A SAFE VVAY TO SALVATION OR AN ANSVVER TO A BOOKE ENTITLED MERCY AND TRVTH Or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary By WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH Master of Arts of the Vniversity of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist. ad Card. Perron Regis IACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestâ—s nullam ad ineundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr sepatentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simpliciâ—er necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expresse verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo sen Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iius quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam paucailla sunt ut modò dicebamus fere ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodie Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere OXFORD Printed by LEONARD LICHFIELD and are to be sold by Iohn Clarke under St Peters Church in Corn-hill Anno Salutis M.DC.XXXVIII TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY PRINCE CHARLES By the Grace of God KING of great Britaine France Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is ought to be infinitely dearer to you then all the world Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censur'd for a double boldnesse both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and againe for presenting it to such a Parton whose judgement I ought to fear more then any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my selfe and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of my selfe whose personall defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience to Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to S. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodnesse of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the preiudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to truth in one place perhaps lead to error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and search into the grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my selfe For my inscribing to it your Maiesties sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Maiesties Patronage protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from your Maty was written some years since chiefly for the generall good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of your meanest Subiects from a dangerous deviation so due unto your Maty as the fruit of your own High humility and most Royall Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine where With I have adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended by your Royall Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth Peace that is to all that were like himselfe as the only hopefull meanes of healing the breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of soules makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have here endeavoured to uncloud and unveile and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been rais'd to obscure it by that Order which envenomes even poison it selfe and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and trubulent then otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther then it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Maiesty be considered either as a Pious Sonne towards your Royall Father K. IAMES or as a tender hearted compassionate Sonne towards your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of your Subiects or as a Servant unto Christ this worke to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to doe you service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a defence of that whole Church and Religion you professe it could not be so proper to any Patron as to the great Defendor of it which stile your Maiesty hath ever so exactly made good both in securing it from all dangers and in vindicating it by the well ordering and rectifying this Church from all the foule as persions both of Domestick Forraine enemies of which they can have no ground but their own malice and want of Charity But it is an argument of a despairing lost cause to support it selfe with these impetuous out-cries and clamors the faint refuges of those that want better arguments like that Stoick in Lucian that cried 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O damn'd villaine when he could say nothing else Neither is it credible the wiser sort of them should believe this their own horrid assertion That a God of goodnesse should damne to eternall torments those that love him and love truth for errors which they fall into through humane frailty But this they must say otherwise their only great argument from their daÌ„ning us our not being so peremptory in damning them because we hope unaffected Ignorance may excuse theÌ„ would be lost therefore they are engag'd to act on this Tragicall part only to fright the simple and ignorant as we doe litle children by telling them that bites which we would not have them meddle with And truely that herein they doe but act a part and know themselves to doe so and deale with us here as they doe with the King of Spain at Rome whom they accurse and Excommunicate for fashion sake on Maundy-Thursday for detaining part of S. Peters Patrimony and absolve him without satisfaction on Good-Friday methinkes their faltring and inconstancy herein makes it very apparent For though for the most part they speak nothing but thunder and lightning to us damne us all without
the Gentleman who dealt between us to return this answer or to this effect that I believed the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all other super-naturall verities revealed in Scripture as truly and as heartily as your self or any man and therefore herein your Charity was very much mistaken but much more and more uncharitably in conceiving me a man that was to be wrought upon with these Terribiles visu formae those carnall and base fears which you presented to me which were very proper motives for the Divell and his instruments to tempt poor spirited men out of the way of conscience and honesty but very incongruous either for Teachers of truth to make use of or for Lovers of truth in which Company I had been long agoe matriculated to hearken to with any regard But if you were indeed desirous that I should not answer Charity maintained one way there was and but one whereby you might obtain your desire and that was by letting mee know when and where I might attend you and by a fair conference to be written down on both sides convincing mine understanding who was resolv'd not to be a Recusant if I were convicted that any one part of it any one argument in it which was of moment and consequence and whereon the cause depends was indeed unanswerable This was the effect of my answer which I am well assur'd was delivered but reply from you I received none but this that you would have no conference with me but in Print and soone after finding me of proof against all these batteries and thereby I fear very much enâ—aged you tooke up the resolution of the furious Goddesse in the Poet madded with the unsuccessefulnesse of her malice Flectere si nequeâ— superos Acherontamovebo 6 For certainly those indigne contumelies that masse of portentous and execrable calumnies wherewith in your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my person in particular but all the learned and moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in generall nay all wise men of all Religions but your own could not proceed from any other fountain 7 To begin with the last you stick not in the beginning of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheisme irreligion upon all wise and gallant men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of irreligion and Atheisme I am sure I could make my assertion much more probable then you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8 For to passe by first that which experience justifies that where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheisme hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspitious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies ridiculous observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorne of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheisme and impiety if they have this perswasion setled in them which is too rise among you and which you account a peece of Wisdome and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the points contested makes apparently for the temporall ends of the teachers of it which yet I feare is a great scandall to many Beaâ—x Esprits among you Onely I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their religion no not of those points wherein they agree whether you doe not that which so magisterially you direct me not to doe that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptique may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyn'd with your fore-mention'd perswasion of no Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himselfe to Averroes his resolution QuandoquideÌ„ Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Whether your requiring men upon only probable and Prudentiall motives to yield a most certaine assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you doe too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorne your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyn'd with your pretending no ground for this but some texts of Scripture be not a faire way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9 Your calumnies against Protestants in generall are set downe in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it bee followed closely and with coherence to it selfe must of necessity induce Socinianisme This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one errror which may well be tearmed the Capitall and mother Heresy from which all other must follow at ease I mean their heresy in affirming that the perpetuall visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the infallibility of such a publique Authority be once impeached what remaines but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse And talke not here of holy Scripture For if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private spirit a foolery now exploâ—ed out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianisme or else upon naturall wit and judgement for examining and determining what Scriptures contain true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected
affirmative in your accusation yet you neither doe nor can produce any proof or presumption for it but forgeting your selfe as it is Gods will oftimes that slanderers should doe have let fall some passages which being well weighed will make considering men apt to believe that you did not believe your selfe For how is it possible you should believe that I deserted your Religion for ends against the light of my conscience out of a desire of preferment and yet out of scruple of conscience should refuse which also you impute to me to subscribe the 39 Articles that is refuse to enter at the only common dore which here in England leads to preferment Again how incredible is it that you should believe that I forsooke the profession of your Religion as not suting with my desires and designes which yet reconciles the enjoying of the pleasures and profits of sinne here with the hope of happinesse hereafter and proposes as great hope of great temporall advancements to the capable servants of it as any nay more then any Religion in the world and instead of this should choose Socinianisme a Doctrine which howsoever erroneous in explicating the mysteries of Religion and allowing greater liberty of opinion in speculative matters then any other Company of Christians doth or they should doe yet certainly which you I am sure will pretend and maintaine to explicate the Lawes of Christ with more rigor and lesse indulgence and condescendence to the desires of flesh and blood then your Doctrine doth And besides such a Doctrine by which no man in his right mind can hope for any honour or preferment either in this Church or State or any other All which cleerely demonstrates that this foule and false aspersion which you have cast upon mee proceeds from no other fountaine but a heart abounding with the gall and bitternesse of uncharitablenesse and even blinded with malice towards me or else from a perverse zeale to your superstition which secretly suggests this perswasion to you That for the Catholique cause nothing is unlawfull but that you may make use of such indirect and crooked arts as these to blast my reputation and to possesse mens minds with disaffection to my person least otherwise peradventure they might with some indifference hear reason from me God I hope which bringeth light out of darknesse will turne your counsells to foolishnesse and give all good men grace to perceive how weak and ruinous that Religion must be which needs supportance from such tricks and devices So I call them because they deserve no better name For what are all these Personall matters which hitherto you have spoke of to the businesse in hand If it could be prov'd that Cardinall Bellarmine was indeed a Iew or that Cardinall Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is neverthelesse truth nor reason ever the lesse Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or damnation depends upon his impartiall and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these impostures and regard not the person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speakes but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to perswade him unlesse it be truth whereunto I perswade him 30 The third and laâ—t part of my Accusation was that I answer ouâ— of Principles which Protestants themselves will professe to detest which indeed were to the purpose if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premis'd unto it it is very easy for mee out of your own mouth and words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one conclusion is there is the whole fabrick of my discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to salvation are evidently contain'd in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one cleerly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of ReligioÌ„ such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may bee sav'd because all necessary things being suppos'd evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain signe that a Point is not evident then that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31 Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32 Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamentall and not Fundamentall will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be fundamentall which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be preach't to all men Those not fundamentall which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholique Church may erre in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther then to bring her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any infallible Guide either to consigne unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the faith Not for the former end because this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consign'd Nor for the latter because nothing that is obcsure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33 Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduc'd from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed unnecessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confess'd to bee cleerly contain'd in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort bee contain'd in the Creed 34 Fiftly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opsition to your fift Ch will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary
speak of him vz. That he hath not so much as once truly and really fallen upon the point in question being a most unjust and immodest imputation 2 For first the point in question was not that which you pretend Whether both Papists and Protestants can be saved in their severall Professions But Whether you may without uncharitablenesse affirme that Protestancy unrepented destroyes Salvation And that this is the very question is most apparent and unquestionable both from the title of Charity Mistaken and from the Arguments of the three first Chapters of it and from the title of your own Reply And therefore if D. Potter had joyned issue with his Adversary only thus farre and not medling at all with Papists but leaving them to stand or fall to their own master had prou'd Protestants living and dying so capable of Salvation I cannot see how it could justly be charged upon him that he had not once truly and really fallen upon the point in Question Neither may it be said that your Question here and mine are in effect the same seeing it is very possible that the true Answere to the one might have been Affirmative and to the other Negative For there is no incongruity but it may be true That You and We cannot both be saved And yet as true That without uncharitablenesse you cannot pronounce us damned For all ungrounded and unwarrantable sentencing mento damnation is either in a propriety of speech uncharitable or else which for my purpose is all one it is that which Protestants mean when they say Papists for damning them are uncharitable And therefore though the Author of C. M. had prov'd as strongly as he hath done weakly that one Heaven could not receive Protestants and Papists both yet certainly it was very hastily and unwarrantably therefore uncharitably concluded that Protestants were the part that was to be excluded As though Iewes and Christians cannot both be saved yet a Iew cannot justly and therefore not charitably pronounce a Christian damned 3 But then secondly to shew your dealing with him very injurious I say he doth speak to this very Question very largely and very effectually as by confronting his worke and Charity Mist. together will presently appear Charity M. proves you say in generall That there is but one Church D. Potter tels him His labour is lost in proving the unity of the Catholique Church whereof there is no doubt or controversy herein I hope you will grant he answeres right to the purpose C. M. proves you say secondly That all Christians are obliged to harken to the Church D. Potter answeres It is true yet not absolutely in all things but only when she commands those things which God doth not countermand And this also I hope is to his purpose though not to yours C. M. proves you say thirdly That the Church must be ever visible and infallible For her Visibility D. Potter denyes it not and as for her Infallibility he grants it in Fundamentalls but not in Superstructures C. M. proves you say fourthly That to separate ones selfe from the Churches Communion is schisme D. Potter grants it with this exception unlesse there be necessary cause to doe so unlesse the conditions of her Communion be apparently unlawfull C. M. proves you say lastly That to dissent from her doctrine is heresy though it be in points never so few and never so small and therefore that the distinction of points fundamentall and unfundamentall as it is applyed by Protestants is wholy vaine This D. Potter denyes shewes the Reasons brought for it weak and unconcluding proves the contrary by reasons unanswerable and therefore that The distinction of points into fundamentall and not fundamentall as it is applied by Protestants is very good Vpon these grounds you say C. M. cleerely evinces That any least difference in faith cannot stand with salvation and therefore seeing Catholiques and Protestants disagree in very many points of faith they both cannot hope to be saved without Repentance you must mean without an explicit and particular repentance and dereliction of their errors for so C. M. hath declared himselfe p. 14. where he hath these words We may safely say that a man who lives in Protestancy and who is so farre from Repenting it as that he will not so much as acknowledge it to be a sinne though he be sufficiently enform'd thereof c. From whence it is evident that in his judgement there can be no repentance of an errour without acknowledging it to be a sinne And to this D. Potter justly opposes That both sides by the confession of both sides agree in more points then are simply and indispensably necessary to Salvation and differ only in such as are not precisely necessary That it is very possible a man may dye in errour and yet dye with Repentance as for all his sinnes of ignorance so in that number for the errours in which he dies with a repentance though not explicite and particular which is not simply required yet implicite and generall which is sufficient so that he cannot but hope considering the goodnesse of God that the truth 's retained on both sides especially those of the necessity of repentance from dead workes and faith in Iesus Christ if they be put in practise may be an antidote against the errors held on either side to such he meanes saies as being diligent in seeking truth and desirous to find it yet misse of it through humane frailty and dye in errour If you will but attentively consider compare the undertaking of C. M. and D. Potters performance in all these points I hope you will be so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you have injurd him much in imputing tergiversation to him and pretending that through his whole book he hath not once truly and really fallen upon the point in Question Neither may you or C. M. conclude him from hence as covertly you doe An enemy to soules by deceiving them with ungrounded false hopes of Salvation seeing the hope of salvation cannot be ungrounded which requires and supposes beliefe and practise of all things absolutely necessary unto salvation and repentance of those sinnes and errours which we fall into by humane frailty Nor a friend to indifferency in Religions seeing he gives them only hope of pardon of Errors who are desirous and according to the proportion of their opportunities and abilities industrious to find the truth or at least truly repentant that they have not been so Which doctrine is very fit to excite men to a constant and impartiall search of truth and very farre from teaching them that it is indifferent what Religion they are of and without all controversy very honourable to the goodnesse of God with which how it can consist not to be satisfied with his servants true endeavours to know his will and doe it without full and exact performance I leave it to you and all good men to judge 4 As little Iustice me thinkes
from ambiguity before you answer it and to haue recourse to Accidentall Circumstances as if Ignorance were accidentall to error or as if a man could be considered as in errour and not be considered as in ignorance of the Truth from which he erres Certainly Errour against a Truth must needs presuppose a nescience of it unlesse you will say that a man may at once resolue for a Truth and resolue against it assent to it and dissent from it knowe it to be true and beleiue it not to be true Whether Knowledge Opinion touching the same thing may stand together is made a Question in the Schooles But hee that would question whether knowing a thing and doubting of it much more whether knowing it to be true believing it to be false may stand together deserues without question no other Answer but laughter Now if Errour knowledge connot consist then Errour and Ignorance must be inseparable He then that professeth your errours may well be considered either as knowing or as Ignorant But him that does erre indeed you can no more conceiue without ignorance then Long without Quantity Vertuous without Qualitie a Man and not a living Creature to haue gone ten miles and not to haue gone fiue to speak sense and not to speake For as the latter in all these is implied in the former so is Ignorance of a Truth supposed in errour against it Yet such a man though not conceaueable without Ignorance simply may be very well considered either as with or without voluntary and sinfull Ignorance And he that will giue a wise answer to this Question Whether a Papist dying a Papist may be saved according to Gods ordinary proceeding must distinguish him according to these severall considerations and say Hee may be saved If his ignorance were either invincible or at least unaffected and probable if otherwise without repentance he cannot To the rest of this Preface I haue nothing to say saving what hath been said but this That it is no just exception to an argument to call it vulgar and thredbare Truth can neither be too common nor superannuated nor Reason ever worne out Let your Answers be solid pertinent and we will never finde fault with them for being old or common THE FIRST PART The State of the Question with a summary of the reasons for which amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved CHAP. I. NEver is Malice more indiscreet then when it chargeth others with imputation of that to which it selfe becomes more liable even by that very act of accusing others For though guiltinesse be the effect of some errour yet usually it begets a kind of Moderation so far forth as not to let men cast such aspersions upon others as must apparantly reflect upon themselves Thus cannot the Poet endure that Gracchus who was a factious and unquiet man should be inveighing against Sedition and the Roman Oratour rebukes Philosophers who to waxe glorious superscribed their Names upon those very bookes which they entitled Of the contempt of glory What then shall we say of D. Potter who in the Title and Text of his whole book doth so tragically charge Want of Charity on all such Romanists as dare affirme that Protestancy destroyeth Salvation while he himselfe is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman Catholiques For not satisfied with much uncivill language in affirming the Roman Church many wayes to have plaid the Harlot and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ and detestation of Christians in styling her that proud and curst Dame of Rome which takes upon her to revell in the House of God in talking of an Idoll to be worshipped at Rome he comes at length to thunder out this fearfull sentence against her For that Masse of Errors saith he in iudgement and practise which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we iudge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable And in another place ho saith For us who are convinced in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lyes upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those Errors By the acerbity of which Censure he doth not only make himselfe guilty of that which he judgeth to be a haynous offence in others but freeth us also from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination For if Roman Catholikes be likewise convicted in conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must in conformity to the Doctor 's own rule judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable And thus all the Want of Charity so deeply charged on us dissolves it selfe into this poore wonder Roman Catholiques believe in their conscience that the Religion which they professe is true and the contrary false 2. Neverthelesse we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation Far be it from us by way of insultation to apply it against Protestants otherwise then as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true Church of Christ our Lord within the Communion whereof he hath confined salvation Neither doe we understand why our most deere Countrymen should be offended if the Vniversality be particularized under the name of Protestants first given to certain Lutherans who protesting that they would stand out against the Imperiall decrees in defence of the Confession exhibited at Ausburge were termed Protestants in regard of such their protesting which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from and being disclaymed by Calvinists and Zwinglians our naming or exemplifying a generall doctrine under the particular name of Protestantisme ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England 3 Moreover our meaning is not as misinformed persons may conceive that we give Protestants over to reprobation that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation that we hold their case desperate God forbid We hope we pray for their Conversion and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires Neither is our Censure immediatly directed to particular persons The Tribunall of particular Iudgement is Gods alone When any man esteemed a Protestant leaveth to live in this world we doe not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not alwaies acquainted with what sufficiency or meanes he was furnished for instruction we doe not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist we have no revelation what light might have cleered his errours or Contrition retracted his sinnes in the last moment before his death In such particular cases we wish more apparent signes of salvation but doe not give any dogmaticall sentence of perdition How greivous sinnes Disobedience Schisme and Heresy are is well knowne But to discerne how farre the naturall malignity of those great offences might be checked by Ignorance or by some such lessening
faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sinne the voluntary deniall of any other point knowen to be defined by Gods Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14 From the aforesaid maine principle that God hath alwaies had and alwaies will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schisme and Heresy although they opposed her faith but in one only point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well beliefe as practise 15 To these reasons drawne from the vertue of Faith we will adde one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soule to hazard of perdition when we can put ourselves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16 We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of faith is the visible Church of Christ. Secondly that the distinction of points fundamentall and not fundamentall maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed containes all fundamentall points of faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schisme Fiftly nor from Heresy Sixtly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards ones selfe Protestants be in state of sinne as long as they remaine divided from the Roman Church And these six points shall be severall Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17 Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge us so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirme the like of whosoever opposeth any least point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences passe for good For is it not a grievous sinne to deny any one truth contained in holy Writ Is there in such deniall any distinction betwixt points fundamentall and not fundamentall sufficient to excuse from heresy Is it not impertinent to alleadge the Creed containing all fundamentall points of faith as if believing it alone we were at liberty to deny all other points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Errour against faith Oppose it in any least point the error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even fundamentall points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of persons contrary in whatsoever point of beliefe one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandall where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandall be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandall then forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what wee think yield us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperour Farre â—e it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concernes the present Question and is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chapter THE ANSWER TO THE FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be sav'd 1. TO the first § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charg'd with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitablenesse Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great calumnie Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great errours judgeth reconciliation betweene her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconcil'd unto her is damnable Therefore if Roman Catholiques be convicted in conscience of the Errours of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in theÌ„ then it is in the Doctor to judge as he does All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judg'd the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who professe it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sinne in him it is a sinne indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinc'd or rather to speake properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though in it selfe most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my selfe should not be to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall alwaies professe and glory in this uncharitablenesse of judging hypocrisie a damnable sinne Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides passe It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolv'd to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think yee of those that in the dayes of our Fathers laid down their lives for it are you content that they shall be saved or doe you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errours there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are
sav'd If you will doe so this Controversie is ended No man will hereafter charge you with want of Charity This is as much as either we give you or expect of you while you remaine in your Religion But then you must leave abusing silly people with telling them as your fashion is that Protestants confesse Papists may be saved but Papists confesse not so much of Protestants therefore yours is the safer way and in Wisdome and Charity to our owne soules we are bound to follow it For granting this you grant as much hope of salvation to Protestants as Protestants doe to you If you will not but will still affirme as C. M. does that Protectants not dissemblers but believers without a particular repentance of their Religion cannot be saved This I say is a want of Charity into the society whereof D. Potter cannot bee drawn but with palpable and transparent Sophistrie For I pray Sir what dependance is there between these Propositions We that hold Protestant Religion false should be damned if we should professe it Therefore they also shall be damned that hold it true Iust as if you should conclude Because hee that doubts is damned if he eat Therefore he that does not doubt is damn'd also if he eat And therefore though your Religion to us or ours to you if professed against Conscience would be damnable yet may it well be uncharitable to define it shall be so to them that professe either this or that according to Conscience This recrimination therefore upon D. Potter wherewith you begin is a plain Fallacie And I feare your proceedings will be answerable to these beginings 2 Ad § 2. In this Paragraph Protestants are thus farre comforted that they are not sent to Hell without Company which the Poet tells us is the miserable comfort of miserable Men. Then we in England are requested not to be offended with the name of Protestants Which is a favour I shall easily grant if by it be understood those that Protest not against Imperiall Edicts but against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome 3 Ad § 3. 4 5 6. That you give us not â—ver to reprobation That you pray and hope for our salvation if it be a Charity is such a one as is common to Turkes and Iewes and Pagans with us But that which followes is extraordinary Neither doe I know any man that requires more of you then there you pretend to For there you tell us That when any man esteem'd a Protestant dies you doe not instantly avouch that he is lodg'd in Hell Where the word esteem'd is ambiguous For it may signifie esteem'd truly and esteemd falsely Hee may be esteem'd a Protestant that is so And he may be esteem'd a Protestant that is not so And therefore I should have had just occasion to have laid to your charge the transgression of your own chief prescription which you say truth exacts at our hands that is to speake clearely or distinctly and not to walk in darknesse but that your following words to my understanding declare sufficiently that you speake of both sorts For there you tell us that the Reasons why you damne not any man that dies with the esteem of a Protestant are 1. Because you are not alwaies acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction You must mean touching the falshood of his own Religion and the truth of yours Which reason is proper to those that are Protestants in truth and not only in estimation 2. Because you doe not penetrate his capacitie to understand his Cateohist which is also peculiar to those who for want of capacitie as you conceive remaine Protestants indeed and are not only so accounted 3. Because you have no Revelation what light might clear his errors which belongs to those which were esteem'd Protestants but indeed were not so 4. Because you have no Revelation what Contrition might have retracted his sinnes which reason being distinct from the former and divided from it by the disjunctive particle Or insinuates unto us that though no light did clear the errors of a dying Protestant yet Contrition might for ought you know retract his sinnes which appropriates this reason also to Protestants truly so esteem'd I wish with all my heart that in obedience to your own prescription you had expressed your selfe in this matter more fully and plainly Yet that which you say doth plainly enough afford us these corollaries 1 That whatsoever Protestant wanteth capacity or having it wanteth sufficient meanes of instruction to convince his Conscience of the falshood of his own and the truth of the Roman Religion by the confession of his most rigid Adversaries may be saved notwithstanding any error in his Religion 2 That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may dye with contrition for all his sinnes 3 That if he doe dye with Contrition he may and shall be saved 4 All these acknowledgements we have from you while you are as you say stateing but as I conceive granting the very point in question which was as I have already prov'd out of C. M. whether without uncharitablenesse you may pronounce that Protestants dying in the belief of their Religion and without particular repentance and dereliction of it cannot possibly be saved Which C. M. affirmes universally and without any of your limitations But this presumption of his you thus qualify by saying that this sentence cannot be pronounced truly and therefore sure not charitably neither of those Protestants that want meanes sufficient to instruct and convince them of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own Nor of those who though they have neglected the meanes they might have had dyed with contrition that is with a sorrow for all their sinnes proceeding from the love of God So that according to your doctrine it shall remain upon such only as either were or but for their own fault might have been sufficiently convinced of the truth of your Religion and the falshood of their own and yet dye in it without contrition Which doctrine if you would stand to and not pull down and pull back with one hand what you give and build with the other this controversy were ended and I should willingly acknowledge that which followes in your fourth paragraph That you allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter allowes you But then I must intreat you to alter the argument of this Chapter and not to goe about to give us reasons why amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved absolutely which your Reasons drive at But you must temper the crudenes of your Assertion by saying One side only can be saved unlesse want of Conviction or else Repentance excuse the other Besides you must not only abstaine from damning any Protestant in particular but from affirming in generall that Protestants dying in their Religion cannot be saved for you must alwaies remember to adde this caution unlesse they were excusably
so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needfull qualifications But whensoever your errors superstitions and impieties come into my mind and besides the generall bonds of humanity and Christianity my own particular obligations to many of you such and so great that you cannot perish without a part of my selfe my only comfort is amidst these agonies that the Doctrine and practise too of repentance is yet remaining in your Church And that though you put on a face of confidence of your innocence in point of Doctrine yet you will be glad to stand in the eye of mercy as well as your fellowes and not be so stout as to refuse either Gods pardon or the Kings 6 But for the present Protestancy is called to the barre and though not sentenc'd by you to death without mercy yet arraigned of so much naturall malignity if not corrected by ignorance or contrition as to be in it selfe destructive of Salvation Which controversy I am content to dispute with you tying my selfe to follow the Rules prescribed by you in your Preface Only I am to remember you that the adding of this limitation in it selfe hath made this a new Question and that this is not the conclusion for which you were charged with want of Charity But that whereas according to the grounds of your own Religion Protestants may dye in their supposed errors either with excusable ignorance or with Contrition and if they doe so may be saved you still are peremptory in pronouncing them damn'd Which position supposing your Doctrine true and ours false as it is farre from Charity whose essential character it is to judge and hope the best so I beleeve that I shall cleerly evince this new but more moderate assertion of yours to be farre from verity that it is Popery and not Protestancy which in it selfe destroies Salvation 7 Ad § 7. 8. In your gradation I shall rise so farre with you as to grant that Christ founded a visible Church stored with all helps necessary to salvation particularly with sufficient meanes to beget and conserve faith to maintain unity and compose schismes to discover and condemne haeresies and to determine all controversies in Religion which were necessary to be determin'd For all these purposes he gave at the begining as we may see in the Ep. to the Ephesians Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctours who by word of mouth taught their comtemporaries and by writings wrot indeed by some but approved by all of them taught their Christian posterity to the worlds end how all these ends and that which is the end of all these ends Salvation is to be archieved And these meanes the Providence of God hath still preserved and so preserved that they are sufficient for all these intents I say sufficient though through the malice of men not alwaies effectuall for that the same meanes may be sufficient for the compassing an end and not effectuall you must not deny who hold that God gives to all men sufficient meanes of Salvation and yet that all are not sav'd I said also sufficient to determine all controversies which were necessary to be determin'd For if some controversies may for many ages be undetermined and yet in the mean while men be sav'd why should or how can the Churches being furnisht with effectuall meanes to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it selfe to which these meanes are ordained being as experience shewes not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the meanes must alwaies be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a horse to carry me thither If I have no need to fly I have no need of wings Answer me then I pray directly and categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determin'd or is it not If it be why is the question of Predetermination of the immaculate conception of the Popes indirect power in temporalties so long undetermined if not what is it but hypocrisy to pretend such great necessity of such effectuall meanes for the atchieving that end which is it selfe not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not alwaies effectuall to determine not all controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this meanes to decide controversies in Faith Religion must be indued with an Vniversall infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in any thing which God requires men to believe we can yeeld unto it but a wavering and fearfull assent in any thing These grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I doe not perceive how from the denyall of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historicall Faith then generally both Protestants and Papists doe for I conceive it an assent to divine Revelations upon the authority of the revealer Which though in many things it differ from opinion as commonly the word opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confesse that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is alwaies built upon lesse evidence then that of sense or science Which assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixt Ch. Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admits degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you wil grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this illâ—sounding word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectuall habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about words who grants my meaning 8 But though the essence of Faith exclude not all weaknesse and imperfection yet may it be enquired whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain salvation Whereunto I answer that though men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleas'd without a down weight but God is contented if the scale be turn'd They pretend that heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of
thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Iesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Bookes of the New Testament I believed by Fame strengthned with Celebrity Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an universall and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damne all to the fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you professe it is lawfull for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulnesse and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramentall Cup the lawfulnesse and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c. so new I say in comparison of the undoubted bookes of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving Authority with wise and considerate men What madnesse is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damne all other parts of Christendome Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my selfe that I were not to believe in Christ then that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other then them by whom I believed him at least then that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a faire way to make the faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confesse to be the word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerfull who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the sixe Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not usurpe the same authority upon the Authors of the sixe last Ages before them and so upwards untill we come to Christ himselfe Whose question'd Doctrines none of them came from the fountain of Apostolike tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streames by little and little some in one age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the shell as the Popes infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalties of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be impos'd upon Christians under the Title of Originall and Apostolike Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others somethings which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgement of those that have wisdome and experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so farre from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledge of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102 Ad. § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Iudge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Iudge and not the Scripture 103 To this I answere As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Iudge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Iudge otherwise you might make your selfe Iudge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Iudge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with sophistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to inferre in the end which indeed was more then you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Iudge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still runne upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Iudge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Iudge of Controversies that they have the authority of Fathers of warrant their manner of speaking as of Optatus 104 But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Iudge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both doe what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intelligible in things necessary to all that have
Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our beliefe Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should haue put it I say That this position Scripture alone is the rule whereby they which belieue it to be Gods Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundameÌ„tall point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I haue done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We haue said already that necessary Controversies may be are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain meanes for the ending of them And to your Third I say that your pretence of using these meanes is but hypocriticall for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these meanes happily may suggest into you if it any way crosse your pre-conceav'd persuasion of your Churches infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgement in the use of them nor suffer your selves to bee led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth erre therefore it is not Infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not erre and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to doe so never so plainly 157 You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own You conferre places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrine not that you may judge of them forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originalls but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrine or Translation 158 You adde not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of Gods Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot erre damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any errour in the Church but only to maintaine her impossibility or erring And lastly D. Potter assures himselfe that your Doctrine and practises are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei incertae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will bee as an antidote to you against the errours which you maintain and that your superstructions may burne yet they amongst you Qui sequun tur Absalonem in simplicitate cor dis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unlesse you suppose him infallible and if you doe why doe you write against him 159 Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamentall Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholly and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performes the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospell and not that it is contained in these or these Bookes So that the Bookes of Scripture are not so much the objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrine as requisite to the well being of it Irenaeus tels us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the bookes of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous nations but still by the bare beliefe and practise of Christianity they might be saved God requiring of us under pain of damnation only to believe the verities therein contained and not the divine Authority of the bookes wherein they are contained Not but that it were now very strange and unreasonable if a man should belieue the matter of these bookes and not the Authority of the bookes and therefore if a man should professe the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not alwaies an equall necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equall reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eight K. of England as that Iesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilaâ—â— yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of of him yet it were no mortall sinne nor no sinne at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should performe the whole will of the dead should fully satisfy the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160 This discourse whether it be rationall and concluding or no I submit to better judgement But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamentaâ— is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth
such a one damnable But if I be guilty of none of these faults but be desirous to know the Truth and diligent in seeking it and advise not at all with flesh bloud about the choice of my opinions but only with God that Reason that he hath given me if I be thus qualifi'd and yet through humane infirmity fall into errour that errour cannot be damnable Again the party erring may be conceived either to dye with contrition for all his sins known and unknown or without it If he dye without it this errour in it selfe damnable will bee likewise so unto him If he dye with contrition as his errour can bee no impediment but he may his errour though in it selfe damnable to him according to your doctrine will not proue so And therefore some of those Authors whom you quote speaking of Errours whereunto men were betrayed or wherein they were kept by their Fault or Vice or Passion as for the most part men are Others speaking of them as errours simply and purely involuntary and the effects of humane infirmity some as they were retracted by Contrition to use your own phrase others as they were not no marvell though they haue past upon them some a heavier some a milder some an absolving some a condemning sentence The best of all these errours which here you mention having malice enough too frequently mixed with it to sink a man deep enough into hell and the greatest of them all being according to your Principles either no fault at all or very Veniall where there is no malice of the will conjoyn'd with it And if it be yet as the most malignant poyson will not poison him that receives with it a more powerfull Antidote so I am confident your own Doctrine will force you to confesse that whosoever dies with Faith in Christ and Contrition for all sinnes known and unknown in which heap all his sinfull errours must be compriz'd can no more be hurt by any the most malignant and pestilent errour then S. Paul by the viper which he shook of into the fire Now touching the necessity of Repentance from dead works and Faith in Christ Iesus the Sonne of God and Saviour of the World they all agree and therefore you cannot deny but they agree about all that is simply necessary Moreover though if they should goe about to choose out of Scripture all these Propositions Doctrines which integrate and make up the body of Christian Religion peradventure there would not be so exact agreement amongst them as some say there was between the 70. Interpreters in translating the Old Testament yet thus far without controversie they doe all agree that in the Bible all these things are contained and therefore that whosoever does truly and sincerely believe the Scripture must of necessity either in hypothesi or at least in thesi either formally or at least virtually either explicitely or at least implicitely either in Act or at least in preparation of minde belieue all things Fundamentall It being not Fundamentall nor required of Almighty God to belieue the true sense of Scripture in all places but only that we should endeavour to doe so be prepar'd in minde to doe so whensoever it shall be sufficiently propounded to us Suppose a man in some disease were prescribed a medicine consisting of twenty ingredients and he advising with Physitians should finde them differing in opinion about it some of them telling him that all the ingredients were absolutely necessary some that only some of them were necessary the rest only profitable and requisite ad melius esse lastly some that some only were necessary some profitable and the rest superfluous yet not hurtfull Yet all with one accord agreeing in this That the whole receipt had in it all things necessary for the recovery of his health and that if hee made use of it hee should infallibly finde it successefull what wise man would not think they agreed sufficiently for his direction to the recovery of his health lust so these Protestant Doctors with whose discords you make such Tragedies agreeing in Thesi thus far that the Scripture evidently containes all things necessary to Salvation both for matter of Faith and of practise and that whosoever believes it and endeavours to finde the true sense of it and to conform his life unto it shall certainly performe all things necessary to salvation and undoubtedly be saved agreeing I say thus farre what matters it for the direction of men to salvation though they differ in opinion touching what points are absolutely necessary and what not What Errours absolutely repugnant to Salvation and what not Especially considering that although they differ about the Question of the necessity of these Truths yet for the most part they agree in this that Truths they are and profitable at least though not simply necessary And though they differ in the Question whether the contrary Errours be destructive of salvation or no yet in this they consent that Errours they are hurtful to Religion though not destructive of Salvation Now that which God requires of us is this That we should belieue the Doctrines of the Gospell to bee Truths not all necessary Truths for all are not so and consequently the repugnant Errours to be falshoods yet not all such falshoods as unavoidably draw with them damnation upon all that hold them for all doe not so 53 Yea but you say it is very requisite we should agree upon a particular Catalogue of Fundamentall points for without such a Catalogue no man can be assured whether or no he hath faith sufficient to salvation This I utterly deny as a thing evidently false and I wonder you should content your selfe magisterially to say so without offering any proof of it I might much more justly think it enough barely to deny it without refutation but I will not Thus therefore I argue against it Without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured of the Truth of this Assertion if it be true That the Scripture containes all necessary points of faith and know that I belieue explicitely all that is exprest in Scripture and implicitely all that is contained in them Now he that belieues all this must of necessity believe all things necessary Therefore without being able to make a Catalogue of Fundamentals I may be assured that I belieue all things necessary and consequently that my faith is sufficient I said of the truth of this Assertion if it be true Because I will not here enter into the Question of the truth of it it being sufficient for my present purpose that it may be true and may be believed without any dependance upon a Catalogue of Fundamentalls And therefore if this be all your reason to demand a particular Catalogue of Fundamentalls we cannot but think your demand unreasonable Especially having your selfe expressed the cause of the difficulty of it and that is Because Scripture doth deliver Divine Truths
that those persons sinned mortally who accompanied without hope of issue Seaventhly they held all things done above the girdle by kissing touching words compression of the breasts c. to be done in Charity and not against Continency Eightly that neither Priest nor civill Magistrate being guilty of mortall sinne did enjoy their dignity or were to be obeyed Ninthly they condemned Princes and Iudges Tenthly they affirmed singing in the Church to be an hellish clamor Eleaventhly they taught that men might dissemble their Religion so accordingly they went to Catholique Churches dissembling their faith and made Offertories confessions and communions after a dissembling manner Waldo was so unlearned that saith Fox he gave rewards to certain learned men to translate the holy Scripture for him and being thus holpen did as the same Fox there reporteth confer the forme of religion in his time to the infallible word of God A goodly example for such as must needs have the Scripture in English to be read by every simple body with such fruit of Godly doctrine as we have seen in the foresaid grosse heresies of Waldo The followers of Waldo were like their Master so unlearned that some of them â—aith Fox expounded the words Ioan. 1. Sui eum non receperunt Swine did not receive him And to conclude they agreed in divers things with Catholiques against Protestants as may be seen in Brerely 51 Neither can it be pretended that these are slanders forged by Catholiques For for besides that the same things are testified by Protestant writers as Iâ—â—yricus Coâ—per and others our Authors cannot be suspected of partiality in disfavour of Protestants unlesse you will say perhaps that they were Prophets and some hundred yeares agoe did both foresee that there were to bee Protestants in the world and that such Protestants were to be like the Waldenses Besides from whence but from our Histories are Protestants come to know that there were any such men as the Waldenses and that in some points they agreed with the Protestants disagreed from them in others And upon what ground can they belieue our Authors for that part wherein the Waldenses were like to Protestants and imagine they lyed in the rest 52 Neither could Wiccliffe continue a Church never interrupted from the time of the Waldenses after whom he lived more then one hundred and fifty yeares to wit the yeare 1371. Hee agreed with Catholiques about the worshipping of Reliques and Images and about the Intercession of our blessed Lady the ever Immaculate Mother of God he went so far as to say It seemes to me impossible that we should be rewarded without the intercession of the Virgin Mary He held seaven Sacraments Purgatory and other points And against both Catholiques and Protestants he maintained sundry damnable doctrines as divers Protestant Writers relate As first If a Bishop or Priest be in deadly sinne he doth not indeed either giue Orders Consecrate or Baptize Secondly That Ecclesiasticall Ministers ought not to haue any temporall possessions nor propriety in any thing but should beg and yet he himselfe brake into heresie because he had been deprived by the Archbishop of Canterbury of a certain Benefice as all Schismes and heresies beginne upon passion which they seek to cover with the cloak of Reformation Thirdly he condemned lawfull Oathes like the Anabaptists Fourthly he taught that all things came to passe by absolute necessity Fiftly he defended human merits as the wicked Pelagians did namely as proceeding from naturall forces without the necessary help of God's grace Sixtly that no man is a Civill Magistrate while he is in mortall sinne and that the people may at their pleasure correct Princes when they offend by which doctrine he proues himselfe both an Heretique and a Traytour 53 As for Husse his chiefest Doctrines were That Lay people must receive in both kinders and That Civill Lords Prelates and Bishops loose all right and authority while they are in mortall sinne For other things he wholy agreed with Catholiques against Protestants and the Bohemians his followers being demanded in what points they disagreed from the Church of Rome propounded only these The necessity of Communion under both kinds That all Civill Dominion was forbidden to the Clergy That Preaching of the word was free for all men and in all places That open Crimes were in no wise to be permitted for avoiding of greater evill By these particulars it is apparant that Husse agreed with Protestants against us in one only point of both kindes â—hich according to Luther is a thing indifferent because he teacheth that Christ in this matter commanded nothing as necessary And he saith further If thou come to a place where one only kinde is administred use one kinde only as others doe Melancthon likewise holds it a thing indifferent and the same is the opinion of some other Protestants All which considered it is cleer that Protestants cannot challenge the Waldenses Wickliffe and Husse for members of their Church and although they could yet that would advantage them little towards the finding out a perpetuall visible Church of theirs for the reasons aboue specified 54 If D Potter would goe so farre off as to fetch the Muscovites Armenians Georgians Aethiopians or Abissines into his Church they would proue over deare bought For they either hold the damnable heresy of Euâ—iches or use Circumcision or agree with the Greek or Roman Church And it is most certaine that they have nothing to doe with the doctrine of the Protestants 55 It being therefore granted that Christ had a visible Church in all ages and that there can be none assigned but the Church of Rome it followes that she is the true Cath. Church and that those pretended Corruptions for which they forsook her are indeed divine truths delivered by the visible Catholique Church of Christ And that Luther and his followers departed from her and consequently are guilty of Schisme by dividing themselves from the Communion of the Roman Church Which is cleerly convinced out of D. Potter himself although the Roman Church were but a particular Church For he saith Whosoever professes himself to forsake the Communion of any one member of the body of Christ must confesse himself consequently to forsake the whole Since therefore in the same place he expressely acknowledges the Church of Rome to be a member of the body of Christ and that it is cleere they have forsaken her it evidently followes that they haue forsaken the whole and therefore are most properly Schismatiques 56 And lastly since the crime of Schisme is so grievous that according to the doctrine of holy Fathers rehearsed aboue no multitude of good works no morall honesty of life no cruel death endured even for the profession of some Article of faith can excuse any one who is guilty of that sinne from damnation I leaue it to be considered whether it be not true Charity to speak as wee believe and
forgive a private offender seventy seven times that is without limitation of quantity of time or quality of Trespasses and thou how dare we alleage his command that we must not pardon his Church for errors acknowledged to be not fundamentall Ans. He that commands us to pardon our Brother sinning against us so often will not allow us for his sake to sinne with him so much as once He will have us doe any thing but sinne rather then offend any man But his will is also that we offend all the World rather then sinne in the least matter And therefore though his will were and it were in our power which yet is false to pardon the errors of an erring Church yet certainly it is not his will that we should erre with the Church or if we doe not that we should against conscience professe the errors of it 71 Ad § 24. But Schismatiques from the Church of England or any other Church with this very Answer that they forsake not the Church but the errors of it may cast off from themselves the imputation of Schisme Ans. True they may make the same Answer and the same defence as we doe as a murtherer can cry not guilty as well as an innocent person but not so truly nor so justly The question is not what may be pretended but what can bee proved by Schismatiques They may object errors to other Churches as well as we doe to yours but that they prove their accusation so strongly as we can that appeares not To the Priests and elders of the Iewes imposing that sacred silence mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles S. Peter and S. Iohn answered they must obey God rather then men The three Children to the King of Babylon gave in effect the same answer Give me now any factious Hypocrite who makes religion the pretence and cloke of his Rebellion and who sees not that such a one may answer for himselfe in those very formall words which the holy Apostles and Martyrs made use of And yet I presume no Christian will deny but this answer was good in the mouth of the Apostles and Martyrs though it were obnoxious to be abused by Traitors and Rebels Certainly therefore it is no good consequence to say Schismatiques may make use of this Answer therefore all that doe make use of it are Schismatiques But moreover it is to be observed that the chiefe part of our defence that you deny your communion to all that deny or doubt of any part of your doctrine cannot with any colour be imployed against Protestants who grant their Communion to all who hold with them not all things but things necessary that is such as are in Scripture plainly delivered 72 But the forsaking the Roman Church opens a way to innumerable Sects and Schismes and therefore it must not be forsaken Ans. We must not doe evill to avoid evill neither are all courses presently lawfull by which inconveniences may be avoided If all men would submit themselves to the chiefe Mufty of the Turkes it is apparent there would be no divisions yet unity is not to be purchased at so deare a rate It were a thing much to be desired that there were no divisions yet difference of opinions touching points controverted is rather to be chosen then unanimous concord in damned errors As it is better for men to goe to heaven by diverse waies or rather by divers paths of the same way then in the same path to goe on peaceably to hell Amica Pax magis amica Veritas 73 But there can be no iust cause to forsake the Church so the Doctor grants who notwithstanding teacheth that the Church may erre in points not fundamentall therefore neither is the Roman Church to be forsaken for such errors Ans. There can be no just cause to forsake the Church absolutely and simply in all things that is to cease being a member of the Church This I grant if it will doe you any service But that there can be no just cause to forsake the Church in some things or to speak more properly to forsake some opinions and practices which some true Church retaines and defends this I deny and you mistake the Doctor if you think he affirmes it 74 Ad § 26. 27. What prodigious doctrines say you are these Those Protestants who belieue that your Church erred in points necessary to salvation and for that cause left her cannot be excused from damnable Schisme But others c. Prodigious doctrines indeed But who I pray are they that teach them Where does D. Potter accuse those Protestants of damnable Schisme who left your Church because they hold it erroneous in necessary points What Protestant is there that holds not that you taught things contrary to the plaine precepts of Christ both Ceremoniall in mutilating the Communion and Morall in points of superstition Idolatry and most bloody tyranny which is without question to erre in necessary matters Neither does D. Potter accuse any man of Schisme for holding so if he should he should call himselfe a Schismatique Only he saies such if there be any such as affirm that ignorant soules among you who had no means to know the truth cannot possibly be saved that their wisdome and charity cannot be justified Now you your selfe haue plainly affirmed That ignorant Protestants dying with contrition may bee saved and yet would be unwilling to be thought to say that Protestants erre in no points necessary to salvation For that may be in it selfe and in ordinary course where there are meanes of knowledge necessary which to a man invincibly ignorant will proue not necessary Again where doth D. Potter suppose as you make him that there were other Protestants who believed that your Church had no errours Or where does hee say they did well to forsake her upon this ridiculous reason because they judged that she retained all means necessary to salvation Doe you think us so stupid as that wee cannot distinguish between that which D. Potter sayes and that which you make him say He vindicates Protestants from Schisme two waies The one is because they had just and great and necessary cause to separate which Schismatiques never haue because they that haue it are no Schismatiques For schisme is alwaies a causelesse separation The other is because they did not joyn with their separation an uncharitable damning of all those from whom they did divide themselves as the manner of Schismatiques is Now that which he intends for a circumstance of our separation you make him make the cause of it and the motiue to it And whereas he saies though we separate from you in some things yet we acknowledge your Church a member of the body of Christ and therefore are not Schismatiques You make him say most absurdly we did well to forsake you because we iudged you a member of the body of Christ. Iust as if a brother should leaue his Brothers company in some ill courses and should say
what gay probabilities you could devise to disswade him from this Resolution And if you can devise none what reason then or sense is there but that a probable hope of infinite and eternall happinesse provided for all those that obey Christ Iesus and much more a firme faith though not so certain in some sort as sense or science may be able to sway our will to obedience and encounter with all those temptations which Flesh and Blood can suggest to avert us from it Men may therefore talke their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generally believe that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternall felicity but as firmly and undoubtedly as that there is such a Citty as Constantinople nay but as much as Caesars Commentaries or the History of Salust I believe the liues of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better then they are Thus therefore out of your own words I argue against you He that requires to true faith an absolute and infallible certainty for this onely Reason because any lesse degree could not be able to overbeare our will c. imports that if a lesse degree of faith were able to doe this then a lesse degree of faith may be true and divine and saving Faith But experience shews and reason confirmes that a firm faith though not so certain as sense or science may be able to encounter and overcome our will and affections And therefore it followes from your own reason that faith which is not a most certain and infallible knowledge may be true and divine and saving faith 6 All these Reasons I haue imployed to shew that such a most certain and infallible faith as here you talk of is not so necessary but that without such a high degree of it it is possible to please God And therefore the Doctrines delivered by you § 25. are most presumptuous and uncharitable viz That such a most certain and infallible faith is necessary to salvation necessitate Finis or Medii so necessary that after a man is come to the use of reason no man ever was or can bee saved without it Wherein you boldly intrude into the judgement seat of God damne men for breaking Lawes not of God's but your own making But withall you cleerly contradict your selfe not only where you affirm That your faith depends finally upon the Tradition of Age to Age of Father to Sonne which cannot be a fit ground but onely for a Morall Assurance nor only where you pretend that not alone Hearing and Seeing but also Histories Letters Relations of many which certainly are things not certain and infallible are yet foundations good enough to support your faith Which Doctrine if it were good and allowable Protestants might then hope that their Histories and Letters and Relations might also passe for means sufficient of a sufficient Certainty and that they should not bee excluded from Salvation for want of such a Certainty But indeed the pressure of the present difficulty compell'd you to speak here what I believe you wil not justify and with a pretty tergiversation to shew D. Potter your means of morall certainty whereas the Objection was that you had no means or possibility of infallible certainty for which you are plainly at as great a losse and as far to seek as any of your Adversaries And therefore it concernes you highly not to damne others for want of it least you involue your selues in the same condemnation according to those terrible words of S. Paul Inexcusabilis es c. In this therefore you plainly contradict your selfe And lastly most plainly in saying as you doe here you contradict and retract your pretence of Charity to Protestants in the beginning of your Book For there you make profession that you haue no assurance but that Protestants dying Protestants may possibly dye with contrition and be saved And here you are very peremptory that they cannot but want a means absolutely necessary to salvation and wanting that cannot but be damned 7 The third Condition you require to faith is that our assent to divine Truths should not only be unknown and unevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it selfe and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernaturall evidence Which words must have a very favourable constructiō or else they will not be sense For who can make any thing of these words taken properly that faith must be an unknown unevident assent or an assent absolutely obscure I had alwaies thought that known and unknown obscure and evident had been affections not of our Assent but the Object of it not of our beliefe but the thing believed For well may wee assent to a thing unknown obscure or unevident but that our assent it selfe should bee called therefore unknown or obscure seems to me as great an impropriety as if I should say your sight were green or blew because you see something that is so In other places therefore I answer your words but here I must answer your meaning which I conceive to be That it is necessary to faith that the Objects of it the points which we belieue should not be so evidently certain as to necessitate our understandings to an Assent that so there might be some merit in faith as you love to speak who will not receive no not from God himselfe but a penny-worth for a penny but as we some obedience in it which can hardly have place where there is no possibility of disobedience as there is not where the understanding does all and the will nothing Now seeing the Religion of Protestants though it be much more credible then yours yet is not pretended to haue the absolute evidence of sense or demonstration therefore I might let this doctrine passe without exception for any prejudice that can redound to us by it But yet I must not forbeare to tell you that your discourse proves indeed this condition requisite to the merit but yet not to the essence of faith without it faith were not an act of obedience but yet faith may bee faith without it and this you must confesse unlesse you will say either the Apostles believed not the whole Gospel which they preached or that they were not eye-witnesses of a great part of it unlesse you will question S. Iohn for saying that which we haue seen with our eyes and which our hands haue handled c. declare we unto you nay our Saviour himselfe for saying Thomas because thou seest thou be lievest Blessed are they which haue not seen and yet haue believed Yet if you will say that in respect of the things which they saw the Apostles assent was not pure proper and meer faith but somewhat more an assent containing faith but superadding to it I will not contend with you for it will bee a contention about words But then again I must crave leave to tell you that the requiring this
twelfth there is something that has some probability to perswade some Protestants to forsake some of their opinions or others to leave their communion but to prove Protestants in state of sinne while they remain separate from the Roman Church there is not one word or syllable and besides whatsoever argument there is in it for any purpose it may be as forcibly return'd upon Papists as it is urg'd against Protestants in as much as all Papists either hold the doctrine of Predetermination and absolute Election or communicate with those that doe hold it Now from this doctrine what is more prone and obvious then for every naturall man without Gods especiall prevēting grace to make this practicall collection Either I am elected or not elected If I be no impiety possible can ever damne me If not no possible industry can ever save me Now whether this disiunctive perswasion be not as likely as any doctrine of any Protestants to extinguish Christian hope and filiall feare and to lead some men to despaire others to presumption all to a wretchlesse and impious life I desire you ingenuously to informe me and if you deny it assure your selfe you shall be contradicted and confuted by men of your own Religion and your own Society and taught at length this charitable Doctrine that though mens opinions may be charg'd with the absurd consequences which naturally flow from them yet the men themselves are not I meane if they perceive not the consequence of these absurdities nor doe not own and acknowledge but disclaim and detest them And this is all the answer which I should make to this discourse if I should deale rigidly and strictly with you Yet that you may not think your selfe contemn'd nor have occasion to pretend that your arguments are evaded I will entreat leave of my Reader to bring to the test every particle of it and to censure what deserves a censure and to answer what may any way seeme to require an answer and then I doubt not but what I have affirm'd in generall will appear in particular Ad § 1. To the First then I say 1. It was needlesse to prove that due Order is to be observed in any thing much more in Charity which being one of the best things may be spoil'd by being disordered Yet if it stood in need of proofe I fear this place of the Canticles He hath ordered Charity in me would be no enforcing demonstration of it 2. The reason alleaged by you why we ought to love one object more then another because one thing participates the Divine Goodnesse more than another is phantasticall and repugnant to what you say presently after For by this rule no man should love himselfe more then all the world unlesse he were first vainely perswaded that he doth more participate the Divine Goodnesse then all the world But the true reason why one thing ought to be lov'd more then another is because one thing is better then another or because it is better to us or because God commands us to doe so or because God himselfe does so and we are to conforme our affections to the will of God 3. It is not true that all objects which we believe doe equally participate the Divine Testimony or Revelation For some are testified more evidently and some more obscurely and therefore whatsoever you have built upon this ground must of necessity fall together with it And thus much for the first number 6 Ad § 2. In the Second many passages deserve a censure For 1. it is not true that we are to wish or desire to God a nature infinite independent immense For it is impossible I should desire to any person that which he hath already if I know that he hath it nor the perpetuity of it if I know it impossible but he must have it for perpetuity And therefore rejoycing only and not welwishing is here the proper work of love 2. Whereas you say That in things necessary to salvation no man ought in any case or in any respect whatsoever to preferre the spirituall good of the whole world before his own soule In saying this you seeme to me to condemne one of the greatest acts of Charity of one of the greatest Saints that ever was I mean S. Paul who for his brethren desir'd to be an Anathema from Christ. And as for the Text alleaged by you in confirmation of your saying what doth it availe a man if he gaine the whole world and sustaine the damage of his owne soule it is nothing to the purpose For without all question it is not profitable for a man to doe so but the question is whether it be not lawfull for a man to forgoe and part with his own particular profit to procure the universall spirituall and eternall benefit of others 3. Whereas you say it is directly against Charity to our selves to adventure the omitting of any meanes necessary to salvation this is true But so is this also that it is directly against the same Charity to adventure the omitting any thing that may any way helpe or conduce to my salvation that may make the way to it more secure or lesse dangerous And therefore if the errors of the Roman Church doe but hinder me in this way or any way endanger it I am in Charity to my selfe bound to forsake them though they be not destructive of it 4. Whereas you conclude That if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazard to want something necessary to Salvation we commit a grievous sinne against the vertue of Charity as it respects our selves This consequence may be good in those which are thus perswaded of the Roman Church and yet live out of it But the supposition is certainly false We may live and dye out of the Roman Church without putting our selves in any such hazard Nay to live and dye in it is as dangerous as to shoote a gulfe which though some good ignorant soules may doe and escape yet it may well be feared that not one in a hundred but miscarries 7 Ad § 3. I proceed now to the third Section herein first I observe this acknowledgement of yours That in things necessary only because commanded a probable ignorance of the commandement excuses the Party from all fault and doth not exclude Salvation From which Doctrine it seemes to me to follow that seeing obedience to the Roman Church cannot be pretended to be necessary but only because it is commanded therefore not only an invincible but even a probable ignorance of this pretended command must excuse us from all faulty breach of it and cannot exclude Salvation Now seeing this command is not pretended to be expresly delivered but only to be deduced from the word of God and that not by the most cleere and evident consequences that may be and seeing an infinity of great objections lies against it which seeme strongly to prove that there is no such command with what Charity
part therefore of this Doctrine is manifestly untrue The other not only false but impious for therein you plainly give us to understand that in your judgement a resolution to avoid sinne to the uttermost of our power is no necessary meanes of Salvation nay that a man may resolve not to doe so without any danger of damnation Therein you teach us that we are to doe more for the love of our selves and our own happinesse then for the love of God and in so doing contradict our Saviour who expresly commands us to love the Lord our God withall our heart withall our soule and withall our strength and hath taught us that the loue of God consists in avoiding sinne and keeping his commandements Therein you directly crosse S. Pauls doctrine who though he were a very probable Doctor and had delivered his judgement for the lawfulnesse of eating meats offered to Idols yet he assures us that he which should make scruple of doing so and forbear upon his scruple should not sinne but only be aweak brother whereas he who should doe it with a doubtfull conscience though the action were by S. Paul warranted lawfull yet should sinne and be condemn'd for so doing You pretend indeed to be rigid defenders and stout champions for the necessity of good workes but the truth is you speak lies in hypocrisy and when the matter is well examin'd will appear to make your selves and your own functions necessary but obedience to God unnecessary Which will appear to any man who considers what strict necessity the Scripture imposes upon all men of effectuall mortification of the habits of all vices and effectuall conversion to newnesse of life and universall obedience and withall remembers that an act of Attrition which you say with Priestly absolution is sufficient to salvation is not mortification which being a work of difficulty and time cannot be perform'd in an instant But for the present it appears sufficiently out of this impious assertion which makes it absolutely necessary for men either in Act if it be possible or if not in Desire to be Baptiz'd and Absolv'd by you and that with Intention and in the mean time warrants them that for avoding of sinne they may safely follow the uncertain guidance of a vain man who you cannot deny may either be deceiv'd himselfe or out of malice deceive them neglect the certain direction of God himselfe and their own consciences What wicked use is made of this Doctrine your own long experience can better informe you then it is possible for me to doe yet my own litle conversation with you affords one memorable example to this purpose For upon this ground I knew a young Scholar in Doway licenc'd by a great Casuist to swear a thing as upon his certain knowledge whereof he had yet no knowledge but only a great presumption because forsooth it was the opinion of one Doctor that he might doe so And upon the same ground whensoever you shall come to have a prevailing party in this Kingdome and power sufficient to restore your Religion you may doe it by deposing or killing the King by blowing up of Parliaments and by rooting out all others of a different faith from you Nay this you may doe though in your own opinion it be unlawfull because Bellarmine a man with you of approved vertue learning and judgement hath declared his opinion for the lawfulnesse of it in saying that want of power to maintaine a rebellion was the only reason that the Primitive Christians did not rebell against the persecuting Emperors By the same rule seeing the Priests and Scribes and Pharisees men of greatest repute among the Iewes for vertue learning and wisdome held it a lawfull and a pious work to persecute Christ and his Apostles it was lawfull for the people to follow their leaders for herein according to your Doctrine they proceeded prudently and according to the conduct of opinion maturely weighed and approved by men as it seem'd to them of vertue learning and wisdome nay by such as sate in Moses chaire and of whom it was said whatsoever they bid you observe that observe and doe which universall you pretend is to be understood universally and without any restriction or limitation And as lawfull was it for the Pagans to persecute the Primitive Christians because Truian Pliny men of great vertue and wisdome were of this opinion Lastly that most impious detestable Doctrine which by a foule calumny you impute to me who abhorre and detest it that men may be saved in any Religion followes from this ground unavoidably For certainly Religion is one of those things which is necessary only because it is commanded for if none were commanded under pain of damnation how could it be damnable to be of any Neither can it be damnable to be of a false Religion unlesse it be a sin to be so For neither are men saved by good luck but only by obedience neither are they damned for their ill fortune but for sin and disobedience Death is the wages of nothing but sin and S. Iames sure intended to deliver the adequate cause of sin and death in those words Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death Seeing therefore in such things according to your doctrine it is sufficient for avoiding of sin that we proceed prudently by the conduct of some probable opinion maturely weighed approv'd by men of learning vertue and wisdome and seeing neither Iews want their Gamaliels nor Pagans their Antoninus'es nor any sect of Christians such professors and maintainers of their severall sects as are esteem'd by the people which know no better and that very reasonably men of vertue learning and wisdome it followes evidently that the embracing their religion proceeds upon such reason as may warrant their action to bee prudent and this is sufficient for avoiding of sin and therefore certainly for avoiding damnation for that in humane affaires and discourse evidence and certainty cannot be alwaies expected I haue stood the longer upon the refutation of this doctrine not only because it is impious and because bad use is made of it and worse may be but only because the contrary position That men are bound for avoiding sin alwaies to take the safest way is a faire and sure foundation for a cleer confutation of the main conclusion which in this Chapter you labour in vain to prove and a certain proof that in regard of the precept of charity towards ones selfe and of obedience to God Papists unlesse ignorance excuse them are in state of sin as long as they remain in subjection to the Roman Church 9 For if the safer way for avoiding sin be also the safer way for avoiding damnation then certainly whether the way of Protestants must be more secure and the Roman way more dangerous take but into your consideration these ensuing controversies Whether it be lawfull to worship
and for disturbing the Churches peace and dividing Vnity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismaticall 35 Grant this sixtly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Heretiques seeing they believe all things evidently contain'd in Scripture which are suppos'd to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixt Chapter is cleerly confuted 36 Grant this lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your seaventh Chapter that no man can shew more charity to himself then by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are suppos ' to believe and therefore may accordingly practise at least by their Religion are not hindred from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37 So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the corner stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firme and unmoveable cannot but bee the supporter of my Book and the certain ruine of yours is so farre from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of confessions unanimously professe and maintain it And you your selfe C. 6. § 30. plainly confesse as much in saying The whole Edifice of the faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonicall Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38 And thus your venome against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two litle impertinencies whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induc'd mee to forsake Protestantisme and hitherto have not answered them 39 By the former of which objections it should seeme that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very grosse mistakes And yet why hee who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet bee fit enough to maintain that those who doe subscribe them are in a saveable condition I doe not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absoluetly true which with reason cannot bee requir'd of mee while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancie destroies not Salvation For the Church of England I am perswaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodoxe that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no error in it which may necessitate or warrant any man to disturbe the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive mee not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40 Your other objection against me is yet more impertinent and frivolous then the former Vnlesse perhaps it be a just exception against a Physitian that himself was sometimes in and recover'd himself from that disease which he undertakes to cure or against a guide in a way that at first before hee had experience himself mistook it and after wards found his error and amended it That noble writer Michael de Montai'gne was surely of a farre different mind for hee will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had pass'd through And a farre greater then Montai'gne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves beene in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engag'd and oblig'd unto and qualified for this charitable function 41 Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeale as you esteeme it which you impute to me for having been so long carelesse in removing this scandall against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a manner wholly imployed And besides though you Iesuits take upon you to have such large and universall intelligence of all state affaires and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an answer of mine to a litle peece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your observation The truth is I made an answer to them three yeares since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons one because the Motives were never publique untill you made them so the other because I was loath to proclaime to all the world so much weaknesse as I shewed in suffering my selfe to be abus'd by such silly Sophismes All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end The Motives then were these 1 Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so farre as concernes the points in contestation 2 Because Luther and his followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the world upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did faile of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the world and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3 Because if any credit may be given to as creditable records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholicks hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernaturall and divine Miracles 4 Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Hereticks condemned by the Primitive Church 5 Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ
the faith is meant only that Doctrine which is necessary to salvation and to say that salvation may be had without any the least thing which is necessary to salvation implyes a repugnance and destroies it selfe Besides not to believe all necessary points and to believe none at all is for the purpose of salvation all one and therefore he that does so may justly be said to destroy the Gospell of Christ seeing he makes it uneffectuall to the end for which it was intended the Salvation of mens soules But why you should conceive that all differences about Religon are concerning matters of faith in this high notion of the word for that I conceive no reason CHAP. VII In regard of the Precept of Charity towards ones self Protestants are in state of Sinne as long as they remain separated from the Roman Church THAT due Order is to be observed in the Theologicall Vertue of Charity whereby we are directed to preferre some Objects before others is a truth taught by all Divines and declared in these words of holy Scripture He hath ordered Charity in me The reason whereof is because the infinite Goodnesse of God which is the formall Obiect or Motive of Charity and for which all other things are loved is differently participated by different Objects and therefore the love we beare to them for Gods sake must accordingly be unequall In the vertue of Faith the case is farre otherwise because all the Objects or points which we believe doe equally participate the divine Testimony or Revelation for which we believe alike all things propounded for such For it is as impossible for God to speake an untruth in a small as in a great matter And this is the ground for which we have so often affirmed that any least errour against Faith is injurious to God and destructive of Salvation 2 This order in Charity may be considered Towards God Our owne soule The soule of our Neighbour Our owne life or Goods and the life or goods of our Neighbour God is to be beloved above all things both objectivè as the Divines speake that is we must wish or desire to God a Good more great perfect and noble then to any or all other things namely all that indeed He is a Nature Infinite Independent Immense c. and also appretiative that is wee must sooner loose what good soever then leave and abandon Him In the other Objects of Charity of which I spake this order is to be kept We may but are not bound to preferre the life and goods of our Neigbour before our owne we are bound to preâ—erre the soule of our Neighbour before our own temporall goods or life if he happen to be in extreme spirituall necessity and that we by our assistance can succour him according to the saying of S. Iohn In this we have knowne the Charity of God because he hath yielded his life for us and we ought to yield our life for our Brethren And S. Augustine likewise saith A Christian will not doubt to loose his owne temporall life for the eternall life of his Neighbour Lastly we are to preferre the spirituall good of our own soule before both the spirituall and temporall good of our Neighbour because as Charity doth of its own Nature chiefly encline the person in whom it resides to love God and to be united with him so of it selfe it enclines him to procure those things whereby the said Vnion with God is effected rather to himselfe then to others And from hence it followes that in things necessary to salvation no man ought in any case or in any respect whatsoever to preferre the spirituall good either of any particular person or of the whole world before his own soule according to those words of our Blessed Saviour What doth it availe a man if he gaine the whole world and sustaine the damage of his own soule And therefore to come to our present purpose it is directly against the Order of Charity or against Charity as it hath a reference to our selves which Divines call Charitas propria to adventure either the omitting of any meanes necessary to salvation or the committing of any thing repugnant to it for whatsoever respect and consequently if by living out of the Roman Church we put our selves in hazard either to want some thing necessarily required to salvation or else to performe some act against it wee commit a most grievous sinne against the vertue of Charity as it respect our selves and so cannot hope for salvation without repentance 3 Now of things necessary to salvation there are two sorts according to the doctrine of all Divines Some things say they are necessary to salvation necessitate praecepti necessary only because they are commanded For If thou wilt enter into life keepe the Commandements In which kind of things as probable ignorance of the Law or of the commandement doth excuse the party from all faulty breach thereof so likewise doth it not exclude salvation in case of ignorance Some other things are said to be necessary to salvation necessitate medij finis or salutis because they are Meanes appointed by God to attaine our End of eternall salvation in so strict a manner that it were presumption to hope for Salvation without them And as the former meanes are said to be necessary because they are commanded so the latter are commonly said to be commanded because they are necessary that is Although there were no other speciall precept concerning them yet supposing they bee once appointed as meanes absolutely necessary to salvation there cannot but arise an obligation of procuring to have them in vertue of that universall precept of Charity which obligeth every man to procure the salvation of his own soule In this sort divine infallible Faith is necessary to salvation as likewise repentance of every deadly sinne and in the doctrine of Catholiques Baptisme in re that is in act to Children and for those who are come to the use of reason in voto or harty desire when they cannot have it in act And as Baptisme is necessary for remission of Originall and Actuall sinne committed before it so the Sacrament of Confession or Pennance is necessary in re or in voto in act or desire for the remission of mortall sinnes committed after Baptisme The Minister of which Sacrament of Pennance being necessarily a true Priest true Ordination is necessary in the Church of God for remission of sinnes by this sacrament as also for other ends not belonging to our present purpose From hence it riseth that no ignorance or impossibility can supply the want of those means which are absolutely necessary to salvation As if for example a sinner depart this world without repenting himselfe of all deadly sinnes although he dye suddenly or unexpectedly fall out of his wits and so commit no new sinne by omission of repentance yet he shall be eternally punished for his former sinnes committed and never repented