such as belieue as they professe to all such as be not hypocriticall Professours but professe it in simplicity of heart belieuing it to be true Nor doth he say that vnto such Roman belieuers our errours are not damnable by accident as you feigne but the expresse contrary that euen in themselues they be not damnable to them Behold how opposite is D Potters true sentence to that you haue forged for him You make him say Our errours are euen in themselues damnable and only by accident pardonable whereas he sayth the contrary they are in themselues but littleons but venial and consequently if any sincere Roman Catholiques be damned this is by accident by reason of some extrinsecal damnable circumstance not by the intrinsecal malignity of their errours not by the force such errours haue in themselues and in their owne nature to merit damnation 6. But some may obiect that D. Potter doth not say absolutely Our errours be not in themselues damnable but only not in themselues damnable to them that belieue as they professe which is a different thinge I answer this is a subtilty which findeth a difference where there is no diuersity As to say of a potion that it is not of it selfe deadly to such as drinke it take it into their bowells and heart is all one as to say it is deadly to none but harmelesse and innoxious in it selfe so to say our errours are not in themselues damnable to such as heartily belieue and professe them is as much as to say they are of themselues damnable vnto none but absolutely veniall of their owne nature not destructiue of Saluation For to whome may they be in themselues damnable if they be not so to them that take them into their heart by sincere and cordiall beliefe As none can be damned for sinne but such as commit sinne so none can be damned for erring but such as erre and are guilty of erring Now those that in their heart belieue not errours do not erre nor are guilty of erring wherefore such neither are nor can be damned for erring or holding of errours For if they hypocritically professe Errours which they do not belieue they be damnable indeed but not for erring but for their hypocrisy and dissimulation as D. Potter truly sayth Your ignorant exposition of D. Potter §. 3. 7. HAuing at last acknowledged D. Potters text that he said of our errours though in themselues they be not damnable you tell vs that we mistake his meaning by taking a supposition of a confession for a confession a Rhetoricall concession of the Doctours for a positiue assertion For to say though your Errours be not damnable we may not professe them is not to say Your errours are not damnable but only through they be not As if you should say Though the Church erre in points not fundamental yet you may not separate from it or Though we do erre in belieuing Christ really present yet our errour frees vs from Idolatry I presume you would not thinke it fayrely done if any man should interprete these your speaches as confessions that you do erre in points not fundamentall that you erre in belieuing the Real Presence And therefore you ought not to haue mistaken D Potters wordes as if he confessed the Errours of your Church not damnable when he sayes no more then this though they be not damnable or suppose or put case they be not damnable Thus you Wherein your falshood is notable and your ignorance admirable First it is false that D. Potter sayes no more but this though they be not damnable For besides this he sayth that Protestants who belieue them to be errours must not presume to professe them because they are but littleons He saith in the name of all Protestants We belieue the Roman Religion to be safe that is not damnable to such as belieue as they professe We hope and thinke very well of all those holy and deuout soules which informer ages liued and died in the Church of Rome c. We doubt not but they obtayned pardon of all their ignorances Nay our Charity reaches further to All those at this day who in simplicity of heart belieue the Roman Religion and professe it Be these Rhetoricall Concessions not Positiue Assertions that the errours which Protestants impute to the Roman Church are not damnable of thēselues but onely by accident when they are hypocritically against conscience professed 8. Secondly I am amazed that you a Maister of Arts of Oxford of so long standing are ignorant of the difference in speach betwixt the Present Tense and the Preter imperfect which euery man and woman by common sense doth feele and perceaue For the particle though ioyned with a verbe of the Present Tense doth suppose a thing present and existing in reality truth so that if you will suppose the existence of a thing by imagination or in conceyt onely you must vse the Preter imperfect Wherfore neyther the Author of Charity maintayned nor any Catholique that is intelligent will say to you in the Present Tense as you make him Though the Church do erre in points not fundamentall yet you must not separate from it but in the Preter imperfect Though the Church did erre in points fundamentall yet you were not to separate from her Nor will he or any Catholique that is wise vse that eyther sottish or impious speach you haue penned for him Though we erre in belieuing Christ really present yet our errour frees vs from Idolatry God forbid This were not a Rhetoricall Concession but a Diabolical Profession that our beliefe of the Reall presence is an errour A true Catholique that can vtter his mind in good English will say Though we did erre in belieuing the Reall Presence of our Lords Body in the Eucharist yet this errour would free vs from Idolatry Thus the examples you bring of Rhetoricall Concessions make against you being in deed positiue Assertions and shew your discourse to be neyther good Logick nor Rhetoricke nor Grammer 9. And I pray you the Proposition you haue forged for D. Potter though the errours of the Roman Church be in themselues damnable and full of great impiety yet by accident they do not damne all that hold them is it not a Positiue Assertion that our doctrines are damnable and full of great impiety in D. Potters opinion Wherfore this proposition which is truly D. Potters though the errours of the Roman Church be not in themselues damnable yet Protestants who know them to be Errours may not professe them is a positiue Assertion that our supposed errours be not damnable in his iudgement Should one say to you though in your iudgement you belieue Christ our Sauiour not to be true God yet you dare not professe it outwardly for feare of the fagot would you take this as a Rhetoricall supposition not as a Reall accusation that you are an Infidell in your heart Is it possible you should be guilty
thou thy selfe be in errour and draw an infinite number of Souls after thee into errour to be damned eternally with thee 16. You say that your Saluation doth not depend on ours that you might be saued though we were Turkes and Pagans this I well belieue But now that the Roman Church is not Turcisme nor Iudaisme but a Kingdome of Christ diffused ouer the earth the onely Christian Catholique Religion in the world which is come from our Sauiour by conspicuous linage and line of succession by the Apostles what Christian will not tremble to be in a state wherein he must expect Saluation from Christ by damning that Religion which is so notoriously descended from him 17. The innated instinct of Godlinesse the sparkes of Piety which nature hath hidden within the bowels of euery reasonable soule moue men to acknowledge and reuerence that Religion as being of God which they see marked and adorned with diuine and supernaturall workes aboue the course and forces of nature Which Maiesty of miracles shining so gloriously in the Roman Church can any man that is Religious fearfull of God iudge the same damnable and venture his soule on the damnation thereof Wherefore not Loue not Charity not Goodwill to the Roman Catholiques is that which moueth Protestants to pronunce her Religion safe and free from damnable errour but the horrour of damning togeather with vs innumerable millions of holy and heauenly men of former Christian worlds 18. Finally Protestants vnder pretence of fauouring and comforting vs seeke their owne comfort solace that they may find some shelter of hope of saluation vnder the wings of the Roman Religion who in their opposition against her find none or only poore meagre and miserable hopes For laying for ground this truth that our Religion is safe then assuming this falshood that theirs is the same with ours for substance and in all necessary points they cheere vp many drooping hearts that can feele no comfort in hoping to be saued by damning the Roman Church so that care of their owne Sparta desire to stay the wiser sort of their followers in their course of Diuision from the Roman Church this I say is one of the reasons which maketh Ministers to preach the certainty of Saluation in our Church and to maske themselues with a vizard of Charity and Friendship towards vs. That Protestant Religion is not safe euen in your iudgment §. 6. 19. YOu say in your Preface n. 39. that you haue not vndertaken the peculiar defence of the doctrine of the Church of England nor of any other particular Protestant Church but the common cause of all Protestants to maintayne the doctrine of them all not that it is absolutely true for that is impossible seing they hold contradictions but that it is free from all impiety and damnable errour This drift pretended and professed so gloriously in the Title and Preface of your booke you crosse and contradict in the bosome and heart thereof condemning Protestants of errours euen in themselues damnable as I shall make good and cleere by the foure ensuing testimonies First Pag. 218. lin 34. I would not be mistaken as though I thought the errours of some Protestants inconsiderable thinges and matters of no moment for the. Truth is I am very fearfull that some of their opinions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselues so damnable but that iust and holy men may be saued with them yet are frequent occasions of remisnes and not seldome of security in sinning c. Behold you who in your Preface made all Protestants secure of their Saluation because free from errours in themselues damnable now are very fearfull of them and dare not acquit them of errours considerable of moment in themselues damnable though not so damnable but iust and holy men may be saued with them Which qualification of your errours doth not so temper or allay their malignity as to make them lesse damnable then those you impute to the Roman Church seing you often acknowledge that with them and in them good holy soules may be saued 20. Secondly Pag. 21. lin 39. you write more cleerely to make Protestants euen millions of them guilty of damnable errours If any Protestant or Papist be betrayed into or kept in errour by any sinne of his will as it is to be feared many millions are such errour is as the cause of it sinfull and damnable yet not exclusiue of all hope of Saluation but pardonable if discouered vpon a particular and explicite repentance if not discouered vpon a generall and implicite repentance c. Thus you directly accuse Protestants of sinfull and damnable errours of errours pardonable and consequently damnable in themselues For you say pag. 16. n. 21. lin 15. the very saying they were pardonable implies they needed pardon and therefore were in themselues damnable This being so how haue you cleered the Doctrine of all Protestant Sects though not from all falshood yet from all errour in it selfe damnable How do they all of them goe a safe way to saluation if millions of them walke in damnable errours which you say will bring damnation vpon all them that continue in them by their voluntary fault What reason can you bring why your Booke might not be inscribed The Religion of Papists a safe way to Saluation aswell as the Religion of Protestants For you say Protestants erre damnably aswell as we Millions of them aswell as millions of ours their errours are damnable in themselues aswell as ours Ours pardonable by Gods great mercy aswel as theirs they cannot be saued without repentance no more then we and we may be saued in our errors by a generall repentance aswell as they How then is not our Religion a safe way to Saluation aswell as theirs euen by your Booke of purpose written to saue them and damne vs. 21. Thirdly Pag. 280. n. 95. lin 19. Though Protestants haue some Errours yet seing they are neyther so great as yours nor imposed with such tyranny nor maintayned with such obstinacy he that conceaues c. In these wordes you suppose that Protestants haue errours and great errours imposed with tyranny maintayned with obstinacy How then is their Religion a safe way of Saluation Can saluation stand with impious errours imposed vpon others with tiranny and maintayned with obstinacy vntill death But their errours are not you say so great as ours nor imposed with such tiranny nor maintayned with such obstinacy Were this true it would not proue Protestancy to be a good and safe way to Saluation not in it selfe damnable but only that ours is more damnable and a worse way Besides that our errours be greater then theirs is said by you many times but not proued so much as once And seing our errours though as you say damnable in themselues yet be pardonable by Gods great mercy how be the greater then yours which are also damnable in themselues and only
auouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not alwayes acquainted with what sufficiency of meanes he was furnished for instruction we do not penetrate his capacity to vnderstand his Catechist we haue no reuelation what light might haue cleered his errours or Contrition retracted his sinnes in the last moment before death Here our Maintayner requires sufficient meanes of instruction that a man be bound to belieue but he sayth not as you make him say that this instruction must conuince his conscience that his owne Religion is false and the Roman true If a Protestant be thus farre instructed as to perceaue that the Roman Religion is by the full consent of former Christian ages and by the definition of Generall Councels deliuered as the doctrine of Christ Iesus and his Apostles if I say any Protestant be thus farre instructed he is so sufficiently instructed that if he refuse to belieue he is certainly damned Do not you professe that to forsake any Church without necessary causes is as much as a mans saluation is worth Doth not D. Potter auouch that it is not lawfull to goe against the definition of Generall Councels without euident reasons Wherefore Protestants that haue abandoned the Roman Church are by your principles conuinced to be in a damnable state if they know the Roman Religion to be the Christian tradition of their Ancestours the definition of Catholique Councels Nor is it necessary that they be conuinced in conscience that the Roman Religion is true it sufficeth they haue no conuictiue demonstrations against it Wherefore it is extreme want of conscience in you to say that our Maintayner and the most rigide Aduersaries of Protestancy affirme that no Protestant shall be damned for any errour whatsoeuer he holdes against the Roman Church except he be conuicted in conscience that his owne Religion is false and the Roman true 11. And yet not content to haue brought this falshood as a Corollary from his wordes you make it his formal saying and set it downe in a distinct Character as his verball and formall assertion Pag. 31. n. 4. lin 6. Charity mistaken affirmed vniuersally and without any limitation that Protestants that dye in the beliefe of their Religion without particular repentance cannot be saued But this presumption of his you qualify by SAYING that this sentence cannot be pronounced truly and therefore not charitably neyther of those Protestants that want meanes sufficient to conuince them of the truth of your Religion and falshood of their owne nor of those who though they haue neglected the meanes they might haue had dyed with Contrition that is with a sorrow for all their sinnes proceeding from the loue of God Thus you shewing the Adamantinall hardnes of your Socinian for head and Samosatenian conscience For this long sentence which you set downe charactered as the saying of Charity Maintayned with a direct affirmation that it is his saying is forged and feigned by your selfe from the first to the last syllable thereof not only against his meaning in that place but also the whole drift of his Treatise For what is the drift thereof but only to shew that the Roman is the true Church and that her proposing of a doctrine to be belieued is sufficient to bind men to belieue it without any other Conuiction besides the authority of her infallible word 12. Also the second assertion you impute to him That nothing hinders but that a Protestant dying a Protestant may dye with contrition for all his sinnes is an impudent vntruth no such acknowledgment in all his book You seeke to gather it from these wordes We haue no reuelation what light may haue cleered his errours or Contrition haue retracted his sinnes This reason say you or contrition haue retracted his sinnes being distinct from the former and deuided from it by the disiunctiue particle or insinuates that though no light did cleere the errours of a dying Protestant yet Contrition might for ought you know retract his sinnes This is a fond voluntary inference for the clause or contrition retracted his sinnes was not added to signify that a Protestant may haue contrition of all his sinnes though his vnderstanding be not cleered from his errours but to declare that though his vnderstanding be cleered from errours yet this will not suffice that he be saued except after the abiuration of his errours he do further conceaue hearty sorow Contrition for the deadly and damnable sinnes of affection and action he may haue committed 13. For that a Protestant cannot be truly penitēt of all his sinnes vntill his vnderstanding be cleered or at least his zeale allayed that he become remisse in his Religion and doubtfull this reason doth inuincibly conclude It is impossible that a man should repent of a thinge at that time when he is in actual or habitual heat of affection vnto it But Protestants so long as they are Protestants and their Vnderstandings not cleered from their errours or their zeale allayed with cold doubtfulnes are alwayes either actually or habitually in the heat of condemning the Roman Church for Impieties and Idolatries in the heat of presumptuous Pride whereby they preferre their seely conceits about the sense of Scripture before the iudgement of the Church and her Generall Councels Ergo it is impossible that a Protestant persisting stiffely in his Religion should be penitent of all his sinnes knowne and vnknowne The third Conuiction IN this Conuiction I am to proue three things first that Roman Catholiques hold all fundamētall truth and so are secure from damnation Secondly that it is madnesse to persuade any man to leaue the Roman Church Thirdly that it is impossible that Protestants should be sure they belieue all Fundamentall truths That Roman Catholiques are free from all Fundamentall Errours and your Contradictions herein §. 1. 1. HE that belieues all Fundamentals cannot be damned for any errour in fayth though he belieue more or lesse to be Fundamentall then is so This is your formall assertion in so many wordes pag. 207. n. 34. which supposed I assume But Roman Catholiques belieue all Fundamentals that is all necessary truth Ergo they cannot be damned for any errour in fayth The assumption of this argument might be proued by many testimonies from your Booke I will insist vpon two the one in this Section the other in the next Pag. 16. lin 8. We grant the Roman Church was a part of the whole Church And if she were a true part of the Church she retayned those truths which were simply necessary to saluation For this is precisely necessary to constitute any man or Church a member of the Church Catholique In our sense therefore of the word Fundamentall we hope she erred not fundamentally Thus you who pag. 280. n. 95. say the playne contrary that our errours are fundamentall And pag. 289. nu 86. that our Church not onely might but also did fall into substantiall errours 2. I know that to salue
this Contradiction and to put the terme of fundamentall Errours vpon our Church you haue coyned a distinction of two kinds of fundamentall errours Pag. 290. n. 88. Fundamentall Errours say you may signifie eyther such as are repugnant to Gods command and so in their owne nature damnable though to those that out of ignorance inuincible practise them not vnpardonable and such as are not onely meritoriously but remedilessely pernicious and destructiue of Saluation According to this distinction you grant that the Roman Religion hath fundamentall errours of the first kind though as you hope none of the second But this distinction to omit that you ouerthrow the same in both the members thereof as will afterward appeare will not serue your turne nor reconcile your contradiction For when you say we belieue all Fundamentals you professe to take the word in your owne sense But in your sense the word Fundamentall signifies all kind of necessary truth for so you warne vs pag. 220. lin 5. May it please you to take notice now at last that by fundamentall we meane All and onely that which is necessary and then I hope you will grant that we may safely expect Saluation in a Church which hath all things fundamentall to Saluation Thus you which is as much as if you had sayd that by Fundamentall you vnderstand not only the things which are remedilessely and indispensably necessary but also those that be necessary onely because commanded For how can men safely expect Saluation without those things which by the commandement of God are necessary to Saluation Though men with fundamentall errours of the first kind may in your doctrine possibly be saued yet you say their state is not safe but dangerous Now such as haue all truth Fundamentall to Saluation they not onely may possibly be saued but also safely expect Saluation as you contend Ergo when you say our Church retaynes all Fundamentals to Saluation and erres not Fundamentally you will haue vs take notice that you meane she is free not onely from such damnable errours as absolutely destroy but also from those which endanger Saluation Consequently when you say absolutely as euery where you do that our errours are Fundamentall or substantiall or damnable or dangerous you contradict your other assertion that we retayned all things simply necessary to saluation and erred not Fundamentally 3. Besides in the frontispice of your booke you haue printed this sentence of our late King Iames Things simply necessary to Saluation be those which eyther the Word of God doth expressely command to be belieued or done or those which the Ancient Church did by necessary consequēce draw out of the Word of God Now you grant in expresse termes that the Roman Church retayned all things simply necessary to Saluation Ergo you must grant that she retayned all those things which eyther the word of God doth expressely command to be belieued or done or which from the Word of God the Ancient Church deduced and so can want nothing necessary by Diuine command nor haue errours fundamentall so much as of the first kind 4. The reason you are about this point so various and continually contentious and fighting with your selfe is the inward combat of your vnruly passions On the one side you are incited with fury to damne vs and make our Religion damnable on the other vexed and galled that neither euidence of truth no nor D. Potter himselfe will giue you full freedome to do it Hence your waue and wander you say and vnsay you runne this way and that way vpon aduerse and contrary assertions so much as euen in the same short sentence you plainely contradict your selfe pag. 16. n. 21. lin 11. Though we say the errours of the Roman Church were not destructiue of Saluation but pardonable euen to them that dyed in them vpon a generall Repentance yet we deny not but in themselues they were damnable Do not you perceaue that this speach destroyeth it selfe that our errours are not destructiue of Saluation and yet are in themselues damnable what is destructiue of Saluation but that which of it selfe and in its nature is apt and sufficient to destroy Saluation and to bring damnation on men And is not damnable the very same How then can our errours be in themselues damnable and yet not destructiue of Saluation You say a poyson may be deadly in it selfe and yet not kill him who togeather with it takes an antidote Very true but can poyson be in it selfe deadly not in itselfe destructiue of life Can it be of it selfe apt to cause death not apt to destroy life How then are our errours not destructiue of Saluation and yet damnable and apt to bring damnation on vs 5. In like manner you professe very often that the Roman Church retayned the substance and essence of a Christian Church that you do not cut her off from the hope of Saluation And yet at other times being enraged with the title of Catholique giuen her by the consent of mankind you protest that she is Catholique to herselfe alone and Hereticall to all the rest of Christian Churches Which is as much as if you had said she wantes the very essence of a Christian Church For pag. 332. n. 11. you write It is not Heresy to oppose any truth propounded by the Church but only such a truth as is an essential part of the Ghospell of Christ. Wherefore the Roman Church if she be hereticall opposes some essentiall part of the Ghospell of Christ and consequently she wantes fayth of some essentiall part of the Ghospell What is consequent hereupon That the Roman Church not only is not an incorrupt Church but not a Christian Church so much as for substance and essence The Consequence is manifest For that cannot be a Christian Church for substance essence which doth not hold the Gospell of Christ the Christian Religion for substance and essence as the Roman Church doth not if she be Heretical as you say she is For as that cannot be a man which wantes an essential part of a man so that cannot be the Gospell of Christ nor the Christian Religion for essence which the Roman Church holdes if she want an essential part thereof as you say she doth Behold how furies of passion distract you into contrary parts Yea this which now you so peremptorily decree that heresy is not to oppose any truth but only an essential part of the Gospell you contradict an hundred times in your booke where you distinguish heresies fundamental against the Essentials of the Gospell and not fundamental against Truths of the Gospell profitable but not necessary How can this subsist if that only be Heresy which opposes the Essentials of the Gospell The security in the Roman Church is so great as it is Madnesse to leaue it §. 2. 6. THis I shall make good and euident by your owne most true vndeniable sayings Our Maintayner obiectes
and Turkes may be saued in eyther of these wayes their errours according to your principles not being remedilessely damnable The fifth Conuiction THis Conuiction ouer throweth the chiefe cause for which you charge our Religion to be damnable sheweth first that the thing for which you would send vs to Hell is the necessary duty of a constant Christian Fayth Secondly that your contrary mutability and leuity is Apostaticall and impious You damne vs to Hell for being faythfull and constant Christians §. 1. 1. YOu often proclame vs to be men wilfully blind sure to fall into the ditch of damnatiō For this your censure of vs you giue this reason because we will not enter into any triall of our Religion with indifference with liberty of iudgement with are solution to doubt of it if vpon examination the grounds of it proue vncertaine or to leaue it if they proue apparantly false my owne experience assures me that herein I do you no wronge but it is very apparent to all men from your ranking doubting of any part of your doctrine among mortall sinnes Thus you And we willingly grant and openly professe that we hold it a mortall sinne to doubt deliberately of any poynt of our fayth But must we be damned in this respect O how doth malignancy against our saluation confound your memory and wit For against doubting in matters of Religion you write most earnestly pag. 195. n. 11. lin 20. which of vs euer taught it was not damnable to deny or doubt of the truth of any thing whereof we eyther know or belieue that God hath reuealed it Thus you Now if it be damnable to doubt of the truth of any thing we belieue to be reuealed of God what an obliuious Creature are you who will haue vs damned for not yielding to do that very thing which you proclame damnable to be done you will haue vs sent to Hell because we ranke doubting of any part of our fayth which we hold reuealed of God among deadly and damnable sinnes and yet your selfe ranke this doubting among deadly and damnable crimes with an earnest tacite detestation of the contrary Doctrine which of vs euer taught it is not damnable 2. Haue you so soone forgot your selfe Are your sayings no sooner out of your pen then out of your memory and head which of vs say you euer taught it is not damnable Euen your selfe good Sir you William Chilling worth teach it is not damnable yea you hold it damnable for any man to ranke doubting of the Religion which he holdes reuealed of God among mortall sinnes which you proue because seing euery man must resolue neuer to commit mortall sinne it followes that he must neuer examine the grounds of his Religion for feare of doubting or if he doe he must resolue that no motiues be they neuer so strong shall moue him to doubt This is your argument vpon which you conclude we are a company of blind inconsidering men louers of the darkenesse and not of light And yet your selfe are so blind so inconsidering and your wits are so dulled and darkened as you do not perceaue that this very argument proueth you all your Biblists to be in the same case we are to wit obstinately blind for you grant that all of you ranke doubting of your Religion among mortall sinnes that is you all teach that it is damnable to doubt of the truth of any thing you belieue to be reuealed of God Hence it followes that seing you must resolue neuer to commit damnable sinne that you must neuer examine the grounds of it at all for feare you should be moued to doubt or if you do you must resolue that no motiues be they neuer so strong shall moue you to doubt You see your argument agaynst vs turneth vpon your selues and proueth you are obstinate and blind and in danger of the Ditch as much as we are 3. And do not you further teach and contend that it is damnable for you to doubt of the Doctrine of Diuels if you belieue it to be Diuine Reuelation Pag. 99. n. 122. l. 22. If by the discourse of the Diuel I be I wil not say conuinced but persuaded though falsely that it is a Diuine Reuelation and shall deny to belieue it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretique For he that belieues any thinge to be a Diuine Reuelation and yet will not belieue it to be true must of necessity belieue that God is false which according to your doctrine is the Formality of an Heretique You who teach that he who will not belieue and he that will doubt will not belieue that thing to be truth which falsely by the persuasion of the Diuel he belieues to be Diuine Reuelation is a formal Heretique and a blasphemous wretch you I say that teach this who will not wonder how you could be so inconsiderate as to make vs damnable because we resolue not to doubt of that doctrine which by the Tradition of so many Christian Ages by our Pastours and Ancestours men renowned for Learning Sanctity Miracles for expelling of Diuels for conuerting of nations hath been deliuered persuaded vnto vs to be reuealed of God That your Protestant VVay to be firme to no Religiō but still in motion and change is damnable §. 2. 4. ABout your selfe and your being vngrounded and vnsetled in matters of Religion thus you write and sincerely professe pag. 278. lin 29. I truly for my part if I did not find in my selfe a loue and desire of all profitable truth if I did not put away idlenesse preiudice and worldly affections and so examine to the bottome all my opinions of Diuine matters being prepared in mind to follow God and God only which way so euer he shall lead me If I did not hope that I eyther do or endeauour to do these thinges certainly I should haue litle hope of obtayning Saluation Here you professe that neither Christian Religion nor any truth thereof hath been as yet firmely rooted or deepely by the fingar of God printed in your heart You declare your soule to be a Blanke noted with no Religion but prepared for any which to you shall seeme of God to wit you are ready to belieue not absolutly but as most probable for the present but resolued neuer to belieue God so firmely as to ranke doubting of what you haue receaued as his word among mortall sinnes 5. That this your practise implyeth doubting of all Christian Religion I proue because you professe to question and examine all your opinions of Diuine matters to make an if or a doubt of the certainty and truth of them all that is you examine them prepared in mind to leaue them all and euery one if vpon trial they seeme to you false But among your opinions of Diuine matters your persuasion that our Christian Scriptures and doctrines are Diuine oracles and Gods word is one for you hold the Diuinity of Scriptures
images of Christ crucifyed vsed in the Church with Apostolicall allowance we haue the plaine words of S. Paul Gal. 3.1 O senselesse Galathians who hath be witched you not to obey the Gospel before whose eyes Christ Iesus is painted Crucifyed among you The Greeke word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 liuely set forth in the picture of his Crucifixion so that S. Paul proueth the Galatians were senselesse people that honoring Christ Iesus pictured before their eyes as crucifyed yet did not hope for Saluation by his Crosse and Crucifixion but by Circumcision and the obseruances of the Law This sense being according to the plaine proper and literall sense of the wordes Protestants are bound by the rule of their Religion to admit thereof and cannot without impiety refuse it and expound the place of metaphoricall Painting except they can euidently demonstrate this sense to be false or incongruous against the Apostles intent which they will neuer be able to do 8. If you say that this text at the most proueth the vsing of Images for the representation not honoring of them I answere with the learned M. Montague your Bishop of Chichester that in the vsing of Images for memory sake the honouring of them is necessarily included which he proueth euidently and together affirmes that it is strange that any Christian should be displeased with the Doctrine That respect and honour is to be giuen to Images 9. The Persons of the Trinity we picture not but only the person of Goa the Sonne in the forme and shape of man as personally he was Onely we represent the type wherein God the Father appeared to wit the forme of the Ancient of dayes described Dan. 7. and the type wherein the Holy Ghost appeared the forme of a Doue recorded Math. 3. 10. For Inuocation of Angels we haue the practise and example of holy Iacob Gen. 84.15 The Angell which deliuered me from all euill blesse these Children which text you cannot answere without iugling and changing the Angell into the figure of another substance 11. For the sufficiency of the Sacrament vnder the forme of bread we haue the expresse warrant of our Lord Ioan. 6.59 He that eateth this bread shall liue for euer And for the practise of Communion in one kind for lay men we haue his example Luc. 24.30.31 12. For the adoration of the Sacrament we haue the Scripture in the plaine and proper sense For sayth D. Morton your B. of Durham If the words of Christ be true in a proper and literall sense we must yield vnto Papists the whole cause of Transubstantiation c. the proper adoration of the Sacrament 13. That we prohibite certaine orders of men women to mary is a slander They freely without constraint prohibite themselues whiles by vow they bind their fayth and fidelity vnto Christ to liue single and chast peculiarly consecrated to his seruice Which fayth and fidelity if they violate and make voyd by consequent Mariage as your first reformer the Frier did who married a Nunne we hold their state sacrilegious and damnable which is the expresse doctrine of S. Paul 1. Tim. 5.12 14. The Controuersy which language is fittest and of most edification in Church seruice whether the vulgar which is best knowne in this or that particular country or some learned language Greeke or Latin which be best knowne in the whole Christian Church cannot be determined by Scripture as hath beene already proued So that measuring the way of Saluation euen by the rule of the Bible only the Roman Religion is the plainer and safer Way better warranted euen by expresse texts of Scripture The Ninth Conuiction THe chiefe Fundamental ground of the security Roman Catholiques enioy that they are in the right Way of Saluation according to which if they walke they cannot be damned is the direction of an infallible guide the holy Catholique Church which is no other but the Roman This is conuinced by what your self are forced to grāt as hath been shewed but because this businesse is the maine and the totall I will here repeate some of the passages though very briefly 1. First conuicted by the wordes of S. Paul you grant that the visible Catholique Church is the pillar and ground of truth that is the teacher of all necessary and profittable truth by duty and office yea that she is always in fact the teacher of all truth necessary to Saluation For say you that the true Church alwayes shall be the maintayner and teacher of all necessary truth we grant and must grant For it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of men were no more a Church without it then any thing can be a man and not be reasonable Thus you grant that there is and alwayes shall be a Catholique Church which shall not only belieue inwardly and in heart but also teach and a propose without fayle all diuine reuelation necessary to Saluation For it is her very essence to be so Wherefore not only in belieuing but also in teaching and proposing all necessary truth she can no more faile then from her owne being which is indefectible Hence she is and you must grant she is an infallible guide in Fundamentalls Because to shew men the way to heauen by teaching them all reuealed truth that is necessary to bring them thither what is it but to be a guide of men vnto Saluation shewing them the Fundamental doctrines of Christian Religion without which no man is saued 2. Secondly the visible Catholique Church being as you grant she is an infallible teacher or guide in Fundamentalls must of necessity be also infallible in all her proposalls The necessity of this consequence you deny a thousand tymes and almost in euery period of your third Chapter yet you affirme it in expresse termes Pag. 105 n. 139. lin 23. To say that the Church is an infallible guide in Fundamentals were to oblige our selues to find some certain Society of men of whome we might be certain that they neither do nor can erre in Fundamentals nor in declaring what is Fundamental and what is not and consequently to make any Church an infallible guide in Fundamentals would be to make her infallible in all thinges she proposes and requires to be belieued Which truth you proue vnanswerably Pag. 148. n. 36. 3. Thirdly the visible Catholique Church being a guide in Fundamentals that is alwayes a Teacher of all necessary truth is a Church c of one denomination that is some settled certaine Society of Christians knowne and distinguished from other Societies by adhering to such a Bishop This is proued by this Syllogisme wherein both the premises be your owne formall assertions The Church is appointed of God to be the teacher and guide of men in the way of Saluation and so she is able and fit for that office For God would not by his word haue appointed her an office for which she is vnfit and vnable
vniuersally to one certayne Bishop besides the Roman what is it but in a desperate moode of neglect to shut his eyes against the truth that may saue his soule the cleere euidence whereof shineth ouer the world So that I may say with the Apostle Quomodo nos effugiemus si tantam neglexerimus salutem How shall we escape from being damned if we neglect so great a meanes such an assured way of Saluation 11. A Way so secure to be followed so obuious to be found so cleere to be seene so facile to be gone so hard to be lost In which we haue the succour of so many Sacraments not onely that of Baptismes to put vs in the Way and giue vs Gods Holy Spirit to walke therein but also that of the Bread of life to refresh vs when we faynt that of Chrisme to confirme vs when we are stronge that of Pennance or imposition of Hands to help vs vp when we are fallen that of Holy Oyle to heale vs when we are sicke 12. A Way beaten made plaine by the precedent walking therein of so many former Christian worlds proued to be the sole Way to Heauen by the writings of so many most holy and learned Ancient Fathers sealed and enobled for such with the sacred bloud of innumerable Martyrs confirmed by the perpetuall and vnto this day continued Conuersion of Nations to the Roman Church by the glorious labours of her Apostolical Preachers 13. Finally a Way printed with the foote-stepps of Sanctity of so many millions of admirable pious and Religions Christians who went this Way to Eternall Happines and haue from thence sent vs tidings of their safe arriuall by the testimony of euident miracles and vndoubted apparitions to assure vs we cannot fayle of comming thither if we walke constantly in the Way of the same fayth they professed and in the exercise of the same Christian Vertues they practised FINIS The contents of the Booke the summe of ech of the Nine Conuictions The first Conuiction THe Confession of Protestants that our Religion is a safe Way to Saluation proued against M. Chillingworths falsifications and ignorant explications of D. Potters words § 1.2.3 That the argument drawne from the confession of Protestants is not voluntary and of meere charity but enforced by the principles of Christianity § 4.5 That M. Chillingworth doth expressely teach the errours of Protestants to be damnable in themselues and the Roman Religion to be as safe as it § 6. The second Conuiction Though the false supposition were granted that the Roman Church erreth yet Roman Catholiques caÌ„not be damned for following her errours because they cannot but be excused by ignorance inuincible § 1.2 That Protestants if they erre as certainty they do cannot be saued by Ignorance or General Repentance § 3. M. Chillingworth his impudent falsifying of the Tenet of Charity Maintayned § 4. The third Conuiction The Roman Church holding all fundamentall and necessary truth no man can possibly be damned in her Communion for any errour in fayth so that it is madnesse to leaue it § 1.2 That Protestants cannot possibly be sure they belieue all necessary truth what impossible conditions of Saluation M. Chillingworth layes vpon them § 3. The fourth Conuiction That in M. Chillingworth his Way English Protestantes can be no more saued then Socinians who deny Christ to be God yea no more then Iewes and Turkes with six proofes that he is a Socinian § 1.2 The fifth Conuiction That M. Chillingworth damneth Roman Catholiques for being faithfull and constant Christians § 1. That in his Way Protestants are bound to be still doubtfull and changing the articles of their Religion and that this is damnable § 2. The sixt Conuiction That only Roman Catholiques can haue fayth which pleaseth God and saueth the Belieuer demonstrated by three arguments The seauenth Conuiction M. Chillingworth his vayne contradictious endeauour to damne the Roman Church because forsooth she doth not care to auoyd Heresies not Fundamental that this is the daÌ„nable state of Protesters against her The eight Conuiction M. Chillingworth his instances in some points wherin he pretendes the way of Protestants to be safer then ours proued to be false suppositions idle brags § 1. The Roman Doctrine and practise euen in those instances proued by plaine texts of Scripture § 2. The Ninth Conuiction That the true Catholique Church is infallible in all her Proposals known by subordination to one supreme Bishop that this church caÌ„ be no other theÌ„ the Roman The Conclusion Faults escaped in the Print PAge Line Errour Correction 6. 20. in marg omitted Lib. 3. cont lit Petil. c. 18. 37. 5. inforing inforcing 52. 7. so farre too farre 63. 21. change change 84. 13. your you 88. 2. impudently impudency (a) DeuÌ„ time mandata eius obserua hoc est enim omnis homo Ecclesiastae c. 12. v. 13. Lib 3. contra lâ—t Petil c. 13. (b) Pag. 279. n. 64. (c) Pag. 397. n 18. (d) SaxuÌ„ versat neque proficit hiluÌ„ (e) Pag. 400. n. 28. Cap. 7. n. 2â— (f) Cap. 5. n. 58. lin 8. (g) Cap. 5. n. 26. lin 17. (h) Pag. 404. lin 20. Cap. 7. n. 29. (i) Pag. 76. lin 26. (k) Cap. 5. n. 105. lin 23. (l) Pag. 278 lin 8. cap. 5. n. 61. (m) Cap. 7. n. 29. initio Pag. 77. (n) Pag. 395. l. 3. If this did appeare to persuade any man to continue a Protestant were to persuade him to continue a Foole. (o) Pag. 226. n. 63. (p) Pag. 116. n. 158. in fine (q) Cap. 4. n. 63. lin 22. Excesse of charity may make him ceÌ„sure your errours more fauorably theÌ„ he should do (a) Defence against the reply of Cartwright pag. 47. (r) Cap. 7. n. 26. lin 30. (s) Cap. 6. n. 64. lin 8. (t) Preface n. 11. lin 17. How is it possible any thing should be plainer forbidden then the worship of Angels c. pag. 181. n. 86. Places of scripture against our errours as cleere as the light at noone (u) Cap. 5. n. 86. (k) Praefat de abroganda Missa prinatâ Quoties palpitauit mihi tremulum cor reprehendens obiecit illud fortissimum argumentum Tu solus sapis tot ne erraÌ„t vniuersi Tanta saecula ignorauerunt (l) Pag. 397. n. 17. Answere to the Preface n. 26. in fine (z) Cap. 5. n. 91. lin 19. Cap. 5. n. 87. Cap. 5. n. 58. lin 18. (a) 1. Edit pag. 19. lin 9. (b) Pag. 279. n. 64. lin 8. cap. 5. n. 64. lin 8. (c) Cap. 5. n. 53. (d) Cap. 3. n. 18. infine (e) D. Potter pag. 166. (f) See pag. 380. n. 72. cap. 6. n. 72. (g) In cap. 22. Jsaiae (h) Cap. 6. n. 50. (i) Cap. 6. n. 81. (k) This is auerred also by M. Hooker Eccles Pol. Preface pag. 29. lin 26. An argument necessary and demonstratiue being proposed to ANY MAN vnderstood the mind cannot choose but inwardly assent 2. Edit pag. 20.
maintaine that the Religion of Protestants is a safe way to saluation yea you grant the same not to be free from errours damnable of themselues The Argument propounded §. 1. 2. THe Argument I set downe in this manner No man shal be or can be damned eternally for errours which be not damnable of themselues This is cleere Because God being iust who renders to euery one according to their deserts cannot punish men more then their offences do of themselues deserue but rather somewhat vnder their merit But the errours pretended to be found in the Roman Church cannot of thēselues deserue eternall damnation being but veniall but little ones not damnable of themselues as Protestants grant This Assumption needs no proofe being notorious ouer all England For what more dayly and vsuall what more frequent and familiar then for Protestants to reproach vs with want of Charity because we will not yield their errours not to be damnable nor destructiue of saluation as they grant ours to be This is cōfirmed by the often reiterated confession of D. Potter specially pa. 77. where he hath these words To forsake the errours of the Roman Church and not to ioyne with her in those practises we account erroneous we are forced of necessity For though in themselues they be not damnanable to them which belieue as they professe yet for vs to profese what we belieue not were without question damnable And they with their errours by the grace of God might go to Heauen when we for our hypocrisy and dissimulation without repentance should certainly be condemned to Hell And agayne To him who in simplicity of heart belieues and professeth them withall feareth God and worketh righteousnesse to him they shall proue veniall such a one shall by the mercy of God be deliuered from them or be saued with them But he that against Fayth and Conscience shall go along with the streame to professe practise them because they are but little-ones his Case is dangerous and without repentance desperate And againe pag. 19. We belieue the Roman Religion safe that is not damnable to some such as belieue what they professe but we belieue it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as professe it when they belieue the contrary Your impudent deniall of the text §. 2. 3. YOu acknowledge that Charity maintayned vrgeth this testimony of D. Potter builds his discourse theron often which you say he doth fraudulētly as an egregious Sophister impudently without conscience or modesty outfacing the truth For Protestants you say neither do or euer did acknowledge that our errours are not damnable and that you for your part though you were on the rack should not confesse it As for D. Potter you deny that he sayd of the errours he imputeth to the Roman Church though in themselues they be not damnable yea you contest that his words are though in themselues they be damnable Pag. 275. lin 4. D. Potter confesseth no such matter but only that he hopes that your errours though in themselues sufficiently damnable yet by accident did not damne all that held them such he meanes and sayes as were excusably ignorant of the truth And pag. 263. n. 26. Where doth D. Potter say any such thing as you pretend c. He sayth indeed that though your errours were in themselues damnable and full of great impiety yet he hopes those amongst you who were inuincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy haue their errours pardoned Thus you And you repeate it almost in the same wordes in an hundred passages of your Booke still noting these wordes though in themselues damnable in a distinct character as D. Potters formall text which yet is no where found in any part of his Treatise 4. And in this denial of the text in this contestation that D. Potter said of our Errours though in themselues they be damnable you with great shew of confidēce persist till almost the very finishing of your Booke Then being but three leaues from the end as Theeues when they are ready to be cast of the ladder make true confessions strucken with remorse of conscience you vtter this deposition against your selfe Cap. 7. n. 29. Indeed D. Potter sayes of your errours though in themselues they be not damnable to them which belieue as they professe yet for vs to professe what we belieue not were without question damnable Is this true Doth D. Potter say of our errous though in themselues they be not damnable Hath he these very words indeed See thē whether the reproach which you cast vnworthily on Charity maintayned the reproach of outfacing the truth without conscience or modestie do not fall heauily on your owne head For now vpon the ending of your Booke you confesse that D. Potter indeed sayes of our Errours though in themselues they be not damnable whereas before you said and repeated it againe and againe with deepe protestation and insolent insultation against your Aduersary that D. Potter said no such thinge yea that his wordes were the plaine contradiction to wit though in themselues they be damnable and full of great impiety How this can be excused from the crime of forgery I do not see 5. More cunningly in shew not so enormously but indeed no lesse fraudulently maliciously do you change the pointing of D. Potters text and so turne his assertion into the plaine contrary He pag. 79. in the name of English Protestants sayth of the Roman Religion We belieue it safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as belieue what they professe Thus he and he maketh a Comma between some and such to deuide them and to shew that such is vsed not to limit the some that are not damned but to declare who they be to wit all such as cordially belieue our Roman Religion and professe it You reciting his words leaue out the Comma and ioyne some and such togeather making the Doctour say We belieue her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as belieue as they professe As who should say D. Potter grants our Religion safe and not damnable to some who in simplicity of heart belieue and professe it not to all such but some such only Against his expresse Tenet and text yea further you vrge this text corrupted by your dispunction thereof as an Argument that D. Potter holdes our errours damnable in themselues Pag. 306. lin 1. It is remarkable that he confesses your errours to some men not damnable which cleerely importes that according to his iudgment they were damnable of themselues though by accident to them who liued and dyed in inuincible ignorance they might proue not damnable Thus you argue vpon your owne corruption of D. Potters text For in truth he confesses the errours imputed vnto vs not to be damnable and our Religion to be safe not to some such only but to all
of so grosse ignorance and non-sense as this No verily But perchance the matter is this you say that Protestants to whome the Roman Religion appeareth though but probably the safer cannot continue Protestants except they continue fooles Now Protestants by this confession of D. Potter cannot but see apparently the Roman Religion to be the safer Wherfore that this notwithstanding they may continue still Protestants you would make them such fooles as to belieue that though ioyned with a verbe in the Present Tense doth import onely an imaginary not a reall supposition Wherefore if you should say as in effect you do say though the Religion of Protestants be false and damnable yet I will do my best to defend it Protestāts must be such fooles as to take this not as a positiue assertion that their Religion is false damnable in your iudgment but as a Rhetoricall Concession as if you had said Imagine or put case the Religion of Protestants be false and damnable I hope Protestants will be wiser then to be made such fooles by you as to continue in a Religion which cannot be maintayned but by such fopperies as these Your Vanity in contemning the foresayd Argument §. 4. 9. You many times seeme to contemne and scorne the Argument drawne from the confession of Protestants and the former testimony of D. Potter You say we rely vpon his priuate Opinion vpon his vncertaine Charitable hope that his thinking so is no reason we should thinke so except we thinke him infallible that whosoeuer is moued with his argument is so simple c. Wherin you may seeme which happens very seldome to agree with D. Potter who doth much sleight our arguing from the Confession of our Aduersaries page 81. If they haue no better ground of their beleefe then their Aduersaries Charitable iudgment of their errours they will be so farre from conuincing their Aduersaries of lacke of wisedome that themselues cannot escape the imputation of folly 10. Thus the Doctour endeauours to lay the imputation of folly vpon vs for vrging our aduersaries fauourable iudgement of our errours as a good argument that may moue men to imbrace our Religion But in this charging vs with folly his owne lacke of wisedome and consideration may be conuinced by what he writeth some few pages before against zelots for these he condemneth not onely of want of charity but also of lacke of wisedome for iudging so seuerely of our errours as to cut vs of from hope of Saluation Pag. 76. The Roman Churches communion sayth he we forsake not no more then the Body of Christ whereof we acknowledge the Church of Rome a member though corrupted And this cleeres vs from the imputation of Schisme whose property it is to cut of from the Body of Christ and hope of Saluation the Church from which it separates And if any Zelots amongst vs haue proceeded to heauier censures their zeale may be excused but their Charity and Wisedome cannot be iustifyed Thus he From which words I conclude a double truth the one against you the other against D. Potter himselfe The first that this Charitable iudgement about the Saluation of Roman Catholiques because their errours are small and not in themselues damnable is not the priuate opinion of D. Potter but the censure and doome of the whole Protestant english Church condistinct from zelots or Puritans For how can this whole Church be iustified and cleered from the imputation of Schisme by reason of her Charitable iudgement of our errours if this be not the Charitable iudgement of this whole Church but only the opinion of D. Potter and of some other few priuate Protestants Secondly I gather that this iudgement is not onely according to Christian Charity but also according to Christian Wisedome and floweth from the rules and Principles of them both Otherwise what cause or reason hath D. Potter to charge Zelots who iudge not fauourably of our errours with want not only of Charity but also of wisedome Their Charity saith he and Wisedome cannot be iustified If the iudgment of Protestants so fauorable about our errours be of meere Charity not wise not prudent not solidely grounded on truth why may not the wisedome of Zelots who will not consent thereunto be iustified On the other side if the iudgment of Protestants be conforme to Christian wisedome and Diuine truth what wisedome is it in D. Potter to charge vs with folly and want of wisedome for building and relying theron 11. Besides this iugdment of Protestants that we may be saued in our Religion our errours not being damnable if it be voyde of wisdome and not solidly grounded on truth how is it charitable that is how can it proceed from true Christian Charity If fond loue and affection to the saluation of Creatures not guided by the rules of Christian truth be Christian charity then the iudgment of Origen were ful of Christian Charity who extended saluation euen vnto Diuells Wherfore your iudgment that we may be saued because our errours are not damnable cannot be charitable vnlesse it be conforme to the rules and principles of Christian truth and wisdome on which if it be grounded why may we not build and rely theron Why may we not without imputation of folly make this one pillar of our comfort and constancy in the Roman Communion and Fayth 12. Adde hereunto that it is euen ridiculous in D. Potter and other Protestantes of his stampe to brag and boast as they doe that forsooth it is excesse of their Charity and good will to the Roman Church which makes them to iudge so kindly and fauourably of her errours For by their wordes and writings they shew themselues to be voyd of all loue and Charity and to be full of bitter zeale and passion towardes her so farre that though in their conscience they iudge her free from damnable errours yet in their passion they hate abhorre rate and reuile her as if she were the vildest Religion in the world These speaches of D. Potter against her she hath many wayes played the Harlot and in that regard deserued a bill of diuorce from Christ and the detestation of Christians the proud and curst Dame of Rome which takes vpon her to reuell in the house of God Popery is the contagion and plague of the Church These speaches I say euery man will presently perceiue that they are voyd of Charity wordes of contumely and reproach proceeding not from cleere and calme iudgment but from the fuming fornace of passion you produce them as if D. Potter by them did ouerthrow what we haue proued to be his iudgment that our errors be not damnable But in very truth they be only passionate speaches vttered without iudgment reason or discretion yea against his owne iudgment tokens of his mortall auersion from that Church in whome he can finde no mortall or damnable errour It is not then Charity or kind affection or any good will to Roman Catholiks
which moueth D. Potter such other Ministers to maintaine the errours of the Roman Church to be but littleones and not damnable but because they dare not hold the contrary in regard of the vnchristian absurdities which they perceiue to be consequent theron as by the next Section will appeare All Christians of former ages damned if the errours of the Roman Church be damnable of themselues §. 5. 13. CAn any absurdity be more vast and vnchristian then this contained in the title of this paragraph What wonder if Protestants that be moderate and not carried away with precipitous zeale through horrour to be forced vnto this immanity dare not affirme that our errours are in themselues damnable though otherwise their little loue towardes vs considered they could do it with all their heart To proue this vast absurdity to be consequent vpon the said proposition we must suppose what no man doth or can deny that for many ages before Luther all the famous men for learning and sanctity who by heroicall actes of Charity and other Christian vertues and working of Miracles maintained the credit of the Christian name held the doctrines of the Roman Church which Protestants contend to be erroneous The fame is also euident concerning the Fathers of the more Primitiue times and is confessed by Protestantes namly D. Whitgift late Archbishop of Canterbury Almost all the Bishops and Writers of the Greeke Church and of the Latin also for the most part were spotted with the doctrines of free-will of Merit of Inuocation of Saintes and such like So that if the Doctrines of the Roman Church which Protestantes traduce as erroneous be damnable of themselues it is consequent that the most famous Bishops Doctours and Saints in so many former Christian ages were guilty of errours in themselues and of themselues damnable which being so they should be all certainly damned without any hope of their Saluation 14. This consequence I proue by what you by write pag. 403. lin 30. They that haue vnderstanding and meanes to discouer their errours and neglect to vse them we dare not flatter with so easy a censure as to giue them hope of Saluation But the eminent Fathers and Christian Saintes of so many ages before Luther had sufficient vnderstanding and meanes to discouer their errours and yet neuer made vse of them They had excellent vnderstandings they were verst in all manner of sciences they had the holy Scripture which you say is the only meanes to know all necessary truth and to discouer all damnable errours a meanes not only sufficient but also in your iudgment most playne and easy so that men not only may but also cannot but therin discouer which be damnable errours except they wilfully shut their eyes against the light Therefore there is no hope of the saluation of the Ancient Fathers and Saintes of former Christian ages if your Proposition be true they who had sufficient vnderstanding and meanes to discouer their errours and neglected to vse them there is for them no hope of Saluation Moreouer pag. 279. num 64. lin 8. you say that which is in it selfe damnable will actually bring damnation vpon them that keep themselues in it by their owne voluntary and auoydable fault But the Ancient Fathers and holy Saints in the ages before Luther held the doctrines of the Roman Church which you account damnable full of great impiety and Idolatry they kept thēselues in them according to your groūds by their owne voluntary and auoydable fault for they had sufficient meanes to discouer their errours to wit they had the holy Scripture wherin as you say these errours are discouered not onely with sufficient but also with abundant clarity that there cannot possibly be greater you must therefore of necessity grant that these damnable and impious errours if they be such as you say they are brought actually damnation vpon the Fathers and Saints of former ages Agayne page 290. lin 2. of liuing in the Communion of the Roman Church and approuing her doctrines and practises you say Though we hope it was pardonable in them who had no meanes to know their errour yet of its owne nature and to them who did or might haue knowne their errour it was certainely damnable Now the holy Fathers and Christian Saints of former ages might haue knowne our errours if they be errours because they had the holy Scriptures in which you say such errours are discouered their damnable falshood so plainly as nothing can be more If then you say true that the Roman Religion is full of great impiety and damnable doctrines it is euidently consequent by your principles that all holy Bishops Doctours and Saints who are confessed to haue held the sayd doctrines are certainly damned for euer no hope remaining of their saluation Wherfore the reason why Protestants hold our Religion safe and a sure way to Heauen as being free from damnable errour is not Charity and excesse of good will they beare to our persons as they pretend but feare of the vast absurdity which they see consequent thereupon that so many former ages and worldes of holy Bishops Doctours Conuerters of Nations workers of Miracles and admirable Saints are certainly damned 15. There be many Protestant Ministers that could find in their hearts to grant this dismall position of the damnation of the ancient euer esteemed Saints if the same would stand them in steed to maintaine the diuision from the Roman Church yet they dare not venture cleerly to auerre so much for feare that this would produce the contrary effect and moue many of their followers to recoyle back from them For in the separation made by Luther from the Roman Church there be many piously inclined mindes carefull of their future eternity either of weale or woe cordially desirous to be secure of the happines of the one and mighty fearefull to fall into the misery of the other Should Protestant Ministers cleerly deliuer their mindes that the Roman Religion is damnable euen of it selfe a direct way to Hell and that such as walke or haue walked therein are certainely damded these piously disposed and timerous Soules would feele horrour to be of the Protestant Religion which cannot be the way of saluation except the Roman Christianity so great so glorious so continued from Christ and his Apostles contayning within her bosome so many worlds of holy Bishops learned and pious Pastours and of admirable Saints be damned at least all the intelligent Professors therof The apprehension of this dreadfull and dangerous state amazed euen the stout and curst heart of Luther whē he saw himselfe engaged in a course out of which he could not issue with saluation except so many former ages of Saints were damned How often sayth he did my heart tremble and pant within my breast obiecting against me that most stronge argument Art thou onely wise Did so many Christian worldes in former ages all erre What if perhaps
and in particular which be the articles essentially necessary vnto Saluation and you in many places signify that they are innumerable 10. On the Forehead of your Booke you haue printed this sentence of King Iames The number of thinges absolutely necessary to Saluation is not great Wherefore the shortest and speediest way to conclude a general peace and concord in matters of Religion would be to seuer exactly thinges necessary from thinges not necessary and to vse all industry that in necessaries there may be agreement and in thinges not necessary place be left vnto Christian liberty In your Dedicatory you professe that your Booke in a manner is nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction vpon this Blessed Doctrine wherwith you adorn'd arm'd the Frontispice thereof This is the flattering of your forhead and your setting a fayre Hypocriticall face of Friendship on this sentence which you hate blaspheme in your heart and in the heart and bosome of your Booke For some few leaues from the beginning you fall to reiect pursue and persecute this your Blessed sentence and your superstruction theron is nothing else but a load of reproaches You say that to seuer exactly thinges necessary from thinges not necessary which that learned Prince esteemeth to be of great vse of great necessity and the shortest way to conclude the generall peace of Christendome about Religion a thinge not only factible but also which may easily speedily be done this I say which your Frontispicial sentence proclaymeth most vsefull and factible the inside of your Booke declareth to be a thing of extreme great difficulty and of extreme little necessity an intricate peece of businesse apparantly vnnecessary of no vse a vaine labour to no purpose Behold your wordes Pag. 23. lin 5. To seuer exactly and punctually these verities the one from the other c. is a businesse of extreme great difficulty and of extreme litle necessity He that shall goe about it shall find an intricate peece of businesse of it and almost impossible that he should be certaine he hath done it when he hath done it And then it is apparently vnnecessary to goe about it because he that belieues all certainly belieues all necessaries And againe ibid. lin 15. And when they had done it it had been to no purpose there being as matters now stand as great necessity of belieuing those truths of Scripture which are not fundamental as those that are These be your wordes by the force of which you knocke on the head the sentence of king Iames nayled on the forehead of your Booke and also giue a deadly stabbe on the heart of poore Protestants and driue out of it all hope of Saluation 11. For you neither do nor can tell them which points of fayth are Fundamentall and necessary to be knowne distinctly of all without the least of which you say it implies contradiction they should be saued How then shall they be sure they haue all Fundamental truth You say he that belieues all certainly belieues all that is necessary And pag. 225. lin 1. to a Protestant requesting of you to know which in particular be fundamental truths you answere It is a vaine question belieue all and you shall be sure to belieue all that is Fundamentall This rule of assurance you repeate almost in the same formal wordes I dare say a thousand times which is craftily couched in equiuocal and ambiguous termes and hath a double sense being in the one false and deceitfull in the other impossible to be kept If belieue all import no more then belieue in general and confusedly all contayned in the Holy Bible to be true your rule is false deceitfull damnable that men by belieuing all shall certainly belieue all necessaries as they ought vnto Saluation For you say Pag. 163. n. 3. Fundamental and essential points be such as are not only plainly reuealed of God and so certaine truths but also commanded to be preach't to all men and to be distinctly belieued of all and so necessary truths And Pag. 194. lin 16. you teach that to the constitution of Fundamental pointes is required that they be First actually reuealed of God Secondly commanded vnder paine of damnation to be particularly knowne I meane knowne to be Diuine reuelations and distinctly to be belieued Wherfore your rule Belieue all in generall and you shall be sure to belieue all Fundamentals sufficiently vnto saluation is by your owne definitions proued false and damnable But if your rule haue this sense Belieue all that is in the Bible explicitly distinctly in particular and then you shall be sure to belieue all necessaries if this I say be your meaning you lay on your Protestants a most heauy burthen a most vnsupportable load a most tyrannicall and impossible command For what you say that the burthen is light and that all Protestants comply with this your command pag. 129. n. 5. that all of them agree with explicite fayth in all those thinges which are plainly and vndoubtedly deliuered in Scripture that is in All that God hath plainly reuealed this I say is ridiculous there being millions of truths plainly vndoubtedly deliuered in Scripture which millions of Protestants neuer heard yea there be I dare say a thousand such truths which your selfe are ignorant off 12. In contradiction of this your inconsiderate assertion you grant pag. 137. lin 5. That there be many truths which in themselues are reuealed plainly inough which yet are not plainly reuealed vnto some Protestantes of excellent vnderstanding nor are belieued of them because they are prepossest with contrary opinions and with preiudices by the strange power of education instilled vnto their mindes How then is it true that Protestantes all of them agree with explicite fayth in all thinges which are plainly reuealed of God How can those Protestantes who disbelieue many truths reuealed in Scripture plainly inough be sure they belieue all fundamentall and necessary truth seing they obserue not your command Belieue all and you shal be sure to belieue all that is fundamentall Who doth or can assure them that among these many points of Fayth reuealed in Scripture plainly inough none be fundamental It is therfore manifest that Protestants except you giue them an exact Catalogue of all your fundamentals which they are bound vnder payne of uamnation distinctly and explicitly to belieue can neuer be sure they belieue all fundamentall truth And it is seely for you when Charity Maintayned vrgeth you for a Catalogue of your Fundamentals to thinke that you may stop his mouth with importuning him for a Catalogue of our Churches Proposals for we say of our Churches Proposals that it is sufficient to belieue them implicitly we do not say they must be belieued of all distinctly and in particular What need then is there of a Catalogue wherin such Proposals are set downe distinctly and in particular Now you affirme of your Fundamentals that
all men are bound vpon their saluation to know and belieue them in particular and yet obstinatly refuse to giue them an exact account which in particular they be 13. Besides what an intricate and infinite obligation do you charge vpon Protestantes in saying that there is as thinges now stand at great necessity of belieuing those truths of Scripture which are not fundamentall as those that are so For the necessity of belieuing fundamentals deliuered in holy Scripture is vnder paine of damnation to know them in particular and distinctly which obligation is so strict that you say it implies contradiction that Saluation be had without the least of them Now if the necessity of belieuing not fundamentals be as great as this yea the same with this no Protestant can be saued that doth not belieue such passages of Scripture as be not fundamentall distinctly in particular euen as he is bound to belieue fundamentals You often as pa. 169. lin 12. eagerly and bitterly declame against vs for requiring harder and heauier conditions of Saluation then God requires or then were required in the dayes of the Apostles Who more guilty of this crime then your selfe For this your necessity of belieuing the not fundamentall truthes of Scripture as much as the fundamental was not euer in Gods Church seeing your selfe onely say it is so as matters now stand Wherby you insinuate that as matters stood anciently this great necessity and obligation had no place in Gods Church Nor can you say that it is required of God for then it would be deliuered in Scripture and consequētly perpetuall in the Church euer since the Ghospell was written wheras your wordes vrging this obligation onely as now matters stand imply the contrary It is therefore manifest that this necessity so heauy and direfull is layd vpon Protestants not by Apostolicall commaund not by diuine Precept but by your selfe and other proud ignorant Ministers who neither know which be Fundamentals nor can agree vpon any short rule within the compasse of which they are all comprized Hence they are forced to send euery Protestant to fish for Fundamentals in the vast and deepe Ocean of holy Scripture not giuing them any direction any rule any assurance of finding them all except they can comprehend cleerly and distinctly all the innumerable truthes plainely reuealed therein 14. Finally what you say pag. 134. lin 24. That may be sufficiently declared to one which is not sufficiently declared to another and consequently that may be fundamentall to one which to another is not And pag. 281. lin 4. The same errour may be not Capitall to men that want meanes of finding the truth and Capitall to others who haue meanes and neglect to vse them This doctrine by you often repeated driueth Protestants into a Thicket of Thornes and briers into new insuperable difficulties vncertainties of their Saluation For though a Protestant were sure which in Protestācy he can neuer be that he distinctly belieues all capital essential truthes which are to be belieued of all how shall he be sure that he belieues all truthes which to him in particular in regard of his greater knowledge and capacity are you say Capitall and Fundamentall How can he be certaine that there are not some capitall and substantiall truths which he hath not found in Scripture though he had meanes of finding them And if he want beliefe of these Fundamentall and Capitall truths how can he possibly be saued For though you should say that these are the least of thinges fundamentally necessary to saluation yet this will not possibilitate their saluation it being contradiction to say that Saluation may be had without any the LEAST thing necessary to Saluation as you affirme Pag. 382 lin 1. The fourth Conuiction YOu could find no Way to make good the Saluation of English Protestants against the demonstrations of Charity maintayned but onely such a Way wherein the vildest Heretiques that now liue or euer liued vnder the cope of Heauen may be saued as well as they yea euen Iewes and Turkes these two consequences frō your principles I will demonstrate in two Sections of this Conuiction That in your VVay English Protestants cannot be saued more then Socinians with fixproofes that you are of this impious Sect. §. 1. 1. YOu say in your Preface n. 39. that you haue not vndertaken the particular defence of the Church of England but the common Cause and Religion of all Protestants And pag. 375. n. 56. you professe that by the Religion of Protestants which you mayntaine to be a safeway to saluation you do not vnderstand the doctrine of Luther or Caluin or Melancton nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneua nor the Catechisme of Hiedelberge nor the articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmonie of Protestants Confessions but that wherin they all agree as a perfect rule of their fayth and actions the BIBLE the BIBLE I say the BIBLE onely is the Religion of Protestants This is the onely Religion the onely way you could find to saue English Protestants wherin they can no more be saued then any other that belieue the Bible and only the Bible as a perfect rule of their life and actions Now in the number of Protestants Ghospelers and Biblists the new Ebionites or Samosatenians whon we terme Socinians are comprehended the most blasphemous Heretiques against the Fundamentall articles of Christianity that euer breathed worse then Arians For Arians acknowledged the Eternity of our Lord Christ Iesus that he had an Eternall most perfect diuine Essence only they would not confesse him to be coequall and consubstantiall to his Father But Socinians deny him to be the eternall Sonne of God affirme him to be meere man and tearmed the sonne of God as other Iust and holy men and Prophets are 2. Now that Socinians are by your account in the number of them that goe the safe way to Saluation as well as English Protestants is manifest not only because they professe the Bible and onely the Bible but also because they are that sort of Christians whose Religion you follow as these six arguments euince 3. First because being so much suspected and accused euen in publique writing to be of that impious Sect and if you were not prouoked to make a cleere profession of the Christian fayth against them you haue not done it you say sometimes that Christ is the Sonne of God but neuer his Eternall Sonne which omission of the word Eternall in a man so suspected of Socinianisme as you are is in the iudgement of our late Soueraigne King Iames a signe of guiltines maketh your Booke worthy of the fagot 4. Secondly because you dislike words about matters of Fayth not found in the Scripture which Christians vse for the better declaration of the Creed This you tearme a vayne conceit that we can speake of the things of God better then in the word of God You declame also bitterly
nothing but in their vnion against the Pope cannot but be full of many contrary and aduerse errours as you grant Wherefore in your Way they are saued in their errours by inuincible ignorance or if their ignorance be vincible sinfull and damnable by General Repentance But by your Principles Iewes and Turkes may be saued in their false Religions through inuincible ignorance or generall Repentance That they may be saued by inuincible ignorance is proued by what you write Pag. 393. lin 1. Certainly Religion is one of those thinges which are necessary only because commanded For if none were commanded vnder paine of damnation how could it be damnable to be of any Neither can it be damnable to be of a false Religion vnlesse it be a sin to be so Thus you whereupon I assume this Hypothesis to Turkes Iewes Pagans that are inuincibly ignorant of the falshood of their owne Religion and truth of the Christian it is no sinne to be of their false Religion and enemies of Christ our Lord This hath been already shewed by your acknowledgments that God cannot be offended with men for errours purely inuoluntary nor can he damne them for not doing what he knowes they cannot do Wherefore it is impossible that God should damne Iewes or Turkes or Pagans for errous of inuincible and inuoluntary ignorance so that if your Thesis be true that no false Religion is damnable but only because it is sinne it is comequent that men may be saued in any Religion euen in Iudaisme Turcisme Paganisme through inuincible ignorance 11. You say Pag. 24. lin 34. Who can find fault with D. Potter for saying If through want of meanes of instruction incapacity inuincible or probable ignorance a man dye in errour be may be saued Now many Iewes and Turkes and Pagans dye in their errours through want of instruction or incapacity or inuincible ignorance Ergo they may be saued in their false Religions impious errours If you answer that your proposition that men who dye in their errours may be saued is to be vnderstood of such as dye in errours that be damnable only meritoriously because sinnes and against Gods commande not of errours which remedilessely fatally vnauoydably destroy Saluation which no ignorance can excuse for which no repentance can begge pardon without a dereliction of them as you say pag. 336. n. 19. I reply that this answere confirmes the Saluation of Iewes and Turkes Pagans in your doctrine and Way According to which to dye in any false Religion cannot be damnable remedilessely but only meritoriously because a sinne and an offence of God wherefore if any Iew or Turke or Pagan want capacity or meanes of instruction and so be inuincibly ignorant he may be saued euen as Protestants are saued in your safe Way 12. I omit that you plainely contradict your selfe in saying that there be some errours which remedilesly destroy Saluation because the contrary truth is necessary non solum necessitate praecepti sed medij not only because commanded but also because the sole meanes or remedy against sinne This doctrine I say doth not agree with your assertion that Religion it selfe is necessary only because it is commanded and that it cannot be damnable to be of any false Religion but only because it is a sinne For what thinges or doctrines can be necessary not only because commanded but also because the sole remedy against sinne if Religion which is to belieue that God is and that he is are warder of them that seeke him be necessary only because commanded not because the meanes without which no man can be iustifyed from sinne and saued If to be of a false Religion or of no Religion be damnable onely meritoriously because a sinne what errour can be imagined so malignant as to destroy Saluation not onely meritoriously but also remedilessely or fatally as you speake 13. Secondly that Iewes and Turkes may according to the Principles of your safe way be saued in their errours by Generall repentance for all their sinnes is proued because there is no repugnance but they may conceaue contrition for all their sinnes For they belieue in one only God Creatour of heauen and earth The Iewes further belieue the truths reuealed in the old testament the Turkes belieue in Iesus that he is the Christ the messias which is to belieue in him as farre as Socinians belieue in him yea they pray vnto him and inuocate him which some Socinians refuse to doe because they hold we are to inuocate the true God only and to them Christ is not God but a meere holy man Why then may not Iewes Turkes loue the true God and conceaue sorow of all their offences and sinnes against so good a Lord so worthy of all loue of all their sinnes I say knowne and vnknowne in which number all sinfull errours must of necessity be contayned as you say pag. 21. lin antepenullina and pag. 20. lin vltima 14. To this purpose very forcible and pregnant it is what you say to vs speaking indefinitely of different Religions and Sects pag. 32. n 4. You must not hereafter affirme that of men of different Religions one side onely can be saued but you must temper the crudenesse of this assertion by saying One side only can be saued except want of conuiction or else repentance excuse the other This your Charitable exception comprehends Turkes Iewes that are of a different Religion from Christians that they may be excused frō damnation through want of Conuictiō or through a generall Repentance of all their sinnes knowne and vnknowne You giue vs warning in the same place saying to vs You must abstayne frō affirming that Protestants dying in their Religion cannot be saued For you must alwayes remember to adde this caution vnlesse they were excusably ignorant or dyed with contrition A goodly aduise which because S. Paul obserued not you must say he was to blame vncharitable in pronouncing that impious men drunkards Heretiques sectaries shall not possesse the Kingdome of God For he should haue remembred to adde this caution except they be excusably ignorant or dye with contrition Nor must you say that Turkes and Iewes dying in their Religion cannot be saued but you must alwayes remember to adde this caution vnlesse they were excusably ignorant of the falshood of it or dyed with contrition And then considering that you cannot know whether or no they were sufficiently conuinced of the truth of christian Religion you are obliged in charity to iudge the best hope they are not And is not this to mantayne that men may be saued in any Religion Christian Iewish or Turkish aswell in the one as in the other No Religion among Christians no Sect among Protestants is found which you doe or dare defend to be free from errours against fayth and Religion and so in your Way none are sure to be saued but through ignorance or generall Repentance for their errours But Iewes
that these Bookes be the word of God resteth finally not vpō the credit of human Tradition but vpon the Scripture onely which shewes it selfe with euident certitude to be diuine and supernaturall truth and so reuealed of God Euen as light is seene by its owne brightnesse and hony is proued to be sweet by the very tast thereof But this point of Protestancy you reiect as fond vaine ridiculous pag. 371. n. 51. and proue it to be such Because if the Bookes of Scripture were euidently certayne if they did with euident certitude demonstrate themselues to be Diuine truth then all men that haue vnderstanding and capacity to apprehend the right sense and sentence of Scripture would belieue them to be true which experience sheweth be otherwise If Protestants answere that such as haue their tast distempered to them hony is bitter so Infidels through preiudice and distemper of passions do not perceaue and tast the Diuinity of the Doctrines of the Scripture Against this the reply is ready and conuincing For they who through distemper of their palate iudge hony to be bitter do not apprehend the true tast of hony but a tast contrary to the true tast thereof which being in their palate they conceaue it to be in the meate But Infidels by their vnderstanding do rightly apprehend and conceaue the true senses of Scripture and the mysteries of fayth deliuered therein more cleerely then many Christians of meane capacity do and yet they do not iudge them to be Diuine truth or truth at all Ergo the very true sense and sentence of Scripture doth not with euident certainty shew it selfe to be Supernaturall truth such as could not be reuealed but of God 6. Finally if the Protestants beliefe of Scripture be grounded vpon sight of the truth thereof this their beliefe is not sauing fayth for Fayth by which men are saued as hath beene sayd is that wherby they submit by voluntary obedience their vnderstanding to Gods word belieuing firmely and assuredly vpon the Authority thereof things in themselues incredible and aboue the reach of human reason But Protestants do not belieue the doctrine of Scripture because it is the word of God but because as they say they see it to be Diuine truth and consequētly the word of God Ergo they haue not the fayth of humble submission to Gods word which is the onely fayth that pleaseth God and by which men are saued 7. The third Argument Protestants haue not fayth of infallible adherence that is fayth worthy of God about the sense and interpretation of Scripture For holding the Churches interpretation to be fallible they pretend to be sure by this rule that what they belieue to them seemes plainely cleerely euidently reuealed and proposed in the Scripture But this rule of assurance is not infallible but very fallible and deceytfull For euen Protestants thēselues contend that many texts and places of Scripture which seeme plaine and cleere are to be vnderstood figuratiuely against the plaine proper and literall sense For example the words of our Lord about the chiefe Sacrament mystery of fayth THIS is My Body This is My BLOVD in their plaine proper and literall sense deliuer and establish Transubstantiation as Protestants grant Hence Protestants that are resolued not to belieue a mystery so high aboue reason seemingly repugnant to sense will by no meanes allow these wordes to be true in their proper and literal sense they will not yield to the plain euidence of the Diuine text Whereupon it is euidently consequent that they cannot be sure about any mystery of fayth by vertue of the sole seeming euidence of the sacred Text. For instance take the most fundamental text of Scripture about the most fundamētal mystery of Christian Religion to wit the Incarnation of the Sonne of God The Word was made flesh How doth this text euidently conuince that the Eternal Word and Sonne of God was made Man truely substantially personally What Protestants say of the word of Christ This is my Body why may not Nestorians affirme about this text The Word was made ffesh that it is not true in a proper plaine and literal sense but metaphorically figuratiuely that God and Man were made one in Christ by affectual vnion as two great friendes are said to be one How can Protestants be themselues assured or how can they proue by the sole euidence of the text that this Nestorian interpretation is false And if their beliefe of the mystery of the Incarnation be not solide and firme grounded on a rule of interpretation infallibly certaine how can they be saued 8. Learned and iudicious Readers may find in your booke a world of laughter about your answering the arguments of Charity Maintayned you do it so vnscholler-like so okerly and vntowardly Let your answere to this argument serue for a patterne Our Maintayner vrgeth D. Potter that if the Church may erre in points of fayth not fundamentall you can neuer be sure of any such point For as you erre about some deceyued by the seeming euidence of the Scripture so you cannot be sure you do not erre about other You answere Pag. 117. n. 160. A pretty Sophisme depending vpon this principle that whosoeuer possibly may erre he can neuer be certaine that he doth not erre A Iudge may possibly erre in iudgment can he therefore neuer be sure he hath iudged aright A Traualler may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my chamber Or can our London-Carrier haue no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London And a litle after nu 161. whereas our Mayntainer argueth that you cannot be sure it is an errour to make the Church Iudge of Controuersies because you pretend to be sure by the seeming euidence of Scripture but this rule is not infallible so you cānot be sure by the warrant thereof The ground of this Sophisme say you is very like the former viz. that we can be certaine of the falshood of no proposition but those only that are damnable errours But I pray good Sir giue me your opinion of these The snow is balcke the fire is cold M. Knot is Arch-Bishop of Toledo the whole is not greater then a part of the whole that twise two make not foure in your opinion good Sir are these damnable heresies Or because they are not so haue we no certainty of the falshood of them I beseech you Sir consider seriously with what strāge captions you haue gone about to delude your King and your Country if you be conuinced they are so giue glory to God and let the world know it by your deserting that Religion which standes vpon such deceytfull foundations This you write which you could neuer haue written had you been with your London Carrier sober and in your wits You haue proued Gusman de
consequently of the Doctrines contained therein only as an opinion very probable as is hereafter shewed Ergo you question the holy Scripture the Religion and Gospell of Christ you make an if of the truth and certainty thereof You examine it doubtingly with liberty of iudgment prepared in mind to leaue it if perchance you find the grounds thereof apparently false What is this but to be a Nullifidian a man setled in no Religion but doubtfull of all Such an one as they were whome the Apostle checketh terming them men still learning but neuer attayning to the assured knowledge of any thinge Againe Pag. 307. n. 107. you write thus speaking vnto our Maintayner Your eleauenth falshood is that our first reformers ought to haue doubted whether their opinions were certaine which is to say they ought to haue doubted of the certainty of Scripture which in formall and expresse termes contaynes many of these opinions From this testimony I conclude that you doubt of the cetainty of the Scripture You professe to examine and question all your Protestant opinions of Diuine matters to make a doubt of the certainty of them But you contend that some of your Protestant opinions of Diuine matters be such as to make a doubt or question of the certainty of them is to doubt of the certainty of formall and expresse Scripture Ergo your Way and practise of doubting of all your opinions about Diuine matters is doubting euen of the truth of the Christian Scripture and Ghospell of Christ A thinge most impious and execrable as you now suppose yet so fond and forgetfull you are as to say you should haue litle hope of Saluation did you not do it or endeauour to do it 6. In fine your safe Way is a Labyrinth of implicatory and inextricable errours Protestants that are concluded therein are lost in a maze of vncertainties and in an intricate mixture of contrary doctrines being sure to find nothing therein but damnation which way so euer they turne themselues Do they doubt of the truth of their Religion which they belieue to be the Ghospell They are both according to truth and in your doctrine damnable wretches as being formall Heretiques Be they so firme in their Religion as they ranke doubting thereof among deadly sinnes Then they are you say obstinately blind sure to fall into the pit of perdition as much as we are at the least you affoard them litle hope of obtayning Saluation The sixt Conuiction 1. THis Conuiction sheweth that only Roman Catholiques haue sauing fayth which is demonstrated by three Arguments The first Sauing fayth is that without which it is impossible to please God Now fayth which pleaseth Gods must be on the one side certaine and infallible otherwise it is not worthy of God to whose word we owe so firme beliefe that if an Angel from heauen should Euangelize against that we haue receaued as his word he were not to be heard but to be accursed On the other side it must be a free and voluntary assent not enforced by the euidence of the thinge For if the reason of belieuing be euident and such as doth necessitate the Vnderstanding to assent the assent is not pleasing to God because it is not voluntary obedience and submission to his word Roman Catholiques by belieuing the Church to be infallible in all her proposals obtaine a persuasion about Diuine mysteries firme and infallible and yet of voluntary obedience and submission But the Opposers of the Roman Church not only want certainty in truth but also know not which way to challenge infallible certainty without euidence 2. This may be proued by what you write Pag. 329. lin 31. The infallible certainty of a thing which though it be in it selfe yet is not made appeare to vs infallibly certaine to my vnderstanding is an impossibility What is this but to say that fayth of a thing cannot be infallibly certaine except the thinge belieued be made so cleere and apparent that the vnderstanding cannot choose but assent vnto it For what appeares to vs to be infallibly certaine is seen of vs to be infallibly certaine What we see to be infallible certaine we cannot choose but assent that it is so So that a firme grounded beliefe of the truth of thinges not appearing without which it is impossible to please God is by your doctrine to Protestants impossible 3. Moreouer that Protestants cannot haue fayth pleasing to God that is fayth infallibly certayne not grounded on euidence I demonstrate in this sort No man can be assured infallibly of the truth of things not seene nor to him euidently certaine but by the word of an Authour infallibly veracious in all his words deliuered vnto him by a witnesse of infallible truth For if the witnesse or messenger of the word be fallible let the Authour of the word be neuer so infallible our assent to the truth of the thing proposed cannot be infallible Now Protestants haue not the word of God by meanes of a witnesse and messinger infallible For the witnesse proposer and messenger of the word of God is the visible Catholique Church which Protestants hold to be fallible full of false Traditions not free so you say from errour in it selfe damnable and in this sense Fundamentall Wherfore it is demonstratiuely certaine that onely Roman Catholiques who belieue the Church to be infallible can haue Fayth worthy of God Fayth of voluntary submission to Gods word that is fayth of things to them not euidently yet infallibly certayne and consequently they only please God by their belieuing and are saued 4. The second Argument You say pag. 148. lin 16. There is no other reason to belieue the Scripture to be true but onely because it is Gods word so that you cannot belieue the doctrines and myestries reuealed in Scripture to be true more firmely and infallibly then you belieue the Scripture to be Gods word for we must be surer of the proofe then of the thing proued thereby otherwise it is no proofe as you say pag. 37â— n. 59. But your assurance that the Scripture is the word of God is onely human probable and so absolutely fallible For you belieue the bookes which were neuer doubted of in the Church to be Gods word and a perfect rule of fayth onely by the tradition or testimonies of the ancient Churches pag. 63. lin 35. But the ioynt tradition of all the Apostolicall Churches with one mouth and one voyce teaching the same doctrine is onely a very probable argument as you affirme pag. 361. n. 40. Ergo your fayth that Scripture is Gods word consequently of all the mysteries therin reuealed is but human and probable and therefore vnworthy of God being not firmer then the credit we yield to euery morall honest man For to vs his word is probable and credible and to you the word of God is no more 5. Protestants commonely pretend that their fayth