manner be consumed with fire He would have been thought to have uttered a Truth Morally certain yet the contrary doleful Effect proved it untrue And the like may happen now while we upon Moral Certainty Say Rome or Constantinople are Citties in Being These Grounds supposed 5. I say first Whoever when he Affirm's that Christian Religion is only Morally Certain and hath for the Object of his Affirmation that which Essentially Moral Certainty only destroy's the Being of Christian Religion constitutes Religion I mean true Divine and Supernatural Faith highly wrongs Christian Religion yea and destroyes the very Being and Essence of it I prove it The Certainty of Divine Faith is as farre above and distant from all the Degrees of Moral Certitude which may be false as Heaven is from Earth and more Therfore he who allowes no greater Certainty to true Faith then Moral which may be false destroyes both Certainty of Faith farre above Moral Certainty the Life and Essence of Christian Religion That the Certainty of Faith farre surpasseth all the Degrees of Moral Certitude is Demonstrable upon Principles granted as well by Orthodox Christians as by our Adversaries who say That true Faith dot not only affirm That what God Reveales is most Certain for thus much supposing a God we know by Science were there no Faith but by Faith we affirm without fear at all God speaks Thus and Thus. He reveales that the Divine Word took flesh That Christ dyed for us That there is a Trinity of Persons in one Divine essence c. Such Truths we already own as Delivered by one who neither can nor will Deceive us 6. Hence I argue The Sole and Adequate Object of Divine and Supernatural Faith is Gods infinite Veracity which Actually speak's to us and is lyable to no errour Faith then if it be Divine Tend's unto no other Object neither is the now infused Habit of it though fortified with a thousand Illustrations inabled to Rest upon any other Motive in this present State What therfore this Infinite Veracity actually Reveal's that Faith layes hold on It cannot believe more or lesse Now I subsume But this Infinite Veracity when it is duely Proposed Transfuseth more Gods Veracity transfuseth more certainty into Faith then the Motives of Moral Certainty can do Certainty into the Elicite Act of Faith Then any Moral Certainty derived from inferiour Motives can have For all Moral Certainty is at least capable of Falsity and may deceive us Gods infallible Veracity cannot be False nor deceive if Faith Rest upon that Motive And if it Rest not there it is no Faith at all It is therfore absolutely impossible if God speak's and I Believe him as he Speak's That all the Power in Heaven can Falsify this Faith if it rest not on Gods Veracity is not Faith Act or Separate a most High infallibility from it Contrarywise There is no Moral Certainty but may by all the Principles it hath be false and fallible yea and often is so 7. From this undoubted Ground I inferre also Supernatural Faith more Certain then Metaphysical Science That Supernatural Faith is more Certain and infallible then all the Metaphysical Science which Nature can give us It is true Metaphysical Science hath more of the Evidence and therfore excludes all indeliberate Fear or Doubt to the contrary for no man can so much as indeliberately Doubt whether a whole Citty be greater then one House But for Absolute Certainty and Infallible Adhesion Faith yet surpasseth it The Reason The Energy of Faiths Motive is Because the Infinite Veracity of God which only supporteth Faith Majori vi with greater Force Energy and Necessity transfuseth into it a Supereminent Infallibility supereminent I say and above all the Certainty which Principles of nature can afford As therfore this Infinite Veracity surpasseth all Created certainty so Faith which relyes on it goes beyond all Natural and inferiour certainty Upon this Principle we see first How Divinely the Apostle spoke Licet nos c. Although we or Angel from Heaven preach contrary c. Let him be accursed And how wel St. Chrysostome delivered himself when He saith Hom. 12. pondering those words ad Hebr. 11. Fides est Argumentum c. That he held them more certain then the Things he saw with his Eyes These Truths and great Truths They are cannot subsist unles Faith be stronger in Certitude then all the Principles in Nature and consequently farre more strong then Moral Certainty is which may be false Now with such an Assent the Roman Catholick Church Believes Therfore a Faith only Morally certain Belong's not to it If Protestants Disown it They have no Faith no nor so much as a Belief Morally certain wherof more presently We see secondly How the very Essence of Christian Religion is destroyed if we make Faith no more but Morally certain which is what I intended to Prove 8. Perhaps These Authors will tell us When they Religion founded on Moral Certainty confuted Assert Christian Religion to be founded on Moral certainty Their Assertion fall's not immediatly upon the Assent of Divine Faith which is firm and certain But rather upon the Object of it Antecedently applyed to us Before we believe wherof we can have no greater Assurance then what is Moral And it is no wonder For say They There can be had no greater then Moral certainty of the main Foundations of all Religion which are the Being of God and the Soules Immortality To quarrel therfore with Moral certainty is Madnes when the Foundation of all Religion is capable of no more By the way if this be Madnes I se very little Wisdom in some who to oppugne the Churches infallibility proved as they suppose by motives of Credibility only morally certain Ring out nothing but Peales of Impossibilities and say it cannot be That the Assent to a matter Believed Rise higher or stand firmer then the Assent which is given to the Testimony wheron we Believe But the Infallibility of the Church is the thing Believed upon the Testimony of Motives at most but Morally certain Therfore we cannot Believe this with a stronger Degree of certainty then those Motives give us which afford at most but Moral certainty If this Discours be good I argue thus Ad hominem No greater certainty have Christians now Antecedently to their Actual Belief that God speaks to them by either Scripture or Church then that God is in Being But the very Being of God is only known by Moral certainty Ergo that he speaks to Christians cannot be known antecedently to Belief by any greater Certitude then what is Moral and may deceive them How then I beseech you comes the Elicite Act of Supernatural Faith unto such a Height of Certainty as not to Credit an Angel if he Preach against it Upon what Motive stands it so firm when no other Certainty supports it but only what is Moral and may be false The Medium
this Religion That it must be either further proved by Rational grounds or it is wholy Forceles and fall's to Nothing 6. They say again They have three evident Principles 3. Principles of Protestants answered to ground their new Faith on First What God speak's is true 2. Gods pure and uncorrupted Word is in their hands 3. They know what God speak's in this Word I answer the first Principle is certain The second more then doubtful The third on which all Relies and toucheth more upon their Faith then on any Rational Antecedent Motive evidencing it is demonstratively improbable For upon no Proof upon no received Principle By the light of no Rational Motive can these men so much as meanly show That They are better at knowing what God speak's in Scripture then a whole ample learned Church or then Their own Ancestors both knew of old and believed for a thousand years together These men long since deceased held and upon Scripture well understood as firmly the Real Presence of Christs Sacred Body in the Eucharist as a Trinity of Persons in one Divine Essence The first Protestants now Reject the Protestants Reject and Admit at pleasure other they Admit And why Upon what Conviction upon what Rational Motive do they take and leave assert and deny as they list Press this and other like particulars home instead of Reason or rational Proofs you shall have Their own reeling sentiments Sectaries self-seeming no proof given in for Answer And thus forsooth it is They read Scripture and verily it seem's to them It ought to be interpreted as they will have it I Ask a Reason for this new Seeming against the old received Sense And that very seeming which is in question you have prooflesly returned for an answer Observe well that I say here and you will find Protestancy reduced to Fancy only CHAP. XII Protestants for want of rational Motives cannot convert an Infidel to Christian Faith 1. IT hath often occurred to me If by a supposed They have no way to Convince a Heathen impossibility Schoolmen sometimes Argue so and profitably Popish Religion were utterly extinguished or the Proofs thereof quite rased out of all mens Memory yet that Protestants with all they can in justice lay claim to touching Religion should still stand in the world as now They do This Thought I say hath more then once seized on me Viz. How mean how poor how destitute and naked a Thing Protestancy would appear to be in the Eyes of either Iew or learned Heathen Philosopher For all it hath if yet it have so much is a borrowed Bible from others But no Miracles no undobted Marks of Truth no certain Tradition no Succession of Ancient Bishops no Pastors no Doctors In fine no Rational Motives if this Supposition stand can inable these new Owners of the Bible to say with Assurance This Book is Gods own Word and in This or this Sense God speaks by it 2. To clear the matter further Imagin That a learned Philosopher no Christian curious to learn A short Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Protestant what Christian Religion is as we now Suppose it only among Protestants and other Sectaries should for better satisfaction Address himself to so wise a man as Mr. Poole who I suppose will tell the Heathen That God is to be Adored in a certain Religion The Philosopher will Answer I doe so For my Religion is to follow Principles of nature to live a moral Life to submit to the Government I am under to do as I would be done by And here is All. O saith Mr. Poole Sr you have yet greater matters to look after you must believe in Christ if you will be saved Who was this Christ Demand's the Philosopher Poole He is God and Man born of a Virgin and one that manifested himself by a most Holy Life wrought many Miracles Dyed for us all Arose from Death to Life and afterward Ascended to Heaven Phil. A strange Story indeed But can you make the Story credible to my Reason Poole O Sr it is undoubted For this and much more is writ in a Holy Book we call Scripture And you are bound to believe it Phil. In a Book called Scripture Here is no Reason for I ask upon what Motive can you make All that is writ in this Book credible to me And here because I shall instantly press the point farther my Demand only is From Whom you received Scripture and how long since it came to your hands We had it saith Mr. Poole about a hundred When and from whom Sectaries had their Bible years agon partly from men that now are suppos'd forgot I think they were called Papists partly from other Haereticks as Arians Graecians of no great Credit for they are contrary to us Phil. And is it possible Dare you admit of this strange and Mysterious Bible upon no stronger proof then the Authority of Haereticks and such beguiled men Answ We do so For we have no better Testimony Phil. What Professors of Christianity had you in the world before your time That taught truely and purely the Doctrin of your Bible Poole For a thousand years at least we know not of any The best I can mention are the later Graecians and yet They highly dissent from us in points very fundamental as I read in Leo Alatius against Hottinger Arcudius and other Authors Phil. Tell me once more Had you no Professors No Pastors no Protestant Bishops of your Protestancy before these last hundred years no Protestant Bishops no Pastors no Doctors that handed unto you this Bible Poole None at all Phil. That is pittiful and makes me suspect your Religion However since these last hundred years have you made any known and notable Conversions upon Infidels by Preaching the Doctrin of your Bible or have you wrought undoubted Miracles in Confirmation of its Truth Answ We must Confess the want of great Conversions and of known Miracles also Phil. Satisfy me yet further in one doubt When you are at variance amongst your selves concerning the difficil passages of this Book which are many No cert Iudge to reconcile differences for I have read it who have you to Reconcile those differences in whose certain judgement do you finally Acquiesce Answ We acknowledge no infallible Teacher no certain Judge on Earth every man gives his private sentiment concerning those difficulties though not infallibly And 't is not in our power to do more Phil. Here can be no unity in Doctrin But No Commission to teach uncertain Doctrin say on I beseech you Tell me who sent you to teach these uncertain Sentiments of your Bible from whom had you Commission to preach such unsetled Doctrin You know that in Civil affaires if one uncommissioned assume to himself the Title of Legate or any Dignity in a Commonwealth he is either Traitor Tyrant or both You call your selves Legates sent from God you assume the Dignity
time any infallible Church on earth even in fundamentals All therfore we have now to Direct us is only the book of Scripture without other Proponent and every mans private Reason Contra. It is Evident That Scripture makes no man infallible both Arians and Others read it and yet grosly err in Points most Essential Deny therfore a Church unerrable in Essentials and say boldly that as Arians have already erred in some Fundamentals so others might before this day have wholy erred and outed both Christ and Creed with every Article of Christian Religion For weak Reason alone is insufficient to Preserve Christianity in its Purity as I have shewed above wherof also more hereafter CHAP. V. A word with some later Sectaries concerning Moral certainty 1. HEre we come to examin the other part of the Objection proposed above n. 5. And thus Mr. Stilling fleet some later men Discours concerning the certainty of Christian Religion They say first and most truely That the ultimate Motive wheron Faith relyes is Gods infallible Testimony with all That none can question the fallibility of this Revealed Testimony when it is Sufficiently proposed and made known to us The only Question therfore is How it comes to be made known or discovered in order to those things Protestants Doctrine about Moral Certainty which are immediatly Revealed They say secondly Moral certainty may be a sufficient foundation For the most firm assent if the matter to be believed be the infallible Truth of a Doctrin upon sutable Evidence Though we have now but Moral Certainty of that Evidence The Assent may yet be firm to such a Doctrin as infallible They say thirdly Moral Certainty may be as great as Mathematical and Physical supposing as little reason to doubt in moral things as to their natures as in Mathematical and Physical as to Theirs Here briefly is their Doctrin Some further Explications of it will perhaps more opportunely have place while we make our Exception against it And 2. My first Exception is These Authors do not sufficiently explain what they would have here understood by Moral certainty wherin there is a great Latitude One Degree of it excludes all Rational doubt Degrees of Moral Certainty And thus we say He who never saw Constantinople may yet upon the indubitable Testimony of so many witnesses who have seen it affirm without fear There is or hath been such a Citty in the world An other Degree of this Certitude reaches not so high As we se in School Opinions Some Philosophers Tell you it is Morally certain That sublunary Bodies as Fire and water are composed of Matter and Form That Accidents are really distinct from Substance and Motion yet now there are some that deny it and hold as they think a contrary Philosophy more Morally certain Therfore when we come to apply this Moral certainty to Disputable matters we do seldom or never agree about it I doubt not but These very men we now treat with will say what They judge God knowes that That part of Protestant Religion wherin it differ's from all Christians is upon Moral Certainty True yet the Rest of the world opposes them and Avouches it hath not so much as one Degree of Probability for it That therfore which is here meant by Moral certitude must if these Authors speak to the purpose be a Certainty wherof no man can Rationally doubt Thus much supposed 3. I say first and by this Assertion you may discover the grand Cheat of these Novellists Christian A grand Cheat of Navellists discover'd Religion as it is fancied and variously Professed by innumerable who go under that name and Notion hath so little of this Great Moral Certainty for it That it is an Haeresy to Allow it a mean Probability Why Arians Pelagians Eutychians Donatists Socinians And all other condemned Haereticks called Themselves Christians and professed some part of Christian Religion truely But had They I beseech you a great Moral Certainty For the other part of their Errours and Haeresies falsly vented by them as Christs Doctrin You wil say No. But they had it for the Fundamentals of Christian Religion wherof no man ever doubted and thus much they Defend upon that Certitude Admit of this as True though I hope Prorestants grant That Arians do deny Fundamental Doctrin What is it to the Purpose to tell us All condemned Haereticks and Protestants These men wave the main Question with them have Moral certainty for one Part of Christian Religion wherof None ever doubted And to give us nothing of this High Certitude for the other Part which is in Controversy and Specifically belongs to Protestants Had these men therfore come home to the Dfficulty They would not have here mispent time in Proving what needs no Proof viz. That the General Doctrin owned by all Christians as is a Belief in one God or of Christ a Redeemer c. Hath at least Moral certainty for it But They should have shewed That Arianism as Arianism or which had been to the Purpose That Protestancy as Protestancy stands so firmly built on High Moral Certainty That None can prudently doubt of Protestants under the general name of Christians perswade Nothing for Protestancy it Now this They fraudulently wave And only put us of with a general word of the Certainty of Christian Religion as if Protestancy hid under that Specious name had safety and Sanctuary enough or as if it were all one to say The part of Christian Faith universally agreed on is certain Ergo Protestancy as Protestancy goes along with it upon equal Certitude Alas This is that which only requires proof and is the thing we Absolutly deny 4. Again And here is my second Exception These Authors cannot apply their Moral certainty to the Faith of any Religion that beares the name of Christian At least it is neither appliable to Catholicks nor Protestants For proof hereof Note first That moral Two Reflections made on Moral Certainty Certainty taken in what Height you please is an Act of the Judicative Power in man subjectively setled in his Mind who hath it And ever falles on a Determinate Object for in Objects à parte rei there is neither Probability nor moral Certainty Every Thing imaginable being either in it self Real and Stable or not independent of any Moral Assertion As is clear For should one say now It is morally certain that there is such a Citty as Rome in the World Rome is or is not independent of what is asserted morally Certain Note secondly Though the greatest Moral certainty Moral Certainty may be False usually excludes a rational doubt in order to what is asserted certain yet in rigour it may be false And Therfore ever implyes some weak Degree of Fear of anxiety and suspicion to the contrary Had any one said a few dayes before the Burning of London little then foreseeing that sad Disaster that That Noble Citty would not in so strange a
is fallible Therfore the Belief founded on it is no better but Moral and fallible Mark well your own Argument 'T is thus 9. The Motives of Credibility for Christian Faith Because only known by Moral Certainty cannot ground a certain Belief of any Churches Infallibility Ergo I say The very Existency of God and his Revelation Because only known by a Moral Certainty cannot ground a firm Belief in God or any Christian Verity unles you say that These Motives for Christian Faith far surpasse in Certainty all the certain knowledge we can have of Gods Existency I know not what these men can answer My thought is They must make Faith a meer Opinion and allow it nothing of Certainty or Supernatural infallibility Though they seemingly speak otherwise as if Moral Certainty might be a sufficient Foundation for the most firm assent Would to God they would declare themselves intelligibly And say plainly whether this firm Assent here mentioned be only of the like Nature with probable firm Opinions taught in Schools Or contrarywise if this firm Assent be Faith whether it doth not Supereminently surpas the Certainty of All other obscure intellectual Operations which Christians now have on Earth This should be explicated but is not 10. Now to the Reply Though an exact Answer An Answer to the Reply cannot be well returned without entring upon an other question the Resolution of Faith which here lyes out of the way and Admit's not in this Place of a full and diligent Examination I say first No obscure intellectual Operation which preced's Divine Faith or is independent of it can arise to those Degrees of Certainty which this Supernatural Act requires Admit then that the Existency of God which is true can be Demonstrated by natural Reason Admit also that those strong Motives for Christian Religion Antecedently known by Humane Discours demonstratively convince the Verity of it yet because Faith as I now sayd Relyes upon a Superiour infallible Principle Gods own unerrable Veracity it far surmont's both these Certainties and much more would it go beyond them were they known as Moral Truths only Why A natural Discours wherby these Vetities are known is Science But no science gives the last or least Degree of intrinsick No Science gives the least Degree of certitude to Faith Certitude to Faith and Therfore Divines say Gods Supream Verity which ever supports Belief upholds it not as known by natural Reason For if it did Faith would be at last resolved into one natural Principle thus I believe God to be the Highest Verity imaginable not Because he saith so But because I know this great Truth Scientifically where you se the last Analysis rest's on an extrinsecal Principle of knowledge with which Faith as Faith meddles not 11. Thus much therfore is clear Although the Motives of Credibility manifest as they do most undoubtedly that God speak's to Christians yet when we bring an Act of Faith by a true Analysis to its Home and Center we find it ever Resting on Gods Veracity only as the last Stay and most certain Motive Notwithstanding Motives to Faith absolutly necessarly the Praeambulatory Motives avail infinitly to Faith Because they indubitably point out that Society of Christians wherin Gods Verities are certainly taught and make this Discernable from all other Haeretical Conventicles In a word They shew Christian Religion to be either evidently Credible or as some later Divines will have it evidently True in Attestante And if this be so the formal Object of Christian Faith is known as it were Scientifically either before or when we Actually Believe which seems grounded on those words of the Apostle Scio cui credidi certus sum I know and then believe certainly 12. At present I wave this Doctrin and say secondly It is one thing to know Scientifically and another Difference betwixt a Certain Belief and a Scientificall knowledge to Believe certainly Both intervene in the matter now handled Faith Prerequires a Science and Moreover essentially includes Certainty Thus it is While one of Prudence ponders those strong and pressing Motives which as Light doth the Sun gloriously evidence true Christian Religion such are Miracles the long continued Consent of Nations Sanctity of life Efficacy in Doctrin the blood sheding of Martyrs c. He knowes What and how these Motives convince that God cannot permit the world to be cheated into errour by them He knowes that his goodnes cannot proclaim as it were and publish to Christians a Religion manifested by such evident convincing Marks and Signs of Truth and afterward Signify a meer nothing It cannot be that God speak's in so powerful a Language and deceives us For who can perswade himself That all the Miracles done by Christ and his Blessed Apostles the eminent Sanctity They showed and admirable Conversion wrought by them open to mens eyes and senses were permitted like Charms to Delude the world Yet this followes if either no Religion answered to these great visible wonders or if such palpable convincing Signs could make a false Religion as Speciously Credible as Gods true Religion is Therfore Rich. de S. Victor lib. 1. de Trin. c. 2. with just Reason Exclaims Si error est quem credidimus à te decepti sumus If it be Errour we Believe it is you O God who have deceived us and He gives this Reason Iis enim signis c. For by such forcible Signs the Doctrin we believe is confirmed which could not proceed from any but from you alone Observe now well Two Judgements may ensue upon the Consideration of these exteriour Iudgements upon these Signs Signs which manifest Christianity The one after this manner God certainly Delivered his Eternal Truths by the Preaching of Christ and his Blessed Apostles who had no other Exteriour Testimony for their Doctrin but Miracles Sanctity Conversions of Nations c. I now see saith this prudent Man as evidently the like Miracles the like Conversions with great Sanctity c. in the Roman Catholick Church If therfore it was Evident that God spoke to the first Christians by the wonderful works of Christ it is as Evident that he Speaks now to me by the Still continued Miracles of this Church This Discours or Judgement wherby he affirms There are These wonders Faith and Science Tend differently God speak's by his Church is not Faith but Science Because it Relyes on Motives which Reason knows evidently enough Now further When He is thus disposed and prepared to Believe by so firm an Evidence The other Judgement of Elicite Faith followes which tend's not into the Evidence of those Motives for if it did so under that Notion it would not be Faith For Faith as Faith totally Relyes on Gods Sole Revelation and for this as the only Formal Object a Christian Believes what ever mystery is Revealed after a due Proposal as is already Declared 13. Some will say The Elicite Act of Faith Scientifically
Such an Assertion though most Morally certain is capable of Falsity For God may have destroyed all those men or given them over to a strange unheard of drowsines That 's no impossibility if it were so Why Because the Assertion only stands upon these Negatives or some like Foundations Never yet was seen such an Effect as this Secundary Causes never yet concurred to so Universal a Sleep or Mortality Here is the best Assurance which can be had and yet it may be false Contrarywise Suppose that God Reveal's to the Imprisoned party this What God Reveales is always most Certain Truth duely proposed All the men of this Citty are not dead His Belief resting on this Revelation is so Certain that no power in Heaven can falsify it Where you see a vast Disparity in order to Infallibility between Faith and Moral certainty The one Difference between Faith and Moral Certainty because of its weak motive may be fals the other strongly upheld by Revelation cannot be falsified Perhaps you will say At least we know not that God speaks to us but only upon Moral certainty Of this more presently Here the Reply is not to the purpose For all we convince now is That Faith if any be in the World must finally Rest on Gods infallible Revelation and consequently That no Motive of Moral certainty hath Strength enough to support it Now by what means it comes at last to be setled in this Center of Gods infallible Veracity is another question Thus it must Rest or as our Adversaries confes loose the Essence of infallible Faith 3. Briefly We shall now make good the other Assertion in the Title and show Though Moral certainty were as it is not a prop strong enough to Protestants Religion hath not Moral Certainty support Christian Religion yet Protestants have no Degree of it for their Pretended Religion I prove this Truth By Protestancy we must either understand those Prudential Motives which induce men to Believe the Specifical and particular Doctrins of Protestants such are Miracles Antiquity great Conversions c. Or rather the very Tenents and Doctrins actually believed by them For example That all Pastors may err in delivering Christian Doctrin That there are two Sacraments only or what else you will If we speak of Motives this Religion is so naked that it cannot shew you so much as one as is largely Demonstrated in the 8. 9. and 10. ensuing Chapters whether to avoyd an unnecessary Repetition the Reader is remitted Waving therfore at present a further Proof hereof I Argue thus against the Moral certainty Protestants Doctrin without Rational inducements of their Doctrin A Doctrin broached without Previous rational Inducements whose very Professors were and are no more but Fallible and which at its first Rise or Appearance in the World seemed a meer Paradox to the far greater part of Christians and yet throughly examined is held still by this far greater number most knowing and learned false and improbable cannot be a Doctrin morally certain Protestancy is thus consestedly fallible and both at its A Conuincing Argument Rise was and is Still Opposed not only by the vast number of Catholicks But by all other Haereticks also as fals and improbable Ergo it is not a Doctrin Morally Certain That a Doctrin so meanly thought of and universally Decryed cannot be thus Certain is proved out of the very Notion of Moral certainty which though not absolutely infallible yet when the Grounds and Motives of it are perfectly known it passeth for an uncontradicted Truth and free 's men from Doubt destructive of such a degree of Certainty Thus we say morally Rome and Constantinople are now Citties in being All the inhabitants of China are not dead These And the like Assertions passe for current Moral Truths without Opposition without Contradiction If therfore Protestant Religion The reason of the Argement were in such a measure Morally certain That vast Multitude of Christians wherof innumerable are Pious Conscientious and Learned could never hold it as they do false and improbable No Verity Morally certain ever mett A Verity Morally Certain was never so long and universally opposed as Protestancy is with such a strong Contradiction If ye say This Opposition ariseth out of Malice ye speak not probably and more justly draw on your selves the like Censure for beginning so strange a Religion If you say again These Learned Men penetrate not too well the Depth of this new Doctrin you talk at random Their Knowledge is not inferiour to Yours what you se they se and perhaps more Charge not therfore Ignorance on them wherof your selves are more likely guilty 4. Yet some Replyes may be here expected One is Protestants have moral Assurance of their Bible Because all say it is Gods Word Ergo they have Assurance Moral Assurance of the Bible is no Assurance of True Religion of their Religion also The Antecedent is bad and the Consequence worse Arians Pelagians and all Haereticks are as morally assured of their Bible as any Protestant Have they I pray you as great Certainty of those pestilent Haeresies proved as they think out of the Bible You say no Because they Interpret amis and you do not Learnedly answered But who makes your Interpretation better then Theirs They have that Book and spend their private Judgement on it you have no more Unles therfore your Book or Judgement be better then Theirs You are Altogether as uncertain of your particular Doctrins as They of Theirs The Reason is Because Protestant Glosses no more Scripture then the Glosses of Arians you have not one Sole Expres Text of Scripture for Protestancy You may add your own Glosses and make it speak Protestancy But these Glosses are no more Scripture nor more morally certain then Those of Arians Pelagians c. Therfore a moral Assurance of the Bible which is easily abused gives no man moral certainty of sound Doctrin But of this subject hereafter 5. A second Objection As what is Fals may be by errour judged Morally certain so often what is True may not be held Morally certain Therfore though Protestancy want's that High Moral certainty now required yet it may be True I answer But if it want Moral certainty it hath it not which is all we prove at present Again Though it may be true which is impossible so also it may be fals Now Protestants I hope do not believe a meer Possibility Sectaries can not believe the actual Truth of Protestancy only nor the May be of Truth for many Things are not which may be but they Believe more the Actual supposed Truth of Protestancy And this they cannot do without Moral Certainty of that which they hold Actually true 6. A third Objection and 'T is more to the purpose Our Argument now proposed proves too much and Therfore proves nothing For its best Force lyes in this one Assertion viz. That a Doctrin or Religion which is
Austin Learnedly Consider's lib. 22. Civitat Cap. 5. Chiefly at those words St. Austins Discourse Si rem credibilem crediderunt If men saith he Believed a thing credible he speaks of the Resurrection of the dead and the like is of any other Mystery in Faith videant quam sint stolidi se what fools Those are who will not believe Si autem res incredibilis est If the thing be incredible This is most incredible yea and the strangest miracle of all that That which was deem'd Incredible gained Belief the whole World over The Argument is convincing and proves as well that those after Conversions wrought upon Infidels by Roman Evangelical Preachers were Admirable and truely Miraculous Millions have been converted by them These numerous multitudes therfore of Believers were either drawn on by fooleries If so Fooleries could not induce Millions to contemn the world and become good Christians They were mad And here lyes the Miracles saith St. Austin Viz. That Fooleries could induce so many to Contemn the World and become good Christians Or Contrarywise They believed this Roman Catholick Church upon weighty rational Motives If so Why are not our Protestants obliged to believe as they did upon the same prudent Inducements If They Tell us The Church Taught an other Doctrin when these great Conversions were made then it Teaches now They do not only most unlearnedly Suppose what is to be Proved yea cannot be proved because utterly false But also speak not one Word to the Purpose For both our Progenitors in England and innumerable others were drawn from Error by Popish Preachers And even in this present Age the like glorious Conversions are and have been wrought by these Blessed mens Labours Why these Conversions are to be esteemed Miraculous and Theirs only Now if you ask upon what Account such Conversions are to be esteemed Miraculous This one Instance answers you Imagin you saw a little Flock of Sheep or Lambs sent into a Desert full of ravenous Wolves withall That these Lambs though at first many were devoured yet at length render'd the Wolves so Tame and so abated their Rage that they became like Lambs mild and submissive Would you not say that such a work were prodigious and above the force of nature This is our very case Behold saith our Saviour Luc. 10. I send you as Lambs amongst Wolves And these you must subdue It was done Behold saith the Roman Catholick Church I send my Preachers still abroad to the Remotest parts of the World and have changed Wolves into Lambs That is I have made Infidels once Rebellious to Christ Subject to his lawes the Vitious I have made Virtuous and brought thousands of them to no other Religion but Popery This work with the Assistance of Gods Grace is done Et est mirabile in oculis nostris and 't is admirable Had our Protestants made such Changes or drawn so many Infidels to their new Faith they would have talked of wonders But because Catholicks Why Protestants flight Miracles and Conversions gained them to the old Religion all is Nothing So it is They have no Miracles and therfore Slight them No Conversions and thersore undervalue them A Strange proceeding Those very wonders which induced the world to become Christian Because they yet eminently appear in the Roman Catholick Church must ly under Contempt Those Ancient Proofs of Christianity are now proofles Those Primitive Evidences of Miracles Conversions c. the Church is in fault for shewing them cannot be seen by these later Men who yet have Eyes to discern the Book of Scripture by its own Light and Majesty And by the way mark the Paradox The exteriour words of a Bible for of these A Paradox of Sectaries we only speak are Evidences enough for Scripture yet those glorious works now mentioned are forsooth no Evidence of this Church The very Majesty of the style Ascertain's these men that God Speak's by that Sacred Book yet all the perceptible miraculous Majesty which the Church shewes us cannot perswade them that he speaks by this visible audible and most known Oracle of Truth A Bible well known its true upon other Grounds to be most Sacred discouers its Divinity and immediatly proves who writ it Yet a Church so gloriously marked sayes nothing who Directs it Is this Reason or Religion think ye Can Reason produce this unreasonable Thought in any That the wise Providence of God hath permitted so eminent so numerous so pious so learned and so long standing a Multitude of Christians as Catholicks have been and yet are to be Cheated into Errour even whilst they evidence their Faith by such Proofs and Motives as Christ and his Apostles manifested Christian Religion What Shall we think that Miracles Conversions of Souls casting out of Devils Sanctity of life c. which were once convincing Arguments of Christianity are now showed to countenance a Falsity To judge so is the most improbable Sectaries judge improbably Thought that ever entred a Christians Hart yea and impossible unles we hold that God can leave of to be Goodnes it self or make Falshood more apparently evident then Truth the whole World over which is proved to be a gross errour 8. Other Arguments we have for a greater Certainty then moral previously Evidencing the Roman Catholick Religion before we Believe wherof more in the next Chapter It is now sufficient to say That our Protestants grant thus much First because Protestants grant Evidence of Credibility to the Roman Catholick Religion the more learned of them allow Salvation to those who live and dye in this Faith But most sure it is That Saving Faith hath at least moral Evidence and Certainty for it 2. Whilst They talk of no man knowes what Evidence manifesting Christian Religion in General They only plead for our Catholick Faith and speak not a word in behalf of Protestancy The Reason is If both these Religions are not True Motives Evidencing true Religion inseparably follow that but the One only The Motives which Evidence true Religion inseparably follow That and cannot belong as I have already proved to the Other which is false Therfore They or We are obliged to show them But Protestancy cannot show so much as one prudent Motive for it self as will most clearly appear in the 10. Chapter Ergo what Evidence there is for true Christian Faith Catholicks have it or there is none in the World for any Religion CHAP. IX A short Digression concerning the Shufling of Protestants in this matter 1. HEre I cannot but reflect on the slight endeavours of some later Sectaries who offer at Mr. Stillingfleets weak endeavours Much in an Empty Title called The Protestants way of resolving Faith yet in prosecuting the matter They handle it so unluckily that no man Hear 's a word more spoken in behalf of Protestanism then of Arianism or of what ever other Haeresy Motives and Reasons they give none for Protestant
They name not the guilty Persons that Extend the Vnion of the Church beyond its Foundations Are they Catholicks who Believe all that God Reveal's and is declared by the Church to be Revealed Or Sectaries That have neither Church nor Scripture for any Article of their Protestancy 3. If they Hold themselves to be the Preservers of the Churches Vnity They must prove it by strong Principles And first shew Positively by Scripture That they have just so much as is Necessary and sufficient to Saluation Before Sectaries who have neither Church nor Scripture for one word of Protestancy Most unreasonably pretend to be the Preservers of the Churches Vnity they make us Guilty of any Breach of the Churches Vnity This will be a hard Task For if they say We Break the Churches Vnity in believing a Sacrifice a Purgatory c. They are obliged to prove and by plain Scripture That either their contrary Negatives are to be Believed or That neither our Positives nor their Negatives merit an Act of Faith which is Impossible For What Scripture saith we are neither to Believe a Sacrifice nor the Contrary 5. In the next place they come to Solve the Enigma to explicate the main Subject of the present Dispute And 't is to Tell us what those Things are Their own saying is the only Proof which ought to be Owned by all Christian Societies as Necessary to Saluation on which the Being of the Catholick Church Depend's Happy were they could they Unridle the Mystery Protestants cannot Shew what things are Necessary And say what Things are thus Necessary But our Author still run's on in Generals and Determin's nothing Be pleased to hear his Resolution 6. Nothing ought to be owned as necessary to Saluation by Christian Societies But such things which by the Iudgement of all those Societies are Antecedently necessary to the Being of the Catholick Church No man I think knows to what that word Antecedently relates nor can this Author make sense of it One may Guess what he would be at He will Perhaps Say When all Christian They fall upon impossibilities Societies stand firmly united in one Iudgement concerning the Being and the Essentials of a Church then we are right in These Essentials Answ But this was never yet seen nor will be seen as is more largely declared Chap. 2. n. 1. whither I remit the Reader for further Satisfaction He Adds two Things more One is There cannot be any Reason given why any Thing els should be judged Necessary to the Churches Communion He means Who is to Iudge him that sayes He Dissents not in Necessary Articles of Faith But what all those Churches who do not manifestly Dissent from the Catholick Church of the first Ages are agreed in as Necessary to be Believed by all My God! What Confusion Have we here Where is the Protestant that can Assure us without Protestants cannot shew what the Primitive Church believed Dispute what the Catholick Church of the first Ages positively Believed and positively Rejected Could this one Point be clear'd without Endles Debate A better Vnion might be Hoped for But herein both We and Sectaries Dissent as is Proved above Therfore by No Appealing to the primitive Church without the Tradition of the present Church their Appealing to the Ancient Church whilst They Abstract from the Tradition of a present Catholick Church They go about to Prove Ignotum per ignotius And convince nothing 7. They Add a second Consideration which may be reflected on Ad perpetuam rei memoriam And 't is to Memorable Doctrin this Sense After Their Telling us That in Case of great Divisions in the Christian World any National Church may Reform it self as is Supposed England Men uncertain in all They say take on to Teach wherin Faith is abused Hath don and Declare its Sense of those Abuses in Articles of Religion yea and Require of Men a Subscription against those Abuses c. They go on We are to consider that there is a great Difference between the Owning some Propositions in order to Peace and the Believing of them as Necessary to Salvation Now Mark what Followes No Orthodox Church Ever excepted against our Church Doctrin The Church of Rome Imposeth new Articles of Faith to be believed A most unproved Assertion which Articles are excepted against by other Churches name the Orthodox Church that ever excepted against them it cannot be don But the Church of England makes no Articles of Faith Mark the Doctrin But such as have the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and are acknowledged to be such by Rome it self and in other things she requires Subscription to Protestant Religion reduc'd to Inferiour Truths them Not as ARTICLES of Faith but as inferiour Truths which she expects Submission to in order to Her peace and tranquillity And thus much the late Primate of Ireland expresseth to be the Sense of the Church of England as to her thirtynine Articles 8. Be it known to all men by These Presents That the Church of England so far as it maintains these The English Church consisting of Negatives is no Church Negatiue Protestant Articles of No Sacrifice No Real Presence No Purgatory is here confessedly owned to have no Articles of Faith Revealed by Almighty God And therfore so far 'T is neither any Christian or Catholick Church Because these Negatives the very marrow of Protestancy are now Degraded And Thrown down from their Ancient Height of Articles to the low Rank of a few Humble and inferiour Truths 9. But let us go on Who Assures you Sir of Inferiour Truths are none of Gods Truths Their being Truths at all God you say that Reveal's nothing but most Supream Truths Own 's none of Them No Orthodox Church no Ancient Council no Vnanimous Consent of Fathers no nor your own Synods in England Though without Proof They Suppose them to be Truths ever yet Defined them as you Two yong Popes do Doctor Bramhal and your Self to be Truths of an Inferiour Rank and Order Be it how you will I am sure the Declaration before these Articles says they are Articles of Religion These Authors clash with the 39. Articles and contain the true Doctrin of the Church of England Agreable to Gods Word If so Gods Word is Agreable to these Articles and Proves them Again Some of your own Coat and perhaps as Learned as you Call them Articles of Faith Certainly they These Negatives of the 39. Articles are neither Articles of Faith nor Inferiour Truths are none of our Faith Ergo they are yours or no Bodies Vpon whom then shall we Rely for the last Definition I 'll tell you Both the Assertions of their being either Articles of Faith or Inferiour Truths stand tottering without Proof or Principle upon the sole Fancy of those who say so 10. 3. If these Dull Negatives be only Voted for
Harts And Tell us They have Done what is possible to Convert us to Drive us from Superstition Sectaries cannot say to what they would convert us And Draw us to the Purity of Their New Gospel They only give Words without Substance For to What would they Convert us Will They have us Believe the General Received Doctrin of all Christians We were Converted to this before Protestants Appeared in the World Do they desire to Convert us to a Belief of their New Negatives These are at most uncertain Inferiour Truths no way Essential to Christian Religion Put Our positive Doctrin weighed with Sectaries Negatives the case by a supposed Impossibility that our Contrary Positives were only Inferiour Truths like Protestants Negatives They might notwithstanding most justly hang in the Ballance with Them and would certainly outweigh Them Because a more Ample and Vniversal Church own 's Them All therfore They can Drive at when They Pretend to convert us is That We carry They only careser the exteriour form of Protestancy about Vs The Exteriour form of Protestancy in our Demeanour Though we still remain Catholicks in Hart They care not That is as I said now They would Convert us to be plain Hypocrits 19. From this and the precedent Discours it follows A Fallible Religion cannot defend it self That whosoever Embraceth a Fallible Religion which may be Fals can neither Defend his own nor impugn another upon any grounded Principle much less can He Persecute his Adversary to Death or Imprisonment Though He Nor the Professors of it persecute others mantain's a contrary Religion in like manner Fallible The Reason hereof is Clear Because The Defense of a Religion That 's Fallible And the opposition made against another Answerably weak and Fallible cannot go beyond the Strength The Reason is Evident of that last Ground wheron the Defense or Impugnation ultimatly resolved have their Footing But if the Religion be Fallible and uncertain The last Ground wheron the whole Machin either of Proof or Opposition stand's must needs be A Distastful opinative Conjecture Which without Certitude or Satisfaction is as A Defender of a Fallible Religion cannot preserve himself from Scorn unfit and forceles to Convince another of a contrary Belief as to preserve it self from the Scorn and Contempt of him though he profess no more but a Faith that 's Fallible Put the Case That a Pelagian and a Protestant are hard at a hot Dispute The Question proposed is Whether of these two Religions we suppose them both Fallible is the better With what Proof or Principle can this Fallible Protestant Assault his Fallible Adversary when He knows he cannot go one Step further then to what is purely Fallible If he interpret Scripture that 's Fallible if he Quote Fathers both They and He are Fallible if He cite Councils the Definitions with him are Fallible if He cry up his own Religion as having the Vpperhand in Probability He only throws his single vote into the Vrâ— which when 't is examined comes to no more But his Own Sic videtur or Self Fallible He can neither convince his Adversary nor persecute him but most unjustly Conceipt And Hence it follows That as He cannot Prove his Religion against his Adversary so He cannot but must unjustly Persecute him if he Refuse to Embrace that which cannot be Proved But most certainly his Proofs go not beyond the Bounds of Vncertainty and Therfore cannot oblige his Adversary to Believe him And Thus these two Combatants may wink and fight to the day of Iudgement without ending one Controversy or falling on any Thing like a certain Principle 20. I 'll say here a strange Word And think it very True Would A Learned Atheist write a large Volume An Atheist might say as much against God as against the Existency of God or A Learned Iew against Iesus Christ They might prove as much by a Roving fallible Talk Grounded on no Principles against These great Verities of Christian Faith as ever Protestant hath yet Proved against the Roman Catholick Church Protestants can say against the Roman Catholick Church For Their new Mode of writing is a long loos wearisom Discours without Reducing either Proof for their own Religion or Opposition made against Catholick Doctrin to Any Thing like a received Principle Mark this in all particular Controversies you will find meer uncertain Conjectures to be the last ground wheron either Their Proofs or Arguments Against us stand most unsetled Yet it should be Otherwise For whoever will venture to impugn a Religion That 's Held by the greatest part of Christians Infallible must strike Home and Reach to sound Principles Before He Touch it much less break it a Pieces Sectaries may say They are able at least to Defend Christian Religion in General owned Their Defense of Christian Religion in in general is to no purpose by all the World For the rest of Protestancy it may go whether you will Nec seritur nec metitur They are not solicitous My God are we come to this Pass now What must all the Disturbance of Sectaries their Schism and Rebellion made Against a Church their Glosses on Scripture And the whole Machin of Protestancy End thus in a Non Probatur it cannot be proved Is that only now asserted Defensible to wit the common Doctrin of all Christians That precisely taken is no mans Religion And Needs no Defense 21. Some other Objections yet remain But are all Solved upon the Principles now established One is If every Doctrin Defined by the Church be Fundamental the Church layes its own Foundations Contra There was Fundamental Faith in the Church before Scripture was writ Did Scripture Therfore lay New Foundations of Scripture Declared anew the Antecedent believed Doctrin of the Church Faith Because it Declared anew that Antecedent owned Doctrin Thus we Say the Church Declares the Ancient objective Faith of foregoing Christians ever implicitly at least Believed And not otherwise A second Objection less to the Purpose The Teaching Church either Believes in that Instant Sht Defines a thing Necessary to Saluation or doth not If She doth It was Necessary before the Definition newly made If not She Defines something Necessary to Saluation which was not before Necessary To answer the Objection I might ask whether St. Iohn when he writ this Proposition The Word is made Flesh Believed that Article of Christian Faith before he writ it or no If yes it was of Necessity to be Believed before If not He delivered something Necessary to Saluation which was not so before In one short Word Here is the solution to No Real Difficulty The Church at least Implicitly Believed before what The Church Believ's Implicitly before She Defines but more Explicitly after for her own Definition it Defines yet may and doth more Explicitly Believe the same Mystery in that very Instant She Defines Because God Speak's that Truth more clearly
To you or to me Mr. Poole But to All Rational men who know what Evidence is An now we need not go to School and learn That For nature with a little Logick Teaches sufficiently what Evidence is This Evidence Therfore drawn out in a close continued Arguing in Form will Do the Deed and Show whether we are Foyled or you Fight Vnluckily Vnles This way be taken to The loos and uncluding way of Arguing in Sectaries is most insipid and Blamable whilst you run on in a loos Vnconcluding Talk And Own No Infallible Iudge to Decide between us We may stay till Dooms day which is pittiful And End our Lives Before we end so much as one Controversy Study Therfore well For this Propositio quiescens which by the Evidence of its own Light Apparent to all makes us to Yeild up the Cause If you can do this you are Gallant men if not Know That your Shism is Evident This is the burden of the Song But the Pretended cause of it laid on us lyes yet in Darknes Vnevidenced And Therfore is Vnjustifiable 9. What will you say if a new Zelote of Our English Schism Argues Thus Most surely Protestants wise and learned men cannot All so numerous as They are Be Supposed to have made a Bustle in the World about Nothing They cannot be Supposed to have left an Ancient Church But upon the Sight of great Difficulties which frighted many and Finally withdrew Them from Holding Communion with it longer I shall Answer the Objection largely Hereafter Now I only Say When a Rebellion is manifest and Decryed A known Rebellion in Kingdom Or a clear Schism in the Church Cannot be Iustifyed by The Authors or Abbettors by all Indifferent and Vnconcerned men The sole Authority of Those who Began it can never make it Iustifiable The Case is clear in Civil Affairs For example In that ungodly Rebellion raised in England Against our lawful Sovereign as also in Ecclesiastical Witnes the Arians Schism Against the Church These Partisans Authority alone it is well known was Too Weak and Insufficient to Iustify either of these impious Facts 10. To that Talk of a Sight of difficulties I Answer He who for seeming Difficulties will leave an Ancient Church Whoever leaves an Ancient Church for seeming difficulties may as Easily Relinquish all Christian Religion Shall at last be forced to Abandon all Christian Religion which certainly hath its Difficulties And are there none Think you against our Protestants Novelties I say therfore supposing we once Digest the hard Mysteries of Christian Faith common to us all So Few So Slight so Vnvaluable are the Difficulties Against our Church That when One seriously Reflects on this Churches long Continuance on the several Councils convened in it on the different Judgements of learned men on the various Dispositions of People and Nations which make it up c. All apt enough according to nature to breed Endles Dissensions He must say if a spark of It is a special Providence That Difficulties are no Greater in the Church Reason live in him Digitus Dei est hic The work of God and a Special Providence over his Church Appears in this alone That Difficulties are no more nor greater in so long standing a Moral Body Than those slight ones are which causelesly Affright our Adversaries Do not then I say Desert Christian Religion Totally upon the Account of those difficil Mysteries it Teaches You can never in prudence Relinquish this Ancient Church For Pretended Contradictions in Councils for supposed Superstructurs Innovations and such like Trifles which Though stumbling Blocks to Sectaries are no sooner look't on then removed And put away By Most Satisfactory Answers CHAP. X. The Roman Catholick Church whilst Evidence comes not Against it Stands Firm Vpon Its Ancient Possessed Right This long Possession Proves the Church Orthodox 1. SOme perhaps may Object against the former Discours We Catholicks do not so clearly An Objection Acquit our selves of Errour Nor consequently of the Charge in being Cause of Protestants Scbism as we Rigourously Exact of them to have these Errours laid evidently Forth against us For if One should Ask How we Prove our Church to be free from Errour and this clearly Or That by our Errours we Occasioned not Protestants Separation from us what shall we say I Answer Though we have Demonstrations for the Truth of our Religion supposing Christ once Established a Church in the World And Can shew This Truth by a close Order of Arguing in Right Form Yea And we will Do it when Sectaries have Satisfyed our Difficulties Yet to Solve This present Argument We are not Obliged by the Law of Disputation to Prove any Thing Nor To do more Then only to Stand upon our Guard and Defense The Reason is Our Protestants are here the Actours the Aggressors Protestants because Aggressors are obliged to prove their charge 'T is Therfore Their Task to Prove ours only to Defend which is Easy if you Mark How strangely in Vain They make Their Attempts Against us Observe it After our Church had stood a Thousand years and more in the quiet Possession of Truth They Accuse it of Their weak Attempts Errour After so many Thousands of Learned and Virtuous men that lived Holily And Dyed Happily in it Yes And Had Eyes as Quick Iudgements as Deep and Wills as good to Find out These Errours Had any been As the best of Sectaries yet found none They forsooth Espy Them After The Churches Purity and Innocency This Church had its Purity and Innocency Signed and Sealed by the blood of innumerable Martyrs Evidenced by undoubted Miracles Manifested by so many Glorious Conversions wrought on Aliens Drawn to Christ And Finally Demonstratively Proved by All Those Illustrious Marks of Truth wherof we Treated Above Our Protestants Rise up And Calumniate This great Society of Christians Lay a foul Aspersion of Heresy on it Are not They Think ye as Actors Obliged in Justice to make Their Charge good Against us By Evident Proofs And are not We Proved by a long Possession Exempted from all Further Obligation of Pleading Then only to stand upon our Ancient Blamles And Quiet Possession Believe it This OLIM POSSIDEO PRIOR POSSIDEO is Warrant sufficient And our Wall of Defense against such weak Aggressors And yet we Strengthen our Hold with Canon Proof it is Evident Reason also Nemo praesumitur malus nisi probetur No Man upon vain And Evident Reason also Presumption ought to be accounted Naught unles Reason Prove him a Delinquent 2. For Example Give me a Loyal Subject That hath Don wonders and great Service for his Prince An Instance That hath Enlarged His Kingdom Gained Him Friends Defeated His Enemies And yet is Struggling to Do him More Service Whose Repute was never Stained nor Fame Blemished c. Suppose now That a little Knot of unknown Men should Offer at some Small or Vnconsiderable
subscribe to Popery Se The Roman Catholick Church Opposed all known Sectaries And us Orthodox Society ever opposed it A manifest Proof of Truth The Marks of Truth more manifest in the Roman Catholick Church then in any other Society Could not be permitted by God to cheat the world Discours 1. c. 7. and chap. 9. n. 10. 8. 4. A Church which Opposed All the Sectaries in the World since Christianity Began And was never Opposed by any Author of credit or Orthodox Society of Christians But only by Known Condemned Hereticks most Evidently Professeth True Religion The Roman Church only hath Age after Age made this Opposition against Sectaries and never was Opposed by any But known Hereticks This is an Vndeniable Proof for the Truth it Mantains Disc 1. c. 7. n. 5. 9. 5. A Religion which hath Had in all Ages most Indubitably more Illustrious marks and signs of Truth Accompanying it Then all the other Sects in the World put Together Either ought to be Owned for Christs Sole and Pure Religion or We must say That God can make a Fals Heretical Sect more Credible Clear and Evident to Reason by Signs of Truth and Sanctity Then his True Orthodox Religion is Reflect seriously Can We Think that Miracles Conversions of souls Casting out of Devils Great Austerity of life Efficacy of Doctrin c. Once convincing Arguments of Truth in the first Ages are now Shewed us in the Roman Catholick Church to favor such Errours as Sectaries impute to it or to Countenance any thing like Antichristian Doctrin To judge so is an Improbable Paradox And here you have an Other most evident Proof and Principle For the Truth of Catholick Religion Disc 1. c. 7. n. 8. 10. 6. A Church which hath manifestly Don great Service The Evident Service don for God by the Roman Catholick Church Without Note of Dishonor put on it by any Orthodox Society Proves it Pure and Holy A Church Once True is still True for God by defeating his Enemies And gaining him Friends And yet Labours to Do him more Service A Church which never had Note or Mark of Dishonor put on it Censure Private or Publick Issuing from any Vniversal Church is Blameles Pure Holy and Vncorrupt in Doctrin In all The Roman Catholick Society justly Glories which No other Sect called Christian can Do. And 'T is an Vndeniable Proof For its Integrity Disc 3. c. 8. n. 2. 3. 11. 7. A Catholick Church Established by Almighty God And therfore Once True must upon the same Grounds which then Proved it Orthodox ever after be Acknowledged as True Hear my Reasons 1. That infinite wisdom which Founded this Once True Church made it a School not to Teach a Few first Christians Or For a Time only But to Instruct All And for ever The Word of our Lord Remains for ever And It taught not Christians for a time only 〈◊〉 then left of to be true Reasons of the Assertion laid forth this is the Word that is Evangelized among you 1. Pet. 1. v. 25. That Word then which Those Primitive Christians learned yet Remains And is now Taught by the same true and Indeficient Church Founded by Christ 2. The Gifts of God Rom. 11. 29. are without Repentance That is unchangeable What ever Therfore Moved an Infinite Wisdom to make a Church once True or for a time Evidently Shewes that Mercy farther Extended and Continued to the end of the VVorld 3. The Necessity of Having Christians Instructed in Truth Souls are now as Dear to God and as well Provided of means to Attain Salvation as the Primitive Christians were Requires the Continuance of Truth in that Church which Christ first Founded He VVill's All to be saved and come to the knowledge of Truth 1. Tim. 2. 3. If All None at this very Day are Excluded from the Means of learning Christ's Verities Taught only in that Church which He established Grace Remained with this Church Therfore Truth also 4. The consolation of Grace Sectaries say it Permanently Remain's with Christs Church For Ever Therfore Truth also is as Permanent And as Inseparable from it Truth being as Necessary to a Church as Grace is 5. The Rock which is Christ Stand's Immovable and Vnshaken Therfore the true Church Built upon this Rock and Corner-stone 1. Cor. 10. Can no more Fail or fall from Truth Then Christ can leave of to be an Indeficient Verity To say then That God once Founded his true Church upon the Rock Iesus Christ And grant That afterward He Permitted either Men or Devils to Pull it down to Deface it with Errour and fals Doctrin is so Desperate a Paradox That I think no Christian dare Avouch it in such Terms 12. Now mark my Inferences upon These premised Inferences upon the premised Considerations Considerations The Roman Catholick Church was Once the True Church Sectaries Consess it Once it was Built on Christ Once it Taught Christian Verities without Errour Once it was Owned by Christians for Christs School Once it Euangelized the Word of God Purely Therfore if God be yet as favorable unto Souls as He was Anciently If He Subtract not Means from us Necessary to Salvation if his Gifts be unchangeable If his Intention of setling Truth for ever amongst Christians Alter not If He Bless his own Society as well with Truth as with the Consolation of Grace This Catholick Roman Church And no Other Once True Was Is and Shall ever be so for the Future Ecclesia invicta res est They are known words of a great Doctor etsi infernus ipse commoveatur The Church is invincible And continues the same Although Hell it self be moved and Struggle Against it We may Thank Eternally our Blessed Lord for that great Verity registred in the Gospel Portae inferni non praevalebunt adversus eam Vpon No other Church but the Roman Catholick this we Ground our Faith And Therfore you Have here Vndeniable Principles Disc 1. c. 3. n. 2. 3. and Disc 2. c. 9. n. 8. Now if to Weaken these Arguments Sectaries will pretend to another Catholick Church more Ample then the Roman Se them clearly Sectaries cannot probably say when Our Church brought in the Novelties laid to its charge Confuthed Disc 3. c. 1. Per totum 13. 8. A Church or Religion vvhich vvas once confessedly Orthodox And no man can probably say vvhen it ceased to be so Or When it brought in such Visible and Perceptible Novelties as Sectaries charge on it by meer Vnproved Calumnies is Evidently a True Church still The sole Voice of this Ample learned Roman Society Had The Ancient Possession of Truth allowed this Church is a stronger Proof Then Sectaries contrary Cavils Antiquity Owns the Doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church we no more which cryes out against These Fancied Cavils And the Ancient Possession of Truth Allowed it in Foregoing Ages will be Iudged in any Tribunal of the World a more convincing Proof An incomparable
THE PREFACE TO THE READER THe Books are almost innumerable occasion'd by an unhappy Heresy that in the last age infected Germany and after like a Leprosy Overspread the greatest part of our Northen Countries Too many are writ by Those who stile themselves Protestants or of the Reformed Religion not to speak of the Subdivisions as Arminians Brownists Anabaptists or of their Followers which crumble into as many Sects as men Of These we have VVriters who with no little Animosity inveigh bitterly one against an other Yet because Self-interest will have it so All of them closely joyn in a Foul dishonorable League against an Ancient Mother Church That made them and their Progenitors Christians This hath stirr'd up the pen of many a learned man not so much to confute their weak Discourses as positively to Assert Truth which cannot be shaken and to Vndeceive a poor sort of seduced People who easily gain'd by sleek VVords and the Specious Pretenses of some who have told untruth so long that at last they almost Believe it Themselves insensibly fall into errour To Vnbeguile these deluded Souls more I have here cast my Mite also into the Treasury of these learned labours and writ this Treatise VVherin I both lay forth the Evidence of our Roman Catholick Religion upon undoubted Grounds and make it likewise manifest That Protestancy as Reformed which is only a fallible taught Doctrin cannot be Resolved into Gods Infallible Revelation and thersore is no part of Christian Religion But a meer Opinion only Vpheld by Fancy I undertook the small work you here se upon this occasion About a year since so much it was when I writ this Preface A friend sent me a Book with a surly imperious Title The Nullity of the Romish Faith or a blow at the root of the Romish Church By Mr. Matthew Poole printed anno 1666. and only desired me to make a few Observations upon an Appendix by the same Author against a Converted Gentleman Curiosity ledd me on to read the whole book where finding little worth the Answering I laid it aside for two or three months till I was urged again to return some short Answer to the Appendix But while this busines gave me a little entertainment VVe here though at distance Heard a noise of a Rational Account of the Grounds of Protestant Religion c. by Mr. Edward Stillingfleet The book I saw but lately yet some Parcels of his Doctrin found the way to me by several Reports and Letters also VVerupon I laid Mr. Pooles Appendix aside And was longer in this Treatise then I intended or was indeed necessary to Answer the Appendix which yet may have an Answer timely enough By the way as far as sure Principles can Guide one and a few Glances at Mr. Pooles Doctrin will reach to I refute some weak ground 's of His Nullity which is as much as it deserves That of Mr. Stillingfleet Merit 's more I mean a larger Refutation Though to speak Truth it is too tediously long and both sayes very much and very little Much in Generalities and cavilling at our Catholick Faith But little in giving any Account of Protestant Religion as 't is now reformed which yet was the only Thing I sought for but found not in his writings as I have often noted in this Treatise Had I had his book sooner or more time I would have refuted some more chief points in it but I hope Those have it in hand that will bring the Author to a better account for he who first Tell s amiss must count twice before He make a Right reckoning I wave all along as much as may be an unnecessary Repetition of known Authorities drawn from Scripture and Fathers for that were Actum agere and endeavor to ground my Discours upon undoubted Principles And my chief aym is as I novv insinuated to make it evident That Protestancy built upon Fancy stand's tottering vvithout the Support os any acknovvledged Principles and consequently Fall's of it self To speak more plainly VVhen Sectaries go about either to impugn the Roman Catholick Doctrin or to establish their Ovvn They give you nothing that look's like a sure ovvned Principle but quite contrary tire you out vvith long loos Discourses which driven on to the very last at most come to no more but to Guesses only vveak Conjectures and the unproved Thoughts of those vvho make them In a vvord They never fall on Principles nor can make their own Doctrin good upon any better Argument then by only saying It is True or cavilling at ours As if 't were the way for a man to Prove Himfelf honest by saying his neighbour is not so or enough to Establish Their House built upon sand to Assert that ours once certainly setled on a Rock is not Th' ancient building it was but hath been repayr'd and otherwise Adorn'd If all this were true as it is most fals what 's their House the better that 's still upon sand Or their Religion sounder that stand's Vnprincipl'd without Scripture Church or Reason I only say thus much in a Preface and prove it afterward in the following Discourses which I was advised to write in Latin having now more use of That I may thank my long Absence from England for it then is allowed me of our Mother Tongue But sapientibus insipientibus debitor sum I desire to satisfy all and owe as much to the Illiterate of my dear Country as to the Learned and therfore shall Expose this Treatise in plain English for I can speak no better and hope upon that Account to find the Readers easier Pardon If I often Speak improperly or now and then break Priscians head in English Sometimes as the matter requires I am forc'd to make use of words that may seem harsh as Toyes Fancies Trifles not worth the Ansvvering c. But 't is impossible for me to use other language if I 'll call things by their right names and give the vvorld to understand vvhat they are Smoother termes would look like Mockery whilst Sectaries use harsher rather then Civility Believe what you will I Profess seriously all I say is without Passion or Design to reflect Personally upon our Adversaries whom I pitty and pray for having no intention to reproach them but to Reprove Heresy To rail at any but to convince by Reason But I keep you too long at the Door open and read without Prejudice and if you be not satisfied with what I write of Charity give me timely notice for my dayes are almost Don. In the other world I can make no Answer but to Almighty God for the sincerity of my undertaking wherby if any one soule reap benefit I have enough if none do so my comfort is that He who knowes my good intention will be my ample Recompence though infinitly above my desert Farewel A NECESSARY ADVERTISEMENT FOR THE READER 1. MAy it pleas Any one to read this Treatise And either seek to profit by it
or vouchsafe to return an Answer He will I hope after a general thought cast on what I intend to prove in the ensuing Discourses take particular Notice also of a few Notes here set down which may perhaps conduce to His better satisfaction 2. Concerning the first We need not to say much My Intent is Chiefly to prove These four Things 1. That Sectaries are Churchles because They acknowledge no infallible Church on earth Yet there are Infallible Teachers and consequently an infallible Church as is Demonstrated in the first Discours 2. That They are as Scriptureles as Churchles and have not one syllable of Gods Word for Protestancy Therfore we treat in the second Discours of Their mangling and misinterpreting Scripture 3. That Their Proceeding is most Vnreasonable in some chief controversies handled in the third Discours 4. We prove in the fourth Discours the Roman Catholick Church to be the only true Church of Christ And there also lay Forth the improbability of Protestant Religion All this is Don to make good what the Title briefly expresses Viz Protestancy is vvithout Principles of Scripture Church and Reason Now a word of what I would have you to Note 3. It is truly lamentable to se how controversies in these our dayes are driven on to nothing but to endles quarrels There is certainly some cause of so long a work which might methinks be brought to a period with less Adoe And what is it think ye Is it because Christs true Religion cannot be made evidently credible to Reason No certainly For that Religion which hath stood invincible in the heat of so many persecutions which hath converted whole Kingdoms and Nations and drawn Millions of souls to it must necessarily appear most evidently Credible to all rational men Is it because a fals Religion cannot be Argued of Falshood No. It is as easy to convince an erroneous Sect of errour as to prove true Religion to be true And Hence I say it is impossible to conceive any Thing like Religion that can neither be Proved evidently credible or manifestly Argued of Falshood The Reason is Because the evident Credibility of true Religion if one only be true in the VVorld takes off from the fals Religion all Prudent credibility and leaves it uttely destitute of Motives founding credibility In a word The euident credibility of Truth makes Falshood highly improbable VVhence I inferr If true Religion be made thus manifestly credible by Almighty God Rational Proofs cannot fail to countenance that which He will have manifestly known Contrarywise such proofs must of necessity be wanting to a fals Religion which God will have to appear both evidently Incredible and Improbable to prudent Reason The Catholick therfore that hold's his Religion at least evidently Credible before He believes and certainly true by his Act of Faith cannot but have Proofs at hand which Do not only clearly evidence the undoubted Credibility of it but also Dash and Discountenance what ever can be said in the Defence of a contrary Errour On the other side The Sectary must of necessity want such grounded Proofs And consequently whether he Defend's his own or impugn's the true Religion All He saith will end at last in meer Cavils and wordy Fallacies You have the Reason Hereof more largely laid forth Disc 1. C. 8. Because God cannot permit in the Presence as it were of his true Religion a fals Sect to appear so much as slightly Probable which ever is and must be inferiour to Truth or rather nothing in the lustre and evidence of Credibility Which is to say in other Terms An Erroneous Sect cannot he made at all Credible to Reason 4. What then is the Reason when the Catholick both supposeth and proves His Religion to be only true and Orthodox that These strifes go endlesly on between us and a few Protestants Scarce any Book though never so solid and learned is set forth by an English Catholick but presently a Thing called an Answer sallies out against it Exceptions are made by Sectaries This They say Proves not That Displeases c. In a word if we believe them All is Answered when God knowes A prudent Reader see 's the main Difficulties waved And very often finds the very state of the Question gtosly mistaken I 'll say my thought freely and humbly submit all I say to the prudent Censure of every learned Catholick As long as Sectaries without a just and rational Reproof it 's all vve can Do are permitted to continue still the strain of writing they constantly follow which is to entertain the Reader with tedious Discourses in general of Christian Religion when Protestancy is that which should be Proved with meer conjectures bare negative Arguments And unproved Propositions with their own forced and violent interpretations when an Authority urgeth In a word with their Guesses and unworthy Cavils seasoned with jeers when nothing els will Doe c. whilst this is Don The close way of Arguing is laid aside They may talk on to the worlds end without fruit to Any but to the Printer only that gains money by their Books You will ask wat Remedy Against this proceding An old Answer sayes much It is When they go about either to prove their own Novelties or to impugn our Catholick Doctrin That we keep them from wandring to far from home and Hold them close to Proofs and Principles these are the Shollers lawes our Rules and Canons Do this and you 'l soon se their long Discourses Shrunk up to little Their large volumes brought to a few sheets of paper Now if they refuse to stand to Principles we must leave them to Fancy And show how they both Disgrace their cause and themselves also 5. By this word Principle or Principles I understand in our present matter a strong rational satisfactory Intellectual light that prudently forceth Reason to acquiesce in a Verity proposed whether it arise from solid grounds of Reason or from great Authority matters little so it be prudently Persvvasive and forceably work on a well disposed understanding Iudges Decide by some measure of it in their equitable Sentences And Schoolmen should not want it in their Opinions But much more is requisite when we speak of Religion wheron salvation Depend's For here a far greater light a better Assurance Surmounting meer Probability is nenessary which cannot be darkned by Fallacies or weakned by Trivial Fetches You have the ground hereof Declared Disc 1. C. 8. Because God that lead's us in this present state to the knowledge of His Revealed Truths not by Enthusiasms or private Illustrations but by prudent inducements suitable to Reason always makes his true Religion so manifest by undubitable Signs Marks and Characters that not only the learned but the more ignorant may come if prudence Guide him to a clear Sight of it by certain Principles We may I think proceed as securely by light enough laid out to Reason in this weighty matter as we do in other great
vapour with a few broken fragments I 'll espyed in these Modern Authors and worse applyed without attending to their whole drift antecedent and consequent and think to defeat an Ancient Church with such trivial Doings is so slight a way of schirmishing that it deserves no counterblow but pitty and compassion That incomparable Author of the Protestants Apology learn's them anohter way of arguing whilst he doth not only shew the endles clashing of Sectaries amongst themselves but moreover solidly proves our Catholik Doctrin positively and this by the most satisfactory and undeniable Principles that a lover of Truth can wish for Thus these new men should defend their cause and it is no fault of ours that they trifle it out and do no better We charge enough upon them and could they well acquit themselves they would certainly go more closely to work and answer directly We say and will prove it That that Doctrin which they believe as Protestants contrary to the Roman Catholik Faith is evidently no part of any Christian belief but a meer Opinion grounded on fancy only We say and will prove it that this new Religion of Protestancy hath all the marks and characters of heresy following it which can be thought on not one is wanting for if Arius of old who quited the ancient Roman Church and banded against it was upon that account both schismatick and heretick our Sectaries are in eâdem nave and have done so their cause and case in other matters is the very same 2. As Arius stood all alone at his first rise opposite to the rest of Christians and was opposed by all so were they also both opposite and opposed by all 3. As he began without commission to broach his Novelties against the ancient Faith so are they as wholy uncōmissioned to preach Theirs And here we give them matter enough to work on and conjure them to produce their commission 4. As Arius supported by secular power vented what ever he pleased without curb or any superiour law to check him and therfore fell into desperate Extravagancies so are our new men lawles also and submit to none but their own fancy and self-judgement Finally as Arius without warrant of the Church interpreted Scripture as his own weak reason taught him just so do our Sectaries here only is the difference That he had a plausible sound of Scripture-words for his heresy Protestants have neither sound nor syllable nor sense through the whole Bible for one article of Protestancy as Protestancy This I shall make good hereafter Here is charge enough drawn up against them but by what satisfactory known and received Principles which force reason to acquiesce and we make a search after these they can acquit themselves or rationally answer is a heavy difficulty I 'll tell you in a word and remember it they shall never answer by any thing that hath the look of a rational proof or a received Principle No Their own sole proofles word wheron the whole machin of Protestancy is built upholds what ever they teach They have no more They say 't is true they left the ancient Roman Church because it left it self but yet stick close to the Primitive Doctrin Observe it They are here both Accusers of us and Iudges in their own cause Their proofles word doth all without reducing it to any known or certain owned Principle Not one Council not one Canon no ancient Tradition no consent of Fathers can they produce wherby particular men are lycensed to rise up against an Ancient Mother Church and condemn it of false Doctrin They will tell you that they stood all alone when Luther rose up yet taught forsooth the true Gospel of Iesus Christ and we must believe them Here is the last Propositio quiescens They say so To what we charge against their uncommissioned Authority to preach as they did you have the like uncommissioned answer The Lord sent them abroad and the Truth they taught secures them But of these weak wordy replyes I have said to much in this short Digression Let us now retourn to Mr. Poole And I must say all he hath vented in his Nullity or Appendix against us comes to no more but to a most weak assault of a feeble Adversary for this man who endeavorus to prove that both Church and Councils and what else you can mention are fallible can never assume to himself or tye to any Community he joyns with the Spirit of Infallibility For if the infallibility of the Church of Rome must down down say I also with the infallibility of the Protestant Church of the Grecian Church and of all other societies of Christians With some of these Mr. Poole is listed and therfore I cannot but hold him and his Adherents men of no more then of a fallible Religion Hence I argue Suppose which is utterly false that the Church or all Churches all Councils all Fathers are fallible and that Christian Religion as it is taught by these is likewise fallible Admit also that I were to embrace one of these many fallible Religions which I shall never do will not prudence dictate if I have no other certainty then these meer uncertainties to rely on that it is better to hold where I am and stick to my ancient Religion glorious with innumerable Martyrs Doctors Confessors c. then to give up my Faith to Mr. Pooles post-nate fallible Religion and false discours How therfore can this man so much as once endeavour to draw me or any of my more ancient and universal Religion though supposed fallible to another new one which lyes sick of the same disease totters and reel's as much as mine if not more and in a word is fallible Of two evils the lesse is to be chosen It is an evil without doubt to have no Religion certain yet if I were to choose one of two uncertain Religions and could by no certain Teacher learn which of them is worse being both naught I would either pitch where I list and as my fancy lead's me or rather choose none at all knowing wel that a ruin of all Faith followes the renouncing of certainty in Religion But of this more hereafter In the interim I would know of Mr. Poole whether this strange and unheard of Proposition Christian Religion as it is taught and delivered by all Pastors Doctors c. is fallible be subjectively in him that speak's it an infallible Assertion or fallible If the first we have an English Pope I mean Mr. Poole who without either Scripture Church or Council can speak infallibly in matters of Faith If that formal Proposition be fallible it fall's of it self without further proof to nothing and renders this sense I. M. P. say by a fallible Assertion that Christian Religion is fallible which feeble Assertion and the weaker it is the worse it is for him cannot at all startle me or any who upon the Authority of thousands more learned than he to say no more hold one
Religion and but one only certain and infallible Perhaps he will say that though his Proposition be fallible yet it is highly probable against the pretended Infallibility of the Roman Church no other society of Christians laying claim to infallibility Mark by the way what this Adversary drives at It is to tell the world a word of comfort viz. That Christ Iesus hath now no certain and infallible Religion taught or learned in the whole Christian world And to make this most fallible and false Proposition good he back 's it by another of his own as false and fallible viz. It is at least highly probable that the Church of Rome is fallible Pray you on what leggs doth this high supposed probability stand I 'll tell you it stands only on Mr. Pooles weak thoughts and unwarranted word more you have not For never did any ancient Council or universal Tradition or the unanimous consent of Fathers hold it a thing highly probable that either Christian Religion or the Catholik Church of Rome is fallible Doth the Scripture favour any where this wild Assertion No not one syllable is found to that purpose we have texts enough to the contrary some I shall quote on a fitter occasion You will ask what then is it that Mr. Pooles proves against us in the fourth Chapter of his Nullity I answer just nothing His whole strain is thus After much tampering with those convincing places of holy Scripture usually alledged for the Churches Infallibility and spoiling all with his fallible fancies he goes negatively to work and tell 's us Such and such texts turned out of their genuine sense by his glosses come not home nor prove any Church infallible and it is no wonder for as perverted by him they are none of Gods Scripture but his own scribled whimsies Take here one instance for many that text of S. Paul 1. Tim. 3. 15. where the Church is stiled the pillar and ground of Truth seem's plain enough open and significant for the Catholik sense Now comes Mr. Poole with his glosses page 86. and saith perhaps here may be an Ellipsis of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be writ for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if so Timothy was the pillar not the Church Again The Church here spoken of may be that wherin Timothy was placed not the Roman 3. The term of pillar notes the solidity not the infallibility of the Church 4. It may note the Churches Duty not her practise with a long c. Observe wel Vpon these wretched fallible suppositions Mr. Poole seem's to conclude that those words are unconcluding for the Infallibility of any Christian society Put I ask by what Authority must I suppose his Ellipsis or that the Church spoken of was Timothy's Church not the Vniversal That the term pillar notes not the Infallibility c Doth God speak thus in Scripture or rather doth not Mr. Poole vent these wild Fancies without Scripture or any unquestioned Authority This later is most evident And can he think by such farfetcht glosses either to rob the Apostle of his plain obvious sense or to make me believe that his guesses hit right on Gods true meaning delivered in this text If he reply the meaning may be as he guesses I answer and it may not be as he guesses Who is here to judge between us Who can tell me that Mr. Pools May be is a prop sure enough to build my faith upon He is therfore to show positively by a Propositio quiescens that is by some cogent proof and undoubted Authority that S. Pauls words must be understood as he glosses and consequently is obliged to make good some one of these desperate Propositions Christ Iesus hath now no infallible Religion taught or learned in the Christian world All Christian Societies are fallible That holy and universal Church mentioned in the Creed is fallible c. But to wave such proofs to lay hold on a Text in Scripture and torture it as he pleaseth and after the misusage to tell us the Text proves nothing is only to sport with Gods Word and say that Scripture made no Scripture by whole heaps of fallible glosses is proofles The foundation is good but the superstructure is naught Give me the strongest place in Scripture for any Article of Christian faith I can by pidling at the Text with unevidenced glosses both so pervert and poyson the words that at last they speak haeresy Yet on such unproved conjectures Protestant Religion stands and can never have better footing while Gods unwritten Word is rejected and no infallible Teacher is allowed of that learn's us Truth One word more and I end Had those two Gallants Luther and Calvin when they took upon them to reform the darkned world of Popery thus allarm'd their Hearers My Masters We Preach indeed a new Gospel upon the best conjectures we are able but you must know that all we say is fallible How sick would such a saying have made the strongest stomack amongst them For if fallible if uncertain Doctrin it was none of Christ Iesus Doctrin and therfore stood in need of a more pure refining And how know our Protestants but that yet a new sort of People may start-up and make it their task to reform all the fallible Reformers that have troubled the world since Luthers dayes Had I no other just exception against our Protestants but thus much only That they yet know not where about They are in their reformation and because fallible can never know whether for example the thing they have in hand be yet a meer Embrio of Religion or of a more perfect shape a new layd egg or a hatcht chicken whether they themselves are yet only Novices Proficients or Masters in the trade of Reformation I say were there no more This alone would fright me from ever being Protestant Believe it the Professors of an uncertain and endles reformable Religion shall never come to settlement till they renounce the cheat and Believe as the Apostle teaches ad Gal. 1. 8. Licet nos c. Altough we or Angel from heaven preach otherwise to you then we have preached to you let him be accursed which is fully to say Believe him not And here by the way observe how destructive these words are of an uncertain and fallible teaching in matters of Religion for admit which Mr. Poole grants that all Christian Communities all Councils all Fathers all Tradition c. deliver only Fallible Doctrin that is Doctrin lyable to errour I only may not but am obliged to disbelieve this Truth of S. Paul and believe him or an Angel sent from heaven if either of them preached contrary to this fallible Learning Why Doctrin that is fallible may be false but the preaching of an Angel sent from heaven cannot be false and therfore is more certain then Christian Doctrin that may be false But I am obliged to quit the lesse certain Doctrin for the most certain preaching of an Angel
ergo I must relinquish Christianity if an Angel preach against it The reason is The lesser light yeilds to the greater probability submits to certainty and my fallible though highly probable Assent cannot but yeild to the infallible Assertion of an Angel if he speak contrary to it These few considerations premised we must insist more largely on this subject and demonstrate that there are living and infallible Teachers of Religion in some one Society of Christians or other which is directly opposite to Mr. Poole who holds That no men are so highly priviledged by Almighty God as to have subjective infallibility or to teach infallibly though perhaps they may deliver truth as it were by chance but not infallibly as Teachers I say as Teachers for by what I can learn by Mr. Poole and other Protestants They think all done when they tell us That the objective Doctrin delivered in Scripture is infallible which yet they cannot know without an infallible Teacher and therfore in saying this they speak only fallibly but admit they know so much they are never the better for it unles they joyntly own some Oracle some certain Master who by Divine assistance interpret's Scripture without errour and as exactly convey's into our harts Gods written revealed Verities when any doubt ariseth as if the Apostles taught us These Teachers are they can we find them out that circumscribe our ranging Fancies and put a limit to our swerving Thoughts while we often read and seldom understand those great secrets which God hath layd up in the book of Sctipture without them as we see by too sad experience our weak reason and strong Fancies pervert all and produce monsters of haeresies out of Scripture it self wherof more hereafter THE FIRST DISCOVRS OF INFALLIBLE TEACHERS AND THE MOTIVES OF CREDIBILITY THE FIRST CHAPTER There Are infallible Teachers of true Christian Religion 1. BEfore I prove the Assertion I would gladly learn of our Adversaries who make all men fallible whether for these thousand years the world ever had in it any Christians who heard the infallible Doctrin of Christ truly taught and infallibly believed it If they disown such infallible Believers they must joyntly deny all infallible Faith and consequently say That though God hath revealed in Scripture innumerable Verities yes and for this end to beget infallible Faith in our harts yet no man can lay hold on them nor yeild to them by any other assent but what is fallible and may be false Methinks therfore Gods infallible Revelation requires an infallible assent of Faith an infallible Verity revealed to us forcibly requires an answerable and correspondent infallible assent of Faith in us For to say God speak's infallibly to me and that I either will not or cannot infallibly believe him is in a word to tell him that his certain Truths may ly close where they are in the book of Scripture they may rest there without being layd up or lodged in my hart as infallible owned and believed Truths Most contrary are those golden words of the Apostle 1. Thess 2. v. 12. to this wild Doctrin Therfore we thank God without intermission because when ye received the word of God which ye heard from us ye received it not as the word of men but as it truly is the word of God who effectually works in you that believe Observe well He who receives the delivered Word of God as it is truly Gods Word and not mans He that hath in his hart the infallible Word of God and by the cooperation of Grace yeilds an assent to it as to the infallible word of God cannot but believe what God speak's and as he speak's but God speak's infallibly Therfore he believes infallibly or if he reach not so high but faulters with an assent that is fallible he Believes not God nor his Word as it truly is Gods Word who never did nor can speak any thing fallibly Now if on the other side our Adversaries grant that Christians heard the infallible Doctrin of Christ and believed it infallibly They also must admit of a Subjective infallibility at least in such Believers And this truth Scripture clearly points at in these and the like undeniable places obvious to all I know who I believe and am certain Let the house of Israël certainly know Although we or Angel from heaven c. Faith is a conviction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a strong argument of Belief that is infallible supposeth infallible Teachers what appears not c. But these I wave because known to every one Let us now proceed to the Teachers of Christian Religion and prove our Assertion 2. To go on clearly I would know whether there have not alwayes been now are and ever will be among These true and infallible Believers some Pastors Doctors or Teachers who Authorised by Christ are by Duty both to instruct Christians in case they swerve from Truth and also to reduce Aliens from Christ to a true Belief of his sacred Doctrin Certainly Mr. Poole will own such Pastors in the world if not what are Ministers for in England Or why doth He assume to himself this Office of teaching whilst He endeavours to reclaim a seduced Captain from his Apostacy as he call's it And is it possible What After such an The harsh Doctrin of Sectaries acknowledgement shall we hear this unheard harsh and most Haeretical Assertion That all these Pastors who are to unbeguile soules may be beguiled Themselves or teach false Doctrin And that not so much as one amongst them all is so Highly priviledged as to instruct with certainty If all are fallible and none Teaches certainly the Blind lead's the blind the Scholler is as good as his Master at least none can in prudence learn of any if this perswasion live in him He that Teaches me may as well erre as I who am to Learn If an unskilful Traveller enquire the way to an unknown place of one knowing it no better then he that asks He travel's on with no security and This is our very case Amongst so many By-ways so many mazes of Sects and Schisms as now swarm in the world and like cobwebs intricate thousands of souls in their journey we are posting on as fast as Time can drive us to a place yet unknown a long Eternity The directing thread that safely drawes us out of these Labirinths is Sure Firm and infallible Faith we ask to learn this of our new Doctors and not one can certainly say Such is the way This infallibly is the Faith that winds us out of errour and most assuredly lead s to Heaven or if any say so much he speaks only Fallibly 3. And here is the summary of Protestants comfortles Protestants doctrine comfortles Doctrin They have Pastors that talk but Teach nothing certainly They have Infallible Verities lock'd up in Scripture but none can open that Book or convey them with Assurance into mens harts They hear God speak but none
misse in his teaching as hit right on the Infallible Doctrin of Christ The Minor is granted by Mr. Poole For all Churches whether Roman or English Arian or Grecian are lyable to errour want special Assistance in their Teaching and ought positively to renounce all Societies of infallible Christian Teachers Therfore the conclusion undeniably followes which is That none can with certainty Teach the Infallible Doctrin of Christ And from hence also followes an utter ruin of Christian Religion yea and of Scripture too as I shall hereafter Demonstrate For if all Pastors all Doctors all Teachers of Christian Religion may erre in the Delivery of their Doctrin all Learners of it may likewise erre in Hearing it and if so we have no certainty That God is now Adored in Spirit and Truth by either Teacher or Hearer 9. The ultimate reason why a Total ruin of Christian The utter ruin of Christian Religion followes the fallible Teaching of it in a whole Church What all Euangelical Preachers lakoured for Religion accompanieth the fallible Teaching of it is thus proved None can teach Christian Faith that doth not Propose or make Almighty God to be the Author of it And therfore our Saviour Iohn 7. 16. told the Iewes That his Doctrin was not his but his Fathers that sent him Yea The Prophets also and all other Evangelical Preachers chiefly laboured in this to perswade their Hearers that God was the Author of that Doctrin they taught Now say I None can Propose or make God the Author of Christian Faith that doth not own it as a Doctrin asserted by his Eternal Veracity infallibly revealing Truth for this is the Formal Object of Christian Faith But He that only Teaches fallible Doctrin which may be false deserts this Formal Object and can neither own God for the Author of it nor his infallible revealing Verity Ergo he must own a fallible Authority to uphold this Doctrin which is utterly Destructive of Christian Faith The reason will be yet more evidenced if you propose it after this manner A Doctrine which by force of all the Principles it hath is meerly fallible and The last ground of this Doctrin no more may be salse But Christian Doctrin as it is Taught by all Pastors and Ministers of the Word c. is thus fallible Ergo it may be false But God never sent Christ our Lord nor Christ his Apostles or any to Teach a Doctrin that may be false Ergo he sent none to Teach a Doctrin or Religion that is fallible I prove it He sent none to Teach any other Doctrin but that which is founded and intrinsecally relies on his Eternal infallible Verity revealing Truth But such a Doctrin can neither be false nor fallible Therfore this taught Doctrin is certain and infallible For to grant that God sent Pastors to teach a Doctrin which relies on his infallible Revelation is to say He assist's them to teach it infallibly CHAP. III. Other proofs for Teachers and a Church Infallible 1. I Argue again thus Supposing the promises of Christ made in Scripture Gods Goodnes cannot oblige the whole moral Body of Christians to believe a falsity or to contradict his certain revealed Verities But if all Pastors and Doctors may erre in their Instruction whilst they teach Christian Doctrin God would God cannot oblige us to believe a falsity as indifferently oblige us to believe a falsity and contradict his certain Verities as to hear truth when by chance it is taught which is contrary to his Goodnes The first Proposition is evident and confessedly true For our Adversaries say it is repugnant to all conceptions of Gods Goodnes to require of men under pain of Damnation to Believe something as infallibly true which is really false The other also is as clear For if all Pastors all Doctors who have the charge of souls may because fallible as well Teach false Doctrin as true as easily erre as Deliver Christs pure Verities Christians are by virtue of Gods Command already intimated bound both to hear and obey them Matth. 18. 17. If he will not hear the Church that is as S. Chrysostome expounds the Prelates and chief Pastors of it let him be to thee as a Heathen c. Hebr. 13. 17. Obey your Prelates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 your Guides your Leaders and Commanders and be subject to them For they watch as being to render account of your souls Again vers 7. The Apostle command's us to imitate the Faith of these Pastors and Teachers From these and other innumerable places of Scripture known to all I argue What is possible may be reduced to Act but it is possible That all Pastors and Teachers may erre and Deliver false Doctrin to the Christian world and in case they do so I am upon these plain expres Ordinances of God obliged to Believe them Therfore I must Believe them although they Teach false Doctrin And if so God obligeth me to Believe a Falsity or which is a real Verity I am forced to grant this undeniable Truth that his All-seeing providence doth now and ever will Preserve a Church whose Pastors and Teachers are infallible in the Delivery of Christian Doctrin Without this certain established Infallibility in some one or other Society of Believers Christianity is no more but a meer tottering reeling and uncertain Religion yet I must listen to it whether Those who teach it stand or fall that is whether they erre or not teach an imposture or Truth 2. To confirm this proof I ask whether God after he had delivered his own certain Verities infallibly and made also by his Divine Assistance Those first Masters of the Gospel his Blessed Apostles infallible in their Delivery of these Verities whether then I say in the ensuing ages he divorced himself from his A question proposed to Sectaries Church and withdrew all Special Assistance from it or yet continued that gracious favour to some Pastors and Doctors of a Christian society If he continued that care and providence for the Direction of some Pastors in Truth Those because so guided are still infallible in their Teaching Contrary wise if he abandoned that charge and deprived all Pastors for the Future of infallible Assistance This woful consequence followes That Christian Religion once strongly supported by Gods unerring Spirit ever since the Apostles Preaching hath lost that Hold and now stands tottering on no more steedy ground then what the weak mutable and erring Sentiments of men can afford it Now how unmeet these are for so great a charge Salomon Sap. 9. 15. sayes enough Cogitationes mortalium timidae incertae providentiae nostrae The cogitations of mortal men are fearful and our Providence vncertain yet so it is and here mark the hideous crime of Protestants who first Divorce Christ from his Church and violently pull Religion How Sectaries transgresse from its center which is Gods infallible directing Spirit and then make all the taught Doctrin of
Christianity to lean and rely only upon mans weak timid staggering and errable conceptions The proof is evident for either it relyes on God and so is infallible or upon Humane reason and therfore as This is various Religion cannot but be changeable Let then the world judge I appeal to no other Tribunal whether Christians can be satisfied with this comfortles Doctrin All they can now learn from any Christian Pastor touching Religion hath only mans weak Thought and Reason for it but no certain Assurance that God speaks by these Pastors Because all and every one of them left to themselves are fallible 3. I must prosecute this matter further wherefore Man too feeble to preserve Christian Doctrine in its purity I say this Truth boldly It is above mans power and policy weak and errable in his Conceptions constantly and unchangably to support or carry on Age after Age the profound Doctrin of Christ in its Primitive purity without Divine Assistance Wit alone dazeled as we see in the search of the most obvious things in nature is insufficient either rightly to Penetrate these high Mysteries of grace or with certainty to conuey them unto us in that exact sense as God once delivered them The reason hereof is drawn from the sublime Excellency of Christian Religion Because of its sublime Excellency which being as all know a Doctrin of Gods own incomprehensible Wisdom a Communication of his deepest Secrets cannot but transcend the force of humane knowledge it cannot but lye as it were in a region above the reach of weak Reason only and stand at a great distance from our fallible Discourses Whence I argue thus All light and knowledge which flow from a fallible Power and capacity cannot but be answerable to such a capacity id est Deficient uncertain and Fallible But all the light and knowledge which Christians now have from either Church or Pastors concerning this sublime Doctrin of Christ and Gods revealed Verities in Scripture flow and are derived from no other but from a fallible capacity which is mans errable and weak understanding and not from Gods infallible Assistance who say our Protestants hath withdrawn infallibility from the Church Ergo This taught Doctrin cannot but be Deficient uncertain Fallible Doctrine is not Christs and Fallible Grant this and none can prudently rely on it none can know by any Principle whether it be true or false none finally can own it for Christs certain Doctrin Rob therfore the Church of its proper Dote which is Divine Assistance take from it the Spirit of infallibility Cancel that Truth of the Gospel I have prayed for thee Peter that thy Faith fail not Destroy that impregnable Rock wheron Christianity is founded Matt. 15. Tu es Petrus c. Though all the Pastors in the world were Salomons for wit Austins for learning Gregories for vigilancy Chrysostoms for eloquence yet they would be too weak feeble and fallible Instruments either rightly to illuminate Wit alone too weak to tamper with Religion us by the force of wit or Learning only concerning those High Verities revealed in Scripture or exactly to Preserve them in their first candor without change and Alteration Alas might wit alone tamper with Gods Truths at pleasure might it turn Religion into as many Forms or shapes as weak Reason often conceives This too unskilful Master would as Fancies and judgements are various now build now destroy now add now subtract now make now marr and bring in more confusion into Christinianity then the wisest men are able to redresse And 4. Thus much we se evidently not only in the old Mans with the cause of errours Philosophers who led on by their weak Discours and guesses grosly mistook in their Opinions concerning Beatitude but in some learned Fathers also witnes a Examples of it Tertullian and Origen For These two great wits of the world because they left the Guidance of the Church and relyed too much on their private Judgements fell as we know into deplorable errours But most of all this misery is visible in all condemned Haereticks as Arians Pelagians and Nestorians witty and learned enough but Because wit too boldly entred into Divine Mysteries and meddled with matters above its strength these men lost themselves and here was the sole cause Gods special Assistance preserves his Curch from errour of their Ruin and falling from Truth Whence I conclude contrary to Protestants who have nothing to support Religion but their own weak and errable Conjectures That unles Gods gracious Providence particularly Protect his Church and by special Assistance Preserve it from errour The very best of us all though never so learned left to our weak conjectures and fallible Discourses might most easily become Arians Nestorians Pelagians Protestants Socinians now Christians now no Christians or what you will Protestancy and all Haeresy which stand topling on no firmer ground then meer conjectures are lead the way to these Downfalls to no Religion or any Religion as Fancy best likes 5. To prevent therfore this great Evil the wise Providence Gods Providence over his Church of God who well foresaw mans weaknes and Instability first Delivered his own eternal Truths infallibly none doubts of this Next he caused these Truths to be taught infallibly by the first Masters of the Gospel his chosen Disciples here of also there is no doubt with our modern men Moreover Because his real Intention was That not only the Primitive Christians should exactly receive those revealed Verities from infallible Teachers but others also in ensuing ages for All souls were providently cared for His infinite Goodnes established a visible Catholick Church whose Head and Pastors guided not by humane wit or Policy but by Assistance derived from the Holy Ghost should by virtue of so special grace Teach Truth infallibly and preserve poor souls from errour to the end of the world Without this Addition Preserves Christianity from ruine of a perpetuated Assistance as well in order to the Later as first Believers providence would not have done its work compleatly Christianity ere this day too unsteedily built would have fallen to Ruin and as often alrered from it self in the space of 1667. yeares as our Sectaries have done in this last hundred A more spiteful Blow therfore cannot be given to God a greater Chimaera cannot be thought on then to grant as Sectaries do that his All seing wisdom first founded a Church upon infallible Teachers and next to spoile all with this ungodly Assertion viz Afterward when Christians as much stood in need of infallible Pastors for their Direction because of emergent Haeresies then it was He withdrew Assistance from them Abandoned his charge and left a whole Church to the wavering timid and uncertain Sentiments of meer erring men who altogether because by nature fallible might as easily without this superiour grace of infallibility have taught grosse errours as the Verities of Christian Religion This sequele followes
from our Protestants Principles where you se enough I say it once more of their great sin and Haeresy CHAP. IV. Replyes to these Arguments are answered 1. ONe perhaps may be God surely will never permit all the Pastors of Christianity to erre and deceive the world at least this is no Consequence They may erre Ergo they do and will actually erre for many things may be which never will be I answer and many things actually happen Answer to Objections which were never suspected would be and why may not this diffused Errour be one of them who knows the contrary In Protestants principles we have the greatest Presumption imaginable for this actual errour of all For they say That ample and ancient Church of Rome and all condemned Haereticks with it erred set then these aside it is impossible to design plainly such Christian Teachers as never de facto erred 2. The very possibility yes and facility also of All falling into Errour makes the actuality of it fearfully doubtful now men had been mad to loose both Lives and Goods to dye ignominiously on Gibbets for any doubtful and uncertain Doctrin The Apostle put other thoughts in the primitive Martyrs hearts other words in their mouths Scio cui credidi certus sum I know who I believe and am certain No Hearers therfore can certainly rely on any doubtful and uncertain Religion 2. The second reply Admit that all Christian Pastors Second Reply teach erroneous Doctrin yet no great mischief followes for Those who hear them are either conscious of the Falsity And if so they are not to believe their Teachers or They erre invincibly which is a blameles Errour and Therfore cannot in justice be held an Offence The first part of the Reply supposes some instructed Christians wiser then all their Teachers together which is an Impertinency never heard of The second touches not the difficulty for here we blame not such as may perhaps invincibly erre But say That the blame goes higher and is unworthily cast on God who obliges Christians to believe the Pastors of a Catholick Church and yet gives them such disabled ones that all of them may erre universally and teach Doctrin contrary to his revealed Truths Here lyes the mystery of iniquity upheld Protestants Mystery of iniquity by Protestants and the uglines of it appears in this wrethched Assertion God will have me to believe a Catholick Church yet this whole Catholick Church that is all the They cast blame upon God Pastors all the Councils all the Fathers Doctors and Prelates of this Church may teach me such false Doctrin as God never intended I should learn They may if fallible teach us that Christ is not God that Heaven is not a place of Eternal Happines nor Hell an abode of Eternal torments Such Haeresies have been spread by Those who went under the name of Christians and why may not I beseech you all Christian Pastors abuse the world as much if Gods gracious ordinance concerning the Churches infallibility faill us 3. A third reply It is one Thing to teach Truth Teaching Truth infallibly and another to teach it infallibly Put therfore the case That Almighty God foresaw from Eternity that though all Pastors of the Church potentiâ antecedente antecedently might erre yet some at least ex suppositione consequenti or consequently would not erre but teach Christian Verities faithfully Suppose I say only thus much We have sufficient Assurance of Truth actually taught in the world without that Previous infallible Assistance we plead for which seems here useles for if either man or Angel Delivers a Verity it matters nothing whether it arise from a Fallible or infallible cause Our Faith therfore hath strength enough if it rely on Truth actually Taught though the Teacher wants infallibility I answer If God foresaw that all the Pastors of his Church would not erre or teach false Doctrin This Verity is either revealed to Christians as a Divine Truth or no if not we make that revealed which is not revealed and consequently can ground no Assurance on it if it be revealed and known to us this very Revelation viz All the Pastors of the Church shall not erre is an undoubted Principle which assented to by true Faith is our Security Because such a Faith supposeth the contrary Actual errour of all essentially excluded by virtue of Gods Revelation For it is impossible that God tell us this Truth All the Pastors of my Church shall not erre in any age and yet in sensu composito of this Revelation permit them to erre universally Observe in one Instance the security we have by force of such a Revelation 4. Suppose that God had revealed to Isaac that his Father Abraham would not sacrifice him and withall that Isaac firmly believed that Verity He had been as indubitably secured from dying at that time as if Abrahams hands had been tyed in chains or wholy made impotent to give a fatal blow Now mark the Application As Gods Eternal Prevision of Abrahams not taking Isaacs life away Antecedently supposed the cause therof actually also foreseen antecedently I say in a foregoing signe os nature so likewise it is in our present case when from Eternity he knew that all the Pastors of his Church would not actually err and revealed this Truth in time His All-seing wisdom Previously pro priori signo rationis foresaw also the total cause of their actual not Erring which cause as I have already proved was not the power of mans weak variable and mistaking Reason But the most certain Principle of Gods special and Divine Assistance When therfore God as the Objection supposeth revealed that Verity All shall not err he did not only by virtue of his Revelation impossibilitate the contrary universal errour bur warranted more that all of them because prevented by special Assistance could not erre And this is what Scripture Energitically tells us of Hell gates not prevailing against the Church of Christs Being with the Church to te end of the world wherof more hereafter In the interim you see that Christian Christian Faith relies on Truth taught by an Infallible Oracle Faith doth not only rely on a meer contingent or hap hazard Delivery of Truth but on Truth taught by an Assisted and infallible Oracle which All must assert or grant that although Christ himself by a supposed Impossibility had been fallible in No certitude of Truth had Christ and his Apostles taught it Fallibly his Preaching or the Apostles likewise fallible in Their writting Scripture and only because lyable to errour had delivered Gods Verities contingently by chance Christian Religion might yet have stood as firme and unshaken as now it is which is a horrid and an unheard of Haeresy 5. A fourth reply We cannot prove by good reason if we set aside some ambiguous Passages of Scripture which only seemingly say the contrary that the immediate Proponent of true certain Christian Faith Catholiks
say 'T is the Church ought to be certain and infallible It seems enough say some that this Faith be taught upon a rational Evidence which Evidence finally resolved comes to no more but to a Moral certainty These as I am informed ground themselves on this Principle That all the Assurance we can have of Christian Religion hath for its whole Foundation moral Certainty only and it seems a prop firm enough to support it More it cannot have 6. The Objection contains two parts To the first I answer If Divine Faith be in the world Reason Divine Faith must have an infallibie Teacher convinceth that the object of it be propounded by a Certain and infallible Teacher and then most when Points fundamental lye under Dispute and are in controversy Faith therfore requires two things essentially to omit other Necessaries an Object which is Gods Revelation and a Proposition of this object made by some Teacher to Christians which Doctrin the Apostle ratifies Rom. 10. 15. How shall they hear without a Preacher By virtue of this Proposition whether we call it Cause or an Essential Condition the Elicite Act of Faith followes in a Believer and intellectually layes as it were hold both on Gods Revelation and the Thing revealed Observe now well Gods Revelation none doubts it is certain and infallible Divine Faith which resteth on this Motive and proceeds from Grace is also certain and infallible The only Difficulty remaining concerns this Proponent of Faiths Object and it is whether He that Directs me and endeavours rightly to settle my Faith upon Gods infallible Revelation do his work with assurance fallibly or infallibly 7. I say first Gods infallible Revelation avail's nothing in order to Faith unles Christians by their Faith lay hold on the Certainty therof or own it as infallible and the assured ground of their Assent The reason is Because God speaks infallibly to Christians for this End That his infallible Word may have influence into Faith and support in with Certainty If therefore this revealed Word be not Certainly Proposed as it is infallible if it be not duely applyed to a Believers understanding under its The object of Faith must be infallibly applyed own Notion of certainty that strength of infallibility lyes as it were dead without Operation and profits Belief no more then Food doth a Body into which it cannot enter The similitude is fit For as Food though apt to strengthen a Body is just as if it were not unles it be duely Applyed so Gods Certain Revelation though most Proportionate to strengthen a Soul in Faith yet in order to this Effect it looseth all Efficacy while a due Application of its infallibility is wanting 8. To illustrate more this necessary Truth I say secondly When a Revelation lyes darkly in Scripture as it often doth in High points of Controversy according to the measure or degrees of Certitude which the Proponent of Faith gives to the Revelation and saith God speaks thus An Assent answerably followes with like Certitude in the Hearer and not a stronger If therfore the Proponent only say Doubtfully I think God speak's as I preach but am not Certain Gods Revelation is received according as 't is propounded Doubtful also is the Assent given to this Preaching If he say What I teach is Probable The Assent can be no more but Probable If finally He truely say I teach Infallibly what is revealed the Assent Answers and is Infallible The reason is clear For as no Eye can see Colours in darknes before light makes them visible yea and according to the measure of light it see 's them so no Intellectual Eye can discover a dark Revelation before he borrow light from his Teacher and as The light is lesse or more so He see 's that object lesse or more perfectly A dubious and uncertain Proposal therfore made of a certain Revelation when it doth not Clearly manifest it self is like a glimmering light And neither doth nor can apply the Objective infallibility Therof with Assurance to mans intellectual Faculty which yet seek's after Certainty in matters of Belief This needs no proof For he who proposeth only Doubfully a Revelation which is Certain in it self both in actu signato and exercito saith no more but timidly thus much Perhaps I declare A timide proposal of Divine Revelation begets no more but a doubtfull Faith what God speak's and perhaps I do not For my Declaration only Doubfully guesses at the Certainty of the Revelation And it is against the nature of all Doubt to convey Certainty into any understanding As long therfote as the infallibility of a Revelation stands remote from me For want of an undoubted Application made by an infallible Proponent it can no more transfuse Certainty into Faith then fire at a great distance warm That is no more Then if it were not Certain in it self or not at all in Being Whence I conclude That a certain Revelation if obscure in Scripture requires a Certain Proposition Because It little avail's me to know this truth That if God speak's he speak's infallibly unles hîc nunc in these circumstance when he speak's to me for my Saluation I yeild my certain Assent to the infallibility of his Word which cannot be done unles I have Assurance from my Teacher that he speak's as I ought to believe infallibly Upon these undeniable Principles I say thirdly Our Sectaries can have no Divine Faith Sectaries can do no more but doubtfully guesse at what they Believe and consequently as Protestants never yet had nor can have Divine certain and infallible Faith I prove the Assertion All Faith which hath no other Certitude then what is derived from Those who propound the object of it id est Gods Revelation uncertainly and doubtfully is no more but wavering Opinative and doubtful But the Faith of Protestants is evidently such Because no man or Society of men amongst them can without doubt and fear infallibly say God speak's as I preach and I infallibly preach as God speaks For if he averr thus much with Truth he Propound's the object of his Faith infallibly and therfore is so farre infallible If he do They cannot propose Faith infallibly not his preaching must be finally resolved into his own timid weak and wavering Opinion which weighed comes to no more but this Levity I hope well and think I preach what God hath infallibly Revealed yet am not certain because all I say for ought I know is fallible 9. If you will se this Truth farther Evidenced do no more but ask of any Protestant Why for example He believes that all the Churches on earth are fallible That Christ is only figuratively in the Eucharist That Faith only justifies That there are two Sacraments and no more c. His first refuge perhaps will be to Scripture But demand again Whether Scripture in plain and Express Terms Delivers these supposed Doctrins If he be not more then
knowes not the Object wheron it Relyes and therfore cannot be Certain Answer It is a Catechresis or an Abuse in Speech to say That either Faith or any other intellectual operation knowes its Object The understanding informed by these vital Acts knowes if we speak properly Yet if we go on in that vulgar Language significant enough Faith can no more Scientifically prove or know its Object then Science as Science can believe its Object I say Faith as Faith no more Scientifically knowes or proves its Object then Science as Science Believes what it knowes This proves That certainly Believes whilst it Resteth immediatly upon Gods Revelation which is most amply proved by the Preambulatory Motives now touched on Neither can Faith Scientifically know or prove its Object without loosing an Essential Predicate which is Obscurity All therfore who destroy not the very Nature of Faith must allow it the greatest Certainty under heaven Faith both obscure and certain and withall grant as the Apostle doth that it is Argumentum non apparentium of a dark and obscure Tendency 14. You will reply again The Mode then and Tendency of Faith unto its Object is here supposed Obscure and that Previous judgement of Credibility after all possible weighing of those Motives which do manifest the Credibility of this Truth God speaks by the Church is no more but Morally certain Ergo the Belief of that Truth stands still wavering upon Vncertainties I answer If these Motives have an infallible Connexion with Divine Revelation That is If they clearly convince that God cannot but de facto speak to Christians after so many Signs and wonders The Iudgement Previous to Faith is Metaphysically certain However give it a lesser Certainty we must yet say with the Prophet Testimonia tua credibilia The Motives bring Reason to an invariable State of Believing facta sunt nimis These motives well considered bring Reason to an invariable State of Believing in so much That none can Disbelieve without Sin and Madnes Again we must say That Judgement which throughly penetrat's them Evacuat's both Doubt and Fear to the Contrary and far exceed's all Degrees of Probability which gives Reason the Freedom to Alter an Opinion when Stronger Proofs come against it But no Real Proof whatever is capable to Overthrow No real proof can weaken this Iudgement the Certainty of this Judgement though Fallacies may puzzle it Call it then as you please Moral or Metaphysical Evidence it hath proved its own Strength for never Any without it since Christianity began either rightly believed in Christ or Church 15. This Judgement therfore which like an Interiour voyce supposing the Exteriour Proposition of the Church summon's us to hear or like a Light that discover's Gods own Language delivered by Revelation makes the Language once dark clear enough to us Now being thus manifested we lay hold on it and yeild Assent to the Revelation for it self and not for the antecedent Motives And because this Revelation is without Dispute more infallible then any Truth in Nature it cannot but Answerably as I said above impart and contribute a Stronger Certainty to Faith then the most evident Principles do to any Science Vpon this strong Fortresse then Christian Religion stands firm which undoubtedly implyes a greater Certainty then only Moral And I think our Adversaries will say so too Sectaries own a Faith more then morally certain who though They take the Canon of Scripture upon Moral Certainty yet they Believe the particular Revealed Mysteries contained in that Book with a far surer Assent then what is only moral Moral Certainty therfore necessarily help 's to Faith though Faith Instances how moral certainty help 's to Faith ultimately Relyes not on it Thus you know the will loves Good either Real or Apparent yet need 's not to love the cognition which represents goodnes For that is only conditio applicans a condition applying the Object to the Power but no Cause of Love I may also adhere to a Doctrin in St. Austin for St. Austins Authority upon the Moral certain Word of one who tells me This great Doctor saith so Why therfore may I not induced by far Stronger Motives to believe this Truth God speaks by his Church Adhere only to his Revelation without touching on the Motives which serve well as Conditions to Apply that Object to the Power yet want the Strength of a formal Object to support Faith But more of this Subject in another Treatise where we shall show that the Certainty of Faith at least unevident in respect of the material Object is not so much a Speculative as a Prudent submissive and Practical Certainty CHAP. VI. Faith only morally certain is no Faith Protestants have no Moral certainty of Protestant Religion 1. LEt us here suppose contrary to Truth that all Religion brought to a just Trial comes to no more but to a High Moral certainty which Though it implyes no absolute Impossibility of being False yet is so strong That none considering the great Evidence we have for Christianity can without madnes Practically doubt or hold it otherwise then it is most Morally certain Put the case then That we arrive to this Degree of Certitude only you will ask why is not such a Faith stedfast enough and very sufficient to Saluation Thus far if I mistake not some Neoteriks make Faith certain and strip it of all further infallibility I answer A Faith only Morally certain is no Faith and prove my Assertion That wheron all Moral Certainty imaginable Essentially depend's is fallible and may Deceive us That That wheron Faith relyes is infallible That wheron Moral Certainty depend's is fallible wheron true Faith Essentially depends which is Divine Revelation is infallible and cannot Deceive Ergo what ever ground 's a Moral certainty only which may deceive is as unproportionate to uphold true Faith as Revelation owned as Divine is unfit to ground a fallible Opinion As long therfore as the Object of pure Moral Certainty becomes not Gods Revelation which can never be so long Faith cannot rely on it Or if it do rest here it Mistakes its Object and call's tbat Revelation which is none The ultimate Reason of this Discours stands Two sure Principles firm upon these two Principles 1. All moral Certainty may be False 2. Gods Revelation Because it is Infallible as God Essentially excludes that weaker Degree of Certitude and cannot be false which is to say in plainer Terms God neither doth nor can speak any thing only morally certain 2. That all Moral certainty may be false is evident For invent the strongest imaginable as This is distinguished from Physical or Metaphysical Certainty and say what you will within that compas Viz. Rome and Constantinople are now Citties in Being Or That when one in a large Citty sitt's imprisoned at noon-day and hears no body yet saith Most surely all the Inhabitants of this place are neither dead nor asleep
usque ad perfectum diem which as Origen saith casteth such lustre from East to West that all eyes Behold it The other of Protestancy Reason finds so nakedly Poor so destitute of Light and Motives That its mean Appearance makes it despicable and not worth the looking at 5. Briefly then I Argue for the moral Evidence of our Catholick Roman Religion A Religion which after the just Condemnation of so many undoubted and acknowledged Haereticks hath permanently stood Visibly victorious for 16. hundred years And which never yet was Moral Evidence for the Roman Catholick Religion condemned by any known true Church of Error or Haeresy A Religion which hath drawn thousands of Infidels and Aliens from Christ to its Belief And which hath had Age after Age whole millions of constant Professors wherof innumerable were not only most Wise Learned and Vertuous But willingly also lost their temporal Fortunes and couragiously shed their Blood for it Such a Religion I say which hath It hath gained innumerable Believers thus perswasively wrought on the Reason of so many Wise and Learned c. And gained to it whole multitudes of Believers and Martyrs shewes by this one admirable Effect had we no other Proof Strength and Evidence enough to convince the most obdurate Hart in the World For either as I noted above we must say That all these Wise and Glorious Men were mad as being induced by Fooleries to Believe and dye as they did or grant That They had clear and undeniable Evidence to warrant their Belief for which we now plead Nay I say more So general a Mistake and Delusion Gods Providence over his Church could not permit so general a Delusion is upon an other Account most impossible For that great Care and Providence which God had ever of his Church could not permit if true Faith were in the world from the fifth Age to Luther so learned so numerous and pretious a part of Christians as Roman Catholicks were in those Dayes to be led into a falss Belief by either trivial or foolish Motives If we swallow down this vast impossibility we must Conclude Note wel a vast impossibility that for so long a time God had no true Church at all For none called Christians were then in being But Catholicks only and known condemned Haereticks But of this particular most largely Hereafter In the interim 6. I propose a second and most convincing Argument No Religion Ex terminis Evidently true or false No Religion whether it be that of Iesus Christ or Mahomet that of Catholicks or Sectaries either is or can be ex Terminis evidently True or False neither can a bare Affirmation for its Truth without farther Proof force Convincing Arguments for Catholick Religion Reason to accept of it Otherwise every man might now begin a new Religion as he list's and sufficiently warrant it by only saying He speaks Truth True Religion therfore must have its Evidence and known Discernibility from Error before it be accepted of And now because both Catholicks and all Sectaries suppose that the Religion which Christ Iesus and his Blessed Apostles taught was indubitably and clearly evidenced by Marks and convincing Signs of Truth We are in the first place to ponder well those Motives which made evident that first Christian and Apostolical Doctrin and next to Consider whether the very like Motives have not evidenced the Roman Catholick Faith Age after Age. Briefly The greatest and most visible Evidences for that Apostolical Doctrin were to omit others first most known and unquestioned Miracles The Dead rose up to Life the Blind saw the Deaf heard Devils were ejected out of possessed Persons c. 2. Admirable Conversions wrought upon Infidels and Gentils 3. An examplar Neglect of the World conjoyned with great Sanctity of life c. But these Evidences are clear Apostolical Evidences of Miracles Conversions c. are the Churches Evidence without dispute for the Doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church and for no other Religion Therfore if those primitive Miracles that Efficacy of Doctrin those great Conversions that admirable Sanctity of the first Apostolical Men perswasively induced Aliens from Truth to believe in Christ They are yet as powerful and forceable to induce All who follow Reason to Believe both the Antecedent Church of Rome and this modern Church also now in Being No tolerable Reply can be given to this Argument Will our new Men deny eminent Sanctity to innumerable who profess our Roman Religion The contrary is evident by all those apparent Evidence of Sanctity Signs wherby Sanctity can be known in this mortal Life Witnes the Contempt of the World manifest in Thousands the charitable Alms deeds of Seculars the Austere and mortified Life of Religious wherof more Herafter c. O but all Pastors and Doctors of the Catholick Church are not Saints like the Apostles Frivolous No more were all the Primitive Pastors or People for 4. or 5. Ages after Christ so Eminently Holy do out Protestants arrive to that Degree of Sanctity Yet thousands then were and are still without debate Innocent Holy and Virtuous 7. Again Can Sectaries deny those prodigious Conversions of Nations wrought by this Church upon Heathens and Aliens from Christ If they do All are upon Record both Friends and Enemies attribute these Wonders to that Mother Church Tell me I beseech you who converted our once most Catholick Evidence of Conversions England to the Faith it Anciently had but Roman Catholicks Who reduced Germany Polony Spain France Denmark Swedland and the Low-Countries to the same Faith They were Men united in Belief with the Roman Church Who yet send Missioners to those remoter Parts of the world to China Iapony and other Places This Church only doth God that Service whilst our Ministers sit at home with ease tyed fast to their fine Wives and fat Benefices If Finally they doubt of our Miracles They may as well doubt of the Suns light at noon Day so Conspicuous They have been ever in this Church and are still to this present Age. Wherof more in the next Chapter All I ask now is Whether it be not morally certain that the World had once in it such Men as were called Alexander Caesar Pompey Cicero yes As great Evidence we have for most eminent Miracles done by this Church Constant Tradition known Records Evidence of Miracles done by the Catholick Church undoubted History convey them to us All which none can Deny without wilful Perversnes And a High degree of Impudency Yet suppose Men so impertinently bold as to question some Miracles whether for example ever since the primitive Age any were raised from death to life Whether Devils have been Cast out Whether Sight were restored to the Blind Strength to the Lame All these are upon Record Yet Conversion of Nations a great Miracle they cannot deny that grand and convincing Miracle of Conversions which is Proof enough as St.
Doctrin as Protestancy As They ought to have done in the first place after so glorious a Title 2. To prove what is said have patience to hear some few parergons There are say They in the question of resolving Faith these three questions to be resolved First Why I believe those things to be true which are contained in the Book called Scripture 2. Why I believe the Doctrin contained in that Book to be Divine 3. Why I believe the Books themselves to be of Divine Revelation Mark here a Shufling and remember once more the Title The Protestants way of resolving Faith Is it so Is it the Protestants way Yes Surely then the Questions here proposed and the Answers returned are most Pertinent to help on Protestants in their resolving Faith That is to make Protestancy These Authors wave what they should Explicate evidently credible by clear and rational Motives You will say They are so And I say They are no more to that purpose of Protestants resolving Faith or giving of prudent Motives for Protestancy then if such a Religion had never been in the world I prove my Assertion The Arian will say I believe Arians believe Scripture as much as Protestants those Things to be True which are contained in Scripture I believe the Doctrin in that Book to be Divine I believe the Books themselves to be of Divine Revelation and this I do upon as good Grounds as you Protestants if not on better For if you admit of these Verities upon the greatest Evidence which things of that Nature are capable of So do I too But say I beseech you what more Advantage have you upon this Concession for your particular Religion then I have for mine For let these Books be True let them contain Divine Doctrin let us believe the Revelation in them to be Sacred yet both you and I are to seek which of us hath the better Religion and this cannot be decided by owing three Truths wherof no Christian ever doubted Why therfore do you when it is your particular Task to resolve Protestants Faith never meddle with the Question But wast time in proving that which when it is proved help 's you no more then all other Christians who are contrary to you in Belief Will you se this clearly 3. I freely grant that those things in Scripture are True They are Divine the Books themselves are of Divine Revelation But next ask What is this to Protestant Religion Or how is the Resolution of Protestants Faith advanced upon the owning These Verities Nothing at all And the Reason is for rhough all Christians acknowledge in general Scripture to be most Divine yet they are at endles Disputes concerning the Doctrin of it Now no Man I hope To have Scripture in our hands gives no Assurance of true Faith will say Because he hath this Book in his hands or owns it as Gods Word that therfore He rightly Believes the particular necessary Doctrin in it For were this true known Haeretiks would be as sound in Faith as any To conclude then The Roman Catholick enquires not here after any general Proof of Scripture He proved that before Protestants were born But he urges for Motives What Catholicks require of Protestants and rational Inducements wherby Protestancy as Protestancy is evidenced to have any ressemblance with the Primitive Doctrin of Christ and his blessed Apostles Known Marks and Cognisances of Truth must manifest this particular Doctrin And not a general talk of the Divinity of Scripture which every Arian and Haeretick would own were there no such thing as a Protestant in Being 4. They hold on in this proofles strain and tell us how Moral certainty is Assurance enough that Christian Religion is infallibly true Be it so it is nothing to the purpose For we enquire not in this place after the moral Evidence of Christian Religion in General which as it professed by condemned Haereticks Protestancy unevidenced hath none But we ask for the moral Certainty wherby Protestancy is evidenced This is not so much as spoken of though the Title of resolving Protestants Faith requires a direct Answer to this Difficulty They say again There can be no greater then moral Certainty for the main Foundations of all Religion and the chiefest is the Existency and Being of God The Assertion is falss as I could demonstrate were it now pertinent to handle that question But Let it pass Give us I beseech you as much Moral certainty of Protestant Religion as All acknowledge for the Existency of a Deity and we are satisfied But of this we hear not a word We have Talk enough of the Moral certainty of Christian They Answer not to the difficulty Religion which Answers not to the Title of resolving Protestants Faith 5. They say thirdly Suppose God gives the must infallible Evidence of any Religion some who are bound to believe that Religion can have no more then Moral certainty of it Transeat totum at present What makes it for Protestancy We here ask Why Protestants believe as they do Why They adhere to their new Faith and preferr that Before all other Religions Rational Motives Can be produced or not We hitherto hear of none And therfore suspect yea know very well there are none for it 6. They say fourthly Moral certainty yeilds us sufficient Protestants altogether in Generalls Assurance that Christian Religion is infallibly true What Religion is infallibly true upon moral certainty Is it Arianism or Pelagianism No. Is it the Roman Catholick Religion No. Is it Protestancy Yes Then produce Rational Motives which may ground a moral certainty more of this Religion then of any other Sect and we acquiesce But this you cannot do 7. They say fifthly Where there is evident credibility in And prove nothing for their Religion the matter propounded there doth arise upon Men an obligation to believe Very good To believe what Give us this evident Credibility of Protestancy and something is said to the purpose Hereof yet we have no news nor are like to have and consequently Protestants cannot be obliged to Believe as they do After some other Parergons 8. They say sixthly The last Resolution of Faith is not into the infallibility of the instrument of conveyance but into the infallibility of that Doctrin which is therby conveyed to us Shall we eternally have these Empty words and no Substance You talk here of an infallibility of Doctrin and we would have the Riddle expounded Is it the Roman Catholick Doctrin Or yours Or Arianism What for Gods sake avail's it to hear a noise of infallible Doctrin and not to know who rightly professeth it Your Doctrin therfore of Protestancy is to be Evidenced this is all we look for 9. They say seventhly If the Doctrin of Christ be true and Divine then all the promises made were accomplished Now that was one of the greatest that his Spirit should lead his Apostles into all Truth Very
true But what is this for Protestant Doctrin We ask still by what Signs and Marks of Truth do these new Men prove their particular Faith to be Apostolical Here only lyes the Difficulty never touched on by them Admit therfore at present that they have in their hands the infallible Records of Gods Word they are far of yet from proving their particular Doctrin of Protestancy to be Scripture or the infallible Word of God This is the sole controverted Question between us 10. They finally end Thus much may suffise in general concerning the Protestant way of resolving Faith Very little it seems serves their turn who hitherto never Loct labour to talk of Christian Religion in General medled with that Resolution But have lost their labour by a talking in General of Christian Religion which no more concern's Protestancy then it doth the worst of Haereticks And after this manner They hold on in another Chapter entituled The sense of Fathers in this Controversy Where Iustin Martyr Irenaeus and Clemens Fathers cited to no purpose of Alexandria are cited but to what purpose God only knows Are they quoted to evidence any thing like Protestancy No. The whole-Discours of these Learned Fathers look's another way and never medles with this Novelty Read them as they are either in These Authors with all the Advantages of their Glosses on them or rather in the Originals as I have don exactly you will find them so great Strangers to this new Haeresy That they never thought of it To transcribe again their whole Discours would prove tedious read Iustins words in these Authors Part. 1. Chap. 9. page 264. and add to them the reflection made page 265. What part say they is there now of our Resolution of Faith which is not here in that is in Iustins Testimony asserted I answer Nothing at all as will appear by your own Questions and Answers wholy irrelative to Protestancy Thus then you go on If you ask why you believe there were such men in the Iustin makes nothing for Protestants world as these Prophets wherof Iustin speaks Answer The continuance of their Books and common Fame sufficiently attest it Be is so what is this to Protestancy Can any one probably inferr Because He believes there were such men in the world as Prophet Apostles or Euangelists Therfore he hath the true Doctrin of Weak inferences these Prophets No. For both Arians and Pelagians yeild Assent to that general Truth and so do Catholicks also are all These right in Faith upon that Account precisely Toyes No more then are Protestants 3. If you ask say you why you Believe them to be true Prophets Answ The excellency of their Doctrin joyned with the fulfilling of Prophecies and working Miracles abundantly prove it Prove what for Gods sake No more but this that those Prophets taught excellent Doctrin and wrought Miracles Doth it therfore follow that Protestants Arians and other Haereticks teach such Doctrin or work Miracles No. Herein lyes the Difficulty not so much as glanced at or touched on And thus Nor Clemens Alex. they run on to no purpose for many pages with Testimonies drawn out of Irenaeus and Clemens Alexandrinus which no more relate to Protestancy then those first Words of Genesis do In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth Nay more Clemens cited But Confutes them by these Authors page 273. expresly confutes our Sectaries whilst he requires two things necessary to attain to the true knowledge of true Faith in Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Enquiry and Discovery of it The Enquiry is an impulse of the mind say these men for finding Truth out by Signs which are proper to it Discovery is the End and Rest of this Enquiry which lyes in the comprehension of the things which is properly knowledge A most true and admirable Expression Clemens according to these Authors proceds thus Now the Signs by which Truth is Discovered are either Precedent Concomitant or Subsequent The precedent Signs wherby we discover Christ to be the Son of God are the Prophecies declaring his coming The Concomitant were the Testimonies concerning his Birth The subsequent Signs are those Miracles which were published and manifestly shewed to the World after his Ascension c. Most true and Divine Doctrin which is entirely for the Roman Catholick Religion and against Protestants Why We enquire after the precedent Signs wherby their new Religion is discovered We ask for subsequent Signs which were publickly known to the world soon after the broaching of their new Faith and yet cannot hear of any shewed by these new men in confirmation of their Faith Finally we urge for Miracles and other Prudential Motives Evidencing Protestant Religion in the ensuing Chapter but find none Read it and give an impartial judgement CHAP. X. Protestants have no rational Motives wherby their new Faith is evidenced to be so much as probable 1. TO prove the Assertion we here friendly demand Whether when Scripture Fathers and the best Authority of former ages Assert That the Marks and Cognisances of Gods revealed Truth are as follow Antiquity A Lawful mission Vnity Efficacy of Doctrin Vniversality Miracles Succession of Bishops Sanctity yes and the very name of Catholik c. My demand I say is whether our new Men will own these old Signs as lawful and approved Manifestations of Truth or disown them If this later They are Compelled to shew them unfit or forceles Arguments for the evidencing of Truth and consequently are obliged to produce others more clear and perswasive for their supposed true Religion which is impossible On the other side if they shall please to own them as lawful Cognisances of Truth My Task is to prove That they have neither the complexum of all these Motives together nor so much as one of them in particular for Protestancy 2. Antiquity granted to Popery for at least a Protestants want Antiquity thousand years and upward Protestants have not Those two Brethren of Iniquity Luther and Calvin first brought this Religion forth as is evident by all known History Before their dayes no man can shew me so much as one Town Village or Houshold of Protestants 3. Lawful Mission most justly and without dispute A lawful Mission is wanting challeng'd by Catholick Doctors These two wretched men had not no more have their followers Enquire after it you will find them all unsent Preachers contrary to the Apostles Doctrin Rom. 10 How shall They preach unles they be sent They never had licence to talk as they did But by their own Will and unknown Spirit which as well authorized Iames Nayler to be Christ as them to be lawful and Apostolical Preachers Say I beseech you when the blessed Apostles first taught the Doctrin of Christ Iesus and by their preaching turn'd Idolatry out of the World Did They only word it Christ and his Apostles were sent and shewed their Mission
demonstratively gives a Catalogue of her succeeding Popes and Bishops from Blessed St. Peter to this present Pope who now sitt's in that Chair And if you will know of what account this perpetuated Succession of Pastors is read St. Austin Tom. 6. contra Epistolam fundam cap. 4. In Catholica A continued succession of great account Ecclesia tenet me saith the Saint ab ipsa Sede Petri Apostoli cui pascendas oves suas post resurrectionem Dominus commendavit usque ad praesentem Episcopatum successio Sacerdotum The continued Succession of Priests until now from the seat of St. Peter the Apostle to whom our Lord after his Resurrection commended his Flock to be fed holds me in the Catholick Church And afterward No Donatist can shew such a Succession no more say I can any Protestant Se more in his Book De utilitate credendi c. 17. at those words Dubitamus nos ejus Ecclesiae gremio condere c. 12. Sanctity and Purity of Doctrin which neither Purity of Doctrin Infidel nor Sectary could ever yet cavil at But upon the account that there is too much of it in the Catholick Church is pittifully wanting to Protestants I prove it As the Tree is known by its Fruit so Holy Doctrin is best known by the Holy life of those who profess it and the Saintly effects that Saintly Effects follow Holy Doctrin follow it If we might insist on the first tell me where have our Protestants Their holy Hilarions their retired Pauls and Antonies their Gregories their Bernards their Malachies Where have they Apostles Like St. Austin of England Bishops of such Austerity as a St. Charles Boromaeus Doctors so profundly learned and humble as St. Thomas of Aquine and St. Bonaventure Where are their undefatigable Missioners sent for Conversions to the remotest parts of the world with a Blessed St. Xaverius Where are their Mortified Religious Sanctity manifest their Solitary Monks their Tender Virgins shut up in Cloysters without hope of enioying the world or Friends any more Such Holines manifest's it self in the Catholick Church Protestants have nothing like it and yet those two impure Founders of the new Gospel Luther and Calvin had far Les of Sanctity Let every Conscience speak its own Thought and say plainly whether these Two now A parallel named were Patterns of Vertue like a Renowned St. Benet a Glorious St. Dominick an Humble St. Francis a Prudent St. Ignatius who endeavored not to amend the Church ever sound in Doctrin But only to better the world by their Incessant labours by their Charitable works and Blessed example Heaven now crowns these Saints with Glory and earth yet celebrat's their Memory with immortal Praise whilst Luther and Calvin lye buried in Oblivion only thought on for founding a Gospel upon Liberty which makes all the Followers of it Libertins and therfore we must acknowledge that Christianity hath been much wors Protestancy ruin's Alt. for their once being Christians More Atheistical Principles have been setled in mens Harts since these two new Preachers came amongst us more Phantastick Opinions vented more Kingdoms undon more Common-wealths ruined more Innocent blood shed after this Tragical Gospel got footing than before were heard of for a thousand years together in time of Popery And 13. Here we may briefly touch something on those Sad Effects of this new Gospel sad Effects which have followed Protestant Doctrin And setting Passion aside friendly ask of any Impartial man what good hath this new Religion don in the world What amendment hath it made in Life and Manners What Conversions hath it wrought amongst Heathens and Infidels What Sanctity hath it yet shewed us in the Professors of it What Churches hath it built What Hospitals hath it erected What Universities hath it founded either comparable to our Ancient or modern Catholicks All runn's on in a Contrary strain Ruins gastly ruins follow these men where ever they go to the Horror of those who have Eyes to se and Harts to deplore the sad Spectacles yet left of their impious Sectaries Sacriledge Sacriledge and worse then Barbarous Reformation viz. Of our Churches defaced of our Cloysters demolished of our Altars and Monuments pulled down whilst yet they live on our Revenues as if the very Memory of Christ and the Temples where once he was Worshiped were grown abominable to these new Spirits And why all this Confusion for a new nothing O Strange and Prodigious Spirit what shall I say Impiety of thee Thy Doings are only to undo thy Building to destroy thy Piety is to prophane Sanctified Places Thy Light is to bring in Horror and Darknes Rebellion thy Turning from Christ and his Church hath Turned Kings out of their Thrones Bishops out of their Sees Religious out of their Cells Nobles out Confusion of their Estates Sense out of Scripture Charity out of the World and Men out of their wits This Turning from Christ and his Church hath Turned Vnity into Schism Peace into War Religion into Policy Vertue into Hypocrisy Learning into Ignorance Such are the known Effects of this late Doctrin all upon Record reserved to the final Sentence of our most impartial Judge in the Vale of Iosaphat where it will appear whether I have wronged these men in drawing up this dreadfull Charge against them or They themselves for such Impieties done before God and his Angels 14. Our Sectaries are wont to object against the Objection Churches Sanctity the Scandals Pride and Luxury of Wicked men in it St. Austin long since answered the Cavil Amongst good Corne have Cockle with wheat you have Chaff mingled in a slorishing Kingdom you find Traytors amongst marryed women it is St. Austins instance some you may have les Loyal Are therfore all to be blamed upon the Account of some 'T is open Unjustice Se St. Austin in his fifth Book All not blamable upon the account of some against Faustus cap. ultimo and his 137. Epistle Blessed be Almighty God though the guilt of Sin lyes heavily on many yet great Sanctity is still eminent in the Church amongst all Sorts of people whether Princes Prelaets Pastors Religious Seculars Rich or Poor Great Conversions we se dayly not only made from Haeresy to Faith but also from Vice to Vertue from a looser sensual Life to great Austerity The Rich often voluntarily become Poor The Proud Humble the Avaricious Liberal the Riotous Frugal the Impatient Meek the Secular Religious and quit all they have in this tumultuous World to serve God in a quiet Cell Such changes from Worse to Better are Evident changes from worse to better undeniably evident in the Catholick Church which yet Erasmus his acute Eye could never se amongst our New men Profer mihi saith He in his Epistle to Vulturius Neocomus quem istud Euangelium ex commessatore sobrium c. Give me the Man whom this Gospel of a Gurmandizer hath made Sober
of Fierce and cruel hath made Tractable of an Extortioner Liberal of a filthy Speaker fair spoken and of an unchast liver shamefast And I will shew you many who are grown Wors then they were before Thus Erasmus 15. Miracles the most glorious marks of Truth Miracles the most glorious Marks of Christs Church manifested in our Saviour Iohn 15. 24. wrought by his Apostles Mark 16. 17. and amply promised to those who Believe in Christ Iohn 14. 12. The Roman Catholick Church hath from Age to Age undeniably Evidenced and she only if we speak of clear and undoubted Miracles I mean of such as answer in Analogy and Proportion to our Saviours works The Blind se the Lame walk The Lepers are cleansed the Deaf hear the Dead rise c. These are the Churches Miracles Never had our Protestants or other Haereticks any like them Read Coccius and Bellarmin of Martin Luthers and Calvins famous Miracles The story is notoriously known I wave it 16. Of Ancient Miracles se Irenaeus advers Haeret. Of ancient Miracles lib. 2. cap. 57. St. Ambros Serm. 91. St. Austin lib. 22. de Civit. cap. 8. Theodoret in his 8. Books de curan Graec. Affect St. Hierom against Vigilantius Ruffinus St. Gregory with Of Modern Miracles others And for the more Modern be pleased only to read Iustus Lipsius a man of Credit and Reputation in his 3. Tome Antwerpe print anno 1637. towards the end with these Titles Diva Virgo Hallensis Diva Sichemiensis It is but time cast away to say more on this Subject most largely handled by our Writers who produce their Proofs answer to all contrary Cavils and cite their Authors of unquestioned Authority Both for pass't and present Miracles 17. And here because we mention Cavils read first I beseech you those Sacred Words of our Saviour Iohn 14. 12. Amen Amen I say unto you he that Believes in me the works that I do shall he do also Cavils of Sectaries against Miracles and greater works then those shall he do c. Next he pleased to say whether he Cavils not that Asserts these great Works and Wonders to have ceased after the time of Christ and his Apostles when not only approved History relates them but Reason also pleads strongly for their Continuance in ensuing Ages For had these Glorious marks of Truth failed in the Church as our Protestants would have it Because they have none Why Miracles continue in the Church Christian Faith ere this day believe it would have grown cold in the Harts of thousands and thousands Therfore to prevent Incredulity the Wise Providence Miracles still necessary of God rowseth them up and quickens their Belief with these forcible Incitements which neither Infidels can Deny nor Haereticks Own Again Miracles were necessary in the Beginning of the Church to demonstrate the Verity of Christian Religion against Iewes and Infidels But there is the like Necessity of them still for these mens Conversion All are not yet Reclaimed nor will Believe Scripture without farther Evidence 18. The Cavils of Sectaries against Miracles are Objection answered briefly reduced to these Heads Some say They are done by the help of the Devil First how know they that 2. Such was the cours and untrue Language of the Iewes against Christ Luk 11. v. 15. He cast out Devils and Devils help't him 3. Why are not such Miracles wrought by Arians or other Haereticks who surely come neerer Devillish Doctrin then Catholicks They object again We know not by Infallible and Certain Faith that these Miracles recounted in history were done I answer No more did the Primitive Christians who beheld Christs Miracles know them by Faith For they first saw them and afterward Believed We have therfore Indubitable moral Assurance of these wonders and that 's enough They say 3. Many Miracles are Fained and perhaps not truly related To the first I answer Gentils might have in like manner Cavilled at Christs The Gentils might have Cavilled at Christs Miracles as Sectaries do at the Churches own Miracles and said they were Fained yea and at true Scripture also Because counterfeit Gospels have been writ Know then we speak not here of either Fained or Doubtful Miracles But of such as are Clear Visible most severely examined Attested upon oath And manifestly proved before they receive warrant from either Church or Prelate We We rely on no doubtful Miracles have innumerable of These 19. To the second I answer Though Miracles only recounted in History are les assured then others approved by the Church yet it is a degree of madnes to deny them all And if some only of those many be True we have our Intent By the way pray you observe a pretty Humor of our Protestants If these Sectaries believe fables and deny Credit to Authentick History men read a Story though never so Unauthentik to the disgrace of a Pope of a Prelate of the Clergy or Religious Praedicant Clamitant They noise it all abroad and vent it openly in Print as most pretious ware And all are bound to believe it But when a very Saint or a choise Historian writ's of a Miracle Tell 's the Time the Place the Circumstances and make it morally Indubitable That is decry'd as an Imposture a Dream a forg'd Tale a meer Fiction and what not Is this think ye Evangelical Sincerity They object 4. Both Heathens and Haereticks had Miracles amongst them Mr. Poole I think somewhere Triflles with the Wonders of Heathens and Apollonius Tyanaeus Ergo They are not Signs of Truths Observe first how the Argument if of any Strength strikes with equal force at Christs Miracles as it doth at the Churches I answer therfore with St. Austin The few seeming Miracles of Heathens or Haereticks The Miracles of Heathens and Haereticks not comparable with those of the Church are not comparable to those of the Church either in Power Greatnes Continuance splendor or Majesty These as far go beyond the other in Worth and Excellency as the raysing of a dead man to life surpasses the taking a little water in a sieve or cutting of a whetstone asunder with a Rasor all sleight work fesible by Conjurers and the Devils help and much of that nature of those Egyptian wonders done before Moyses Whence it is that Blessed St. Austin little esteem'd the Donatists Miracles and those of other Haereticks Aut falluntur aut fallunt saith the Saint they either are deceived or deceive Se him in his Hom. 13. in Ioannem and more de Civitat lib. 10. c. 16. and in his Book de Vtilit cred c. 16. Concerning the name of Catholick which Protestants never had nor Those they Nick-name Papists a word newly coyned with their Gospel ever yet lost Read St. Austin contra Epist fondam cap. 4. and de utilit cred cap. 7. Christianus mihi nomen est said the Ancient Pacianus Catholicus cognomen illud me nuncupat istud ostendit Christian is
they Preach and teach They only can shew to all the World their Popes their Bishops their Pastors their Doctors who successively have taught and governed Christs Flock since the Beginning of Christianity They and only And glorious Marks of a long standing Church they shew you a Church marked and made glorious by innumerable known and undoubted Miracles a Faith seal'd with the Blood of innumerable Blessed Martyrs Beautified with such eminent Sanctity and Holynes of life in thousands as hath caused Admiration to very Infidels and drawn in no few to follow the like Austerity Such are the Inducements which plead strongly for the Roman Catholick Religion and no other They fully convince Reason and prove That if God as I noted above can conquer Infidelity and Haeresy by the force of prudential Motives here they are seen If ever he spoke by As God spake anciently by his Prophets and Apostles he speak's now by the Church the mouth of his Prophets or Apostles he speak's now by the mouth of this one and only Society of Christians yea and he yet useth as I may say the same powerful Language For if the miracles of our Blessed Lord and of his Apostles if their efficacious Doctrin their Sanctity of life their Blood shedding were Conviction enough to Infidels in those days They are now as forceable in the Church and as manifest to our Senses Which caused that Blessed man Richard de S. Victore lib. 1. de Trin. c. 2. to exclaim Si error est quem credidimus à te decepti sumus If it be error we Believe it is you who have deceived us Iis enim signis c. For with such Signs this Doctrin is confirmed which can proceed from none but you only If we speak of unquestioned Miracles as are the Resuscitation of dead men More since the times of the Apostles have been raised from death to life then in the Primitive Age. To deny these miracles is is to deny all History which supplyes the want of senses in Those who saw them not To owm them to disown Protestancy and profess plain Popery Our new men Therfore speak at random when they talk of I know not what Abstracted Evidences for Christian Religion and Tell us that the Motives for Scripture are agreed on by all I answered above No Evidence for Christian Religion in general nor for Scripture but by the Church There neither are nor can be Motives for Christian Religion in general if the word Christian compriseth all professed Haereticks For were it so God would deceive us and make Falshood as credible as Truth No Motives can evidence Scripture unles they first evidence a Church that indubitably gives us certain Scripture Which is to say in other Terms All Motives as well for the verity of Christian Faith as Scripture are only to be found in the Roman Catholick Church and in no other Society of Christians If Protestants can prove their Faith or Scripture by so much as a likelyhood of either These now Named Sectaries are obliged in Conscience to make their Motives known or any better Inducements They are obliged in Conscience to make them known that men at last may se that clear Light of the Gospel wherof they endlesly talk in their Pulpits True Candor and Sincerity cannot but speak plainly to this Point without intricate Tergiversation if so much as a spark of zeal lives in their Harts and Rational Motives do not fail them We expect a candid answer CHAP. XIII Protestancy for want of Rational Motives dishonor's Christ and makes way for any new coyned Haeresy 1. I prove the Assertion That Religion highly Protestancy dishonor's Christ dishonors Christ which must of Necessity confess That a False erroneous Church is more eminently glorious and better marked with all evident Signs of Truth then that pure Orthodox Religion is which Christ hath now established in the world But Protestants must confess thus much And to prove my Minor ad hominem I need no more But two Proved by their owne Principles certain Principles of their own One is The Roman Catholick Religion hath been at least for a thousand years Erroneous yea some say Anti-Christian it still contradict's the Primitive Doctrin Holds an Unbloody Sacrifice Transubstantiation Purgatory c. contrary to Scripture Such Doctrins gave Sectaries just cause as they say to leave this Church and Lash us so severly as they have done to pull down our Monasteries to Bannish the Ancient Clergy to Ruin those who professed our Religion They were not meer Trifles nor petty mistakes which made our kind harted Countrymen to use us so unkindly Here is my first Principle granted by Protestants The second is as clear viz. That their new Religion of Protestancy as it stands now Reformed is the pure true and most Orthodox Christian Religion For set this and the Primitive Church aside of three or four hundred years continuance You never yet had say they any Society of men that taught purely Christs Doctrin No God wot a Deluge of Popish Errors overran Christianity for a thousand years together until these later men brought unto us the Joyful Tydings of their Refined Gospel 2. Upon these two undeniable Suppositions you shall plainly se what an Eternal Disgrace what Affronts Protestants will needs put upon our Dearest Saviour do what we can to hinder them He Blessed Lord founded a Church it cost him dear the Effusion of his Sacred Blood and promised us an Indeficient glorious Church to be raised out of all Nations yet after all these ample Promises he hath A glorious Church promised and an obscure one shewed us of Protestancy given us a pittiful one indeed no better a Thing then Protestancy which is utrerly disgraced obscur'd dishonor'd and quite put down by the Majesty the Miracles the Antiquity the Vnity the Sanctity of that Church which must now forsooth be stiled False Erroneous and Antichristian If this pass for current Doctrin you have with it sport enough for the How Christ is dishonored Devil and Protestants only make it Who upon their warrant may most justly reproach both Christ and his Church and thus powerfully plead at the bar of Reason Saviour of the world My false Popish Anti-Christian Church hath stood a thousand years in Error How the Devil may plead and most rationally if Protestants speak Truth yours of Protestancy only a hundred in Truth Mine both is and hath been Universally spread the whole World over yours yet see 's little out of some few corners in Europe My Church hath had most learned General Councils yours never any Mine produceth a long continued Succession of Popes of Bishops of Pastors yours not a man before Luther Mine is glorious with those very Notes and Marks of Truth which you manifested in your own Sacred Person and induced Infidels to Believe you Your late Congregation shewes nothing like them My false Church Fasteth Prayeth Contemplat's Converts more then
yours it hath more Unity in Faith Yours is Rent and torn apieces with Divisions And Loe great God Here is that Glorious Edifice which you after all your perfect Idea's of a Church have erected For this you dyed and never shed your Blood to Establish my false erroneous Synagogue of Popery Permit Reason to judge in this case and say whether the Devil be an ill Advocate if Protestants avouch Truth And stand to their professed Doctrin That the Church of Rome drowned in a Deluge of Errors abandoned the first Verities of Christian Religion for a thousand years together And that their Church as it is now in Being is the most choise goodly and only refined Religion in the world 3. My last Argument hinted at in the Title is Foundations laid of new Haeresies thus A new coyned Haeresy without Motives of Credibility may be as well or better defended by plain speaking Scripture then Protestancy It is believe me the easiest thing in the world to draw Haeresy out of the Words of Scripture To make good my Assertion Read first St. Hierom in his Dialogue S. Hieroms Reflection Adversus Luciferianos Paris Print anno 1509. at the very end of the Dialogue This great Doctor then to reduce some beguiled by the Luciferians who held that a Bishop or Priest once Deserting their Faith could never again be admitted into the Church which they endeavored to prove by that text of St. Matthew cap. 5. v. 13. You are the Salt of the earth but if the salt hath lost its savor wherwith shall it be salted Ad nihilum valet ultra it is good for nothing hereafter c. St. Hierom I say to refute these hath an excellent Reflection Nec sibi blandiantur si de Scripturae Capitulis videntur sibi assumere c. Let them not flatter themselves if they seem to assume out of Scripture Of Errors drawn from Scripture what they say For the Devil hath spoken things out of Scripture Scripture God know's doth not consist in what we read but in the sense of it Otherwise saith the Saint Possumus nos c. I am able to coin a new Opinion out of Scripture and say That none are to be received into the Church that wear shoos or have two coats For that is Scripture 4. It were most easy to go on with this true Reflection of St. Hierom and draw new Haeresies every Particulars hour from Scripture One will say The Sabbath-day is to be kept Sacred in place of Sunday and bring Scripture for it Exod. 20. 8. Another That we are as well to abstain from Eating of Blood or things Strangled as from Fornication it is a Decree of the Apostolical Council and Scripture Actor 15. 29. A third That Infants aae not to be Baptized There is ground for it Matth. 28. A fourth That we are not to Contend in Law but quit our Coat if any man will take it and Cloak also Matt. 5. A fifth That no Euangelical Preacher is to carry Gold or Silver with him or have two Coats Matt. 10. 7. 5. Suppose that a new Sect of men should rise up A new Sect of men rising up this year in whole Multitudes and rigidly adhere to the exact letter of Scripture in these Particulars is it possible to convince them by Scripture It is impossible And have they not think ye more plain Text's of Gods Word for these Tenents then Protestants have for pure Protestancy Yea most evidently For they produce nothing but express Scripture without Glosses And do they not believe in Christ and admit of every jota in Scripture Yea and therfore are sound in Fundamentals Moreover Do they not acknowledge both Christ and Scripture upon the same Tradition or other Evidences as Protestants do Yea and are ready perhaps to joyn in Belief with them when they se Scripture as plain for any Protestant Doctrin They only add a Superstructure Have as good a Church as Luther had of these Articles And have They not as good a Church as Luther and Calvin had a year after their new Preaching Yes They swarm with multitudes of Followers and multitudes make a Church Why then is not the Belief of these men all grounded in Scripture as good as that of Protestants I think it is of two Evils the Better if more Words of Scripture can more advance the Worth of either Religion But I tell you and truly That neither of them is good because unreasonable and they are therfore unreasonable Because no mans Reason can in this present state of Christianity whilst God Govern's us by the Light of Prudence fall upon a Religion or Believe a Church which evidently Appears A Religion without prudent Motives is no Religion naked and destitute of all Rational motives inductive to True Belief Now Scripture alone without the Interpretation of a Church evidenced by forcible Motives is what you please to make of it And a Church not at all manifested by rational motives is no Church and Therfore cannot interpret Scripture If you ask why we say That Protestancy is so bare of Motives and consequently no Church I have answered above Because this Religion never had nor shall have any such perswasive Inducements or the like Signs of Truth for it as Christ Iesus and his Blessed Apostles manifested when they first taught the World and by virtue of those Motives gained innumerable Souls to Christianity Look then about you and find me out a Society of Christians that is evidenced by such Signs as hold a strict Analogy with those of Christ and his Apostles and you have the True Church But this is the Roman Catholick Church What proved Christianity anciently proves now the Roman Catholick Church only and no other as I have largely proved Dare you therfore own the true Christ and his Blessed Apostles who wrought Miracles lived Holily preached Efficaciously upon such Motives You must also own this true Church upon the like grounded Proofs Were Miracles Sanctity Efficacious Doctrin c. Rational inducements to Believe in Christ They are now both powerful and perswasive to Believe this Church To Deny as I said above all Miracles to this Church even the greatest as is the Raysing of dead men to life is to Deny Sense Reason History The forceable Motives of Faith cannot be taken from our Church and all Authority And to appropriate These and other Motives to Protestants is only an attempted Plagiary which cannot be done It is true These men glory in a stolen Bible and 't is all they can pretend to besides the bare name of a fruitles and unevidenced Church but the marks and Characters of a true Church They shall never have nor take from us And thus much of infallible Teachers and the Motives of true Faith THE SECOND DISCOVRS OF SCRIPTVRE THE FIRST CHAPTER Scripture is useles if none declare infallibly the sense of it 1. WHen on the one side I consider
If the Churches Interpretation were as fallible as the Arians Christians might follow either as they please were as fallible as the Arians Christians might indifferently Adhere to Either yea and changeably now take one then the other as they please A greater Probability can ballance nothing in this or the like particulars as I shall largely prove hereafter In the mean while by what is now said we may learn first Though Scripture in this and other Mysteries hath its Darknes yet by the good Providence of Almighty God we are provided of a Sure Interpreter which is absolutely Necessary For if Every one interpret according to fancy Haeresy is easily Drawn out of Gods Word And if none interpret Faithfully the Scripture still lyes hid in Obscurity which makes it for that part a Useles Book to Christians The necssity of an infallible Interpreter Learn farther That None can ever know exactly by Human Industry or his Sole pondering the Bible let him be another Salomon for Wisdom what God hath Revealed in these difficil Mysteries of our Faith without an Infallible Interpreter To prove my Assertion I 'll give you one Instance 3. Suppose that two or three most learned Heathen Philosopher well versed in Languages and all Human Literature had this Book of Scripture put into their Hands and were perswaded by the extrinsecal An instance of Philosoohers reading the Bible Authority of all Christians that God here speak's his Eternal Verities Withall That if they read the Book and by their Sole reading without Recours to any Interpreter possess the True sense of it They have True Saving Faith Well They read it and with as much Humility as any Protestant can do yet If They ask of none but Their own Iudgement errour followes Ask of none But their own judgement what it means in the more difficil Passages Tell me I beseech you And here I appeal to the moderate Iudgement of every Christian whether Catholick Arian or Protestant What Faith or Religion would these Philosophers produce out of Sole Scripture Solely Read and pondered by them My Thought is 'T is no more but a Thought That the Result of their Reading would end in Coyning a Religion different from all Others now in Christendom I am very confident They would never pitch upon Protestancy no nor Their doubts would be Endles upon any Sect now extant Alas they would Doubt and Stagger at every hard passage in Scripture yea and by the very Instinct of Nature if they own'd Scripture for Gods Book would humbly Supplicate Those who gave them the Book to lay open the Mysteries therin and Assure them of its meaning in a hundred Places yet none can do this good office for them But One only Society of Christians that layes claim to Infallibility and proves it Demonstratively if Faith be in the World 4. Be it how you will thus much I conclude Our Protestants are in the very same Case without an infallible Interpreter as the Philosophers are with Sectaries are in the very same case without an Infallible Interpreter no Interpreter These make Scripture speak what They think it speaks right or wrong And Protestants do the like whilst They give their sentiment on Mysteries above their Reach without an Infallible Teacher Pray you Reflect Had Christ Iesus and his Apostles never Taught any thing by Word of Mouth But only thrown the Book of Scripture amongst Christians Strange Confusions Had Christ and his Apostles given to Christians a Bible without an Interpreter when They left the World and commanded them to make that use of it which every Private Iudgement thought best what a Religion think ye should we have had at this day in Christianity any or none or a thousand different ones as good as none God only knows I do not Yet will say This is out very present Condition if an infallible Interpreter of Scripture be Rejected We may wrangle to the Dissentions would have followed without hope of union Worlds end but agree in nothing Dispute but conclude nothing we may raise Difficulties one against another But allay none And thus the contest must run on without Redres or Remedy All Appellation here to Antiquity to Councils Fathers Appellation to Antiquity remedies nothing being fallible with Protestants and Tradition help 's nothing Becaus they are Fallible And were they otherwise we vary as highly about the Sentiments of Fathers in every debated point of Controversy as we do about Scripture it self 5. We se thirdly How utterly impossible it is for a Protestant to draw from the Objective Verities revealed in Scripture the True Sense and meaning of Gods Word in any controverted point of Religion The Reason is Scripture never speak's plainly and expresly the Protestants Sense in these debated Controversies observe it in All and you 'll find it so What do they therfore to help themselves They first Reject an Infallible Interpreter and next as the Arians do superadd their own Fallible glosses to make Sectaries make Scripture to speak what They would have it say not what God speak's Scripture speak not what it Truly says But what They would have it say And thus they think Scripture cleared and Their Work don Take here one Instance for many Catholicks and Protestants have been at Variance a hundred years and more about these Sacred Words Matt. 26. This is my Body The different Senses drawn from them are Contradictory And therfore cannot be True This is my Body Really saith the Catholick and here is my internal Faith No saith the Protestant This is my Body figuratively or a Sign of my Body And this is my Belief Arians and Protestants vitiate Scripture after the same manner Mark I beseech Just as the Arian saith I and my Father are one and superadds his Gloss of one in Affection so the Protestant here vitiates the Text by his Gloss and adds to Scripture what God never spoke a Trope a Figure a Sign and I know not what And after This Injury don to the Words He Believes not for Gods Express Word But for his own far-fetcht and dear bought Interpretations which are no more Scripture then if he should tell me That An Example That text of St. Matthew cap. 3. verse 17. This is my beloved Son were to be forcibly stript of its Verity and misinterpreted Thus This is only a Sign or Figure of my Beloved Son No more doth Scripture through the whole Gospel warrant in the least an Improperty of speech in the one Text now cited then in the other I little Regard The Protestant dscourses and glosses contrary to this Mystery of Faith let us have plain Scripture much les their Inferences which are all Human and Fallible O but to say that Christ Body is Really Present under the Species of Bread yea and in a thousand places at Once is an Vnintelligible Mystery Why more Unintelligible then a Trinity of Persons in one Essence
you fallible Teachers say but what God hath said in Scripture concerning the fallibility of a whole Christian Church This we wish to hear of before we credit your Talk or Believe for your saying It hath erred de facto CHAP. VIII The new Mode of Sectaries misinterpreting Scripture destroyes Protestant Religion 1. HEre we give you a fourth Reflection consequent to the former Discours which follows upon our Sectaries misinterpretation of Scripture 'T is worth the Readers knowledge and if I mistake not totally Ruin's Protestant Religion Thus it is The whole Machin of Protestancy as Protestancy stands Protestancy stands topling on negatives topling upon supposed Objective Negatives built up by Fancy only without so much as one positive proof of Scripture to support it If I evidence not this Truth and consequently do not convince That our Sectaries have no Faith Deny me credit Hereafter 2. Observe well No sooner do these Sectaries perswade Themselves That they can Abate the force of our Scripture-proofs for Catholick Doctrin But They How They proceed farther an Negatives presently lay hold on the quite contrary Doctrin And make that an Article of their new Faith They say we prove not a Church infallible Therfore the contrary Position The Church is fallible is with them a certain Truth They say we prove not a third place of Purgatory Therfore the Belief of no Mark Thâ—se Inferences Purgatory is an Article of Protestants Faith We prove not Christs Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist Therfore the Belief of his Not-presence constitutes part of Protestants Doctrin We prove not the Popes Supremacy Ergo They Believe the Contrary c. To show their Nullity of Faith shall we here condescend to what They say And contrary both to Conscience and manifest Truth suppose with them the Proofs for our Doctrins to be proofles Be it so supposed at present Pray you say next What are They able to infer upon such a fals Concession Marry thus much If we prove no Purgatory There is surely no such Place If we prove not the Church Infallible it is certainly Fallible and so of the rest I answer This These Sequels are deeply Nonsense Sequele is Non-sense and a pure Non sequitur We prove not Ergo The contrary Doctrin is true For how many Things are there both Actual and Possible which men prove not and yet are so A young student in Mathematicks cannot perhaps prove that the Sun is greater then a Sieve Is it therfore consequent That that luminous body is not Greater The Proof is naught And here is all that follows One thing then it is in our present Case To say our Proofs Proofs may fall short and yet not fall upon falsities for Catholick Doctrin fall short or are forceles And a quite Other to say they fall upon falsities Ergo no absolute Denial of these Catholick Verities is deducible from our not proving them Yet upon this fals supposed negative foundation We prove not All Protestant Religion stands tottering as it doth 3. Be pleased to hear more of this Stuff Let us also falsly suppose as our Sectaries will have it that These may be objective Truths and Verities No Church is infallible There is no Purgatory c. Doth it follow think ye That they can believe These Negatives Every Truth is not a material Object of Faith with Divine and stedfast Faith upon the Concession That they are now supposed Truths No. It is a lame Consequence and a wors Non sequitur Then the other Observe my Reason No Objective Verity Although supposed True in it self can be believed by A lame Consequence Divine Faith Vnles God hath positively Revealed it or is at least clearly Deducible from Scripture So Sectaries Assert and upon this ground That Divine Faith besides Truths revealed by God are Objects of Faith a Material Object Believable requires also and this essentially the weight of a Formal Object which is Gods Veracity to reveal that which is believed by Faith Seclude this Veracity from the Motive and Formal object of our Assent Though we yeild to a thousand Verities not one of them can be believed by Faith 4. Now I Assume But the fallibility of Christs whole Church The not being of Purgatory The not Existency That there is no Purgatory no Real Presence c. is no where Reveal'd by God of Christ Body in the Sacred Eucharist and so of the rest Are no where positively revealed by God no nor clearly deduced from any Text in Scripture Ergo Although these were Truths in themselves yet they are not revealed Truths or Truths spoken by Almighty God Therfore they are insufficient to found Divine Faith The Major is granted by Protestants The Minor viz That these supposed Truths were Ergo Cannot be Articles of Protestant Faith never spoken by Almighty God in Scripture is so undeniably evident That here I am forced to chalenge Sectaries to produce so much as one Text wherin God hath Positively said There is no Purgatory No real Presence c. This they cannot do by so much as by a probable Deduction from Scripture much les by plain Scripture it self The Conclusion An Evident Conclusion against Sectaries therfore follows evidently They Believe not what God hath Revealed and consequently want Faith in the Articles they Assent to as Protestants Nay I say more They cannot Assent to These Articles as evident Truths For no received Principle either in Nature or Grace can evidence so much as the supposed objective Verity of These Doctrins Shall I yet add a word and say That no Proof grounded upon weighty moral Reason can evidence these negative Assertions to be Truths morally known Therfore though hitherto we have supposed them to pass for Verities yet in real earnest They are unproved and no other But the weak Thoughts of our Adversaries strong Fancy Now here If I mistake not You se Ruin enough of Protestant Religion And the Ruin of Protestant Religion as Protestancy which stand's upon a Fancied Opinion only and not upon what God hath Revealed in his Sacred Word No nor can probably be made known by any received Principle 5. To conclude this point I Argue thus These Negative Articles No purgatory No Church infallible c. Are either essential Pieces of Protestant Religion or not If not There is no such thing as Protestant Religion in the world For the Reformed part of it is wholy An unanswerable Dilemma made up of such Negatives No Purgatory No Transubstantiation No unbloody Sacrifice No Praying to Saints No Church infallible c. Cast then these and the like away Protestancy dwingles to nothing Now if on the other side They hold these as Articles of Protestancy And say They ought to be believed by Divine Faith They are obliged to shew which is utterly impossible that God hath Positively revealed them in Scripture Therfore I say Though we Admit of such Negatives as Objective
Church which Verified the Belief of that Article can be plainly and without fumbling Designed Say then on Gods name what Christians had we who constituted the Holy Catholick Church Nor Papists according to Protestants nor the later Graecians in Those Dayes Papists you say were all in a Deluge of Errour which made Luther to leave them Our later Graecians held and hold still a True Mass Sacrifice the Real Presence Praying to Saints Prayers for the Dead c. They therfore contrary to our Sectaries were neither the Holy nor Vniversal Church None say Sectaries but gross erring men were in the world before Luther Much les were Arians Abyssins Pelagians Monotbelits or all of them together Now besides such erring men There were no other in the World If Therfore the Vniversal Church be Essentially made up of Particular Churches as truely it is For there is no Vniversale à parte rei And all Particular Churches Nameable in those dayes grosly Erred it follows evidently That then no Holy Catholick Church could be Believed Since Those times Our Protestants came in Protestants only are not the Holy Vniversal Church And will They if That Article of our Creed was Fals in the last Age verify it now and stile Themselves the only Vniversal Church I am Confident They will not Donatize so far or dare to do so The Question Therfore Proposed deserves an exact Answer Viz. Where or amongst what Christians shall we find the The Question proposed deserves a clear Answer Holy Vniversal Church Then free from notable Errour 2. Can our Novellists Rationally say That All those who rightly Believed in Christ constituted the Holy Vniversal Church If so The Reply is too general An abstract belief in Christ insufficient to constitute true Catholick Faith and we ask again Who Those were and urge to have the Particular Communities Specified That Catholickly Believed in Christ We demand moreover what they mean by that Belief in Christ Was it enough to Confes Him to be the True Messus Our Redeemer our Master or to acknowledge his Death his Resurrection without Believing more of his Doctrin Surely More is required and necessary to Saluation no. For first God never spake those other Excellent Verities registred in Scripture whether Dogmatical or relating to manners in vain But to good Purpose And with Intention That They should besides that abstracted Faith in Christ both be harken'd to and Believed after a Sufficient Proposal Again Were the later Graecians who firmly Believed in Christ and held never the les Almost all the Tenents of the Roman Catholick Church Catholick Believers also If so Papists can in no Iustice be excluded from that Communion Perhaps you will say you do not exclude them No. Why then have you hanged them upon Gibbets meerly for being Papists If you Answer you do so upon the Account of their Particular Errors then hang up a number of your own Ministers who confessedly have more Errors among them Or if petty Differences in Points of Faith may be pardoned in the One why are they so severely punished in the Other But ad rem 3. Say plainly And Answer Categorically without Arians and Pelagians believed in Christ Shuffling Were Arians Pelagians Nestorians Monothelits Parts and Members of the Holy Catholick Church For they believed in Christ and owned him for their Redeemer Master and Doctor yea and admitted of Scripture also If you Affirm it Then there never were nor can be Haeresies in the Christian Yet were cast out of the Church as Hareticks world whilst Christ is acknowledged in this General Way and consequently the Ancient Councils Dealt most unjustly with these men in casting them out of the Churches Communion And proclaiming them Haereticks Beside observe I pray you what a pretty Church is here made up of men irreconciliable in their Disputes Is this think ye that Holy Vniversal A Church compounded of hideous dissenting Members is not Christs Church and Vnited Society of Christians which Christ Iesus cimented together in one Faith who do nothing but clash one with another And will he own this for his Spouse when he comes to Iudge the World Yet farther No Doctrin proper to Particular Sectaries as Arianism is to Arians Pelagianism to Pelagians Protestanism to Protestants can Becaus bound up within the narrow compass of these Communities deserve No Doctrine peculiar to Sectaries can be Catholick the Name or Notion of either Holy Vniversal or Catholick Doctrin Prescind therfore from these particular Doctrins or lay them aside which as Protestants must say did not Vnchurch them my Demand is and it shall never be Answered wherin Consists the Protestants cannot answer the Question Remainder of that Doctrin which implyes the pure Essentials of Christian Religion joyns men together in one Faith and makes them true members of the Holy and Vniversal Church 4. Will You hear as I think the best Answer of some newer Protestants They may say Who ever Believes in Christ and Scripture and ioyns in that Belief which was Vniversally owned by the whole Christian World before Luther is right in Faith and a Member of the Holy Vniversal Church Though perhaps He Believes with his tainted Church some Errours A most wretched The first Answer refuted and unproved Assertion For who ever yet maintain'd That a Society of Christians owning some Doctrin True as all have don and more perhaps Fals is a part of the True Holy Catholick Church We say Bonum ex integrâ causâ malum ex quolibet defectu A Faith Therfore Truely good is Intierly good Any Falsity Spoil's it And then most when 'T is vitiated with notable Errours Tell me if Scripture A Church vitiated with gross errours is no more a Church Then the Bible notably corrupted is Gods word were Corrupted in some Points of Consequence would you own the whole Bible for Gods Word No certainly How then can we own That for Christs True Church which is corrupted with Fals Doctrin You will say We must take the Good without the Bad And Believe as much as is necessary to the Essential Being of a Church And that makes us Catholicks Though we ioyntly Believe some errors with it Answer This is wors then before And more confused stuff Who are those WE that can chuse thus None can separate Truth from falshood if I live in an Erring Church Or Tell me if I live in an Erring Church where Fals Doctrin is Secretly mingled with Truth what I am to chuse or what is Good or Bad If a poor simple man Deceived by his Pastor fall into an Errour There are others ready to unbeguile him But Because He who endeavours to unbeguile me may then most err himself here are none to do this Service Becaus none can certainly Iudge of the right or wrong Will you say That Scripture is to decide in such Doubts Pray you Tell me if by a supposed Impossibility Scripture
it self were Corrupted in certain great matters And no Body knew where on whose Iudgement should we Rely to single out those Corruptions This Case only supposed is a Real one in the Churches Before Luther if the Roman fail us For all other were corrupted Neither Scripture nor mans own private Iudgement can help in such an Exigency and no Protestant can certainly say in what However Take Scripture as it is most pure And plead with it against an Arian He laughs at you and says he hath more clear Scripture for his Particular Tenents then Protestants have for Theirs What then is next Every Private man must in such Exigencies Judge for himself The Arian Answers He doth so And thinks his Judgement as good as yours yet still remain's in his Errour Well at last you shall hear the right Solution CHAP. II. Of a late VVriters Doctrin 1. WHen all Christian Societies saith he consent to such Mr. Stillingfleet things as by the Iudgement of all those Societies are necessary to the Being of the Catholick Church Then we are Right in Faith And this Judgement is best made A second Answer refuted when we regulate our Belief by the Catholick Doctrin of the first Ages Here is no man knows what and not only a Generality But Impossibility upon Impossibility Say therfore Shall we ever se that day when all Christian Societies will stand thus United in one Judgement concerning the Being or the Essentials These men propose impossibilities of a Church Never Unles every Particular Society first lay down its own supposed Errour and say So much is not essentially necessary 2. Do you think That Catholicks will ever come in And acknowledge either Their Belief of an Vnbloody Sacrifice or Transubstantiation to be errours No. They hold these Doctrins as Essential as to Believe a Trinity Do you Think that Arians Pelagians and other Haereticks will so far Disown their Particular Tenents as to lay them down or grant They make not up a Church No certainly This Confent of Judgements Therfore in all Christians Societies for the The supposed consent of Iudgements for owning so much precise Doctrin Essential is a Chimâ—ra Sectaries cannot propound that precise Doctrin wherof God requires explicite Belief owning of so much precisely as is Necessary to the Essential Being of a Church is a most unlearned Speculation Neither do we mend the matter in saying as some do That nothing is Essential to a Church But what may be Evidently propounded to all Persons as a Thing wherof God requires Explicit Belief For upon whose Proposition made evident to us may we Assuredly rest and Hold That God requires an Explicit Belief of so many Articles and no more If you answer 'T is so much as The Catholick Church in all Ages received you still lurck in Darknes And prove ignotum per ignotius For you never yet told us nor can tell us where this Catholick Church is or what it Taught You will say it is That Church or the agreed-on Doctrin which all who went under the Notion of Christians owned as Holy and Catholick Answ There never was any such Church nor such Doctrin owned by all in the World For Christs True Doctrin always met with opposition and had Fals Doctrin against it You will say the Primitive Arians oppos'd as much the Ancient Church and Doctrin was pure let us stick to That And all is well I answer first It was most pure yet both Arians and others opposed it They therfore will not Agree to it And here by the way I might Ask Why their Authority was not then every whit as good to Vncatholick that first Church as Sectaries As Protetants do the Present Church is now to Uncatholick the Roman 2. It is a meer Subterfuge Thus to run up to the Primitive Church whilst you and we Agree not though 't is your Fault what that Ancient Church Taught in many Particulars If you say We must read and judge Alas We have All been Reading these hundred years And yet are at Variance about that Doctrin You se then how Controversies are made Endles by this Proceeding But what will ye It is an old Fallacy of our New men who first Suppose And then go on to Prove They suppose the Primitive Doctrin to be known and agreed on by Themselves and Us and then Appeal to it There Why Sectaries recur to the primitive Church is no such thing The Real Truth therfore is They take up shelter here Becaus Controversies that are now most handled were in Those days the least examined 2. Some of our Later men may perhaps pretend That we have not been able hitherto to understand their meaning or to dive into the Speculative Conceits A third Answer resuted of the Church Catholick And therfore teach us thus That Doctrin wherin all Churches have Agreed on ever since Christs time can be no matter of Discord for where all Agree there can be no Disagreement Take therfore that Precise and Vniform Doctrin which all Christians have Antecedently to particular errors Vniversally owned as unquestioned Christian Doctrin Therin consists the Essentials of Saving Faith or the very Quintessence of the Catholick Church and in no more 3. Mark well a strong Speculation about nothing You must Prescind one Vniform Vnivocal True Religion from The abstracting true Doctrin from fals is a speculation worth Nothing all Fals Religions in the World And then you have the True Religion That is you must cut of from Arianism from Pelagianism from Donatism from Protestanism from Popery For here is also some thing supposed Amiss what is Errour And the Remainder of Doctrin wherin all Agree constitutes the Essence of Saving Faith Believe it it will prove a mighty Diffic 〈…〉 ty to cut and carue right in so Weighty a matteâ— Pray you who must Go above this work Protestants Protestants ought first to lay down their own Errours Toyes Let them on Gods name who are so much upon Reformation first lead the way and lay down their own Errors next we shall se who follows them I am sure Catholicks will not Disown the Catholicks will abute Nothing of their Belief least Article of their Belief For they as I told you just now Assent with equal Assurance to all Points of Faith And so do also I think The Arians and other Sectaries to their Particular Errours But suppose Admit of the supposition nothing is concluded That we mentally conceive one agreed-on Harmonious Doctrin Vniversally held by all Christians who can Assure me that so much precisely is enough for Saving Faith You may say that That Doctrin wherin all Christians Agree cannot but be True Becaus all own it But you shall never soo much as probably show That saving Faith requires no more or stand's safe upon such a Generality The Arians believed in Christ that is General Doctrin But denyed his Godhead Cerinthus and Ebion Believed in
Christ But held that he was Man only The Monothelits Believed That which all Christians agree in though true is not enough for saving Faith in Christ But denyed his two Natures his two Wills Humane and Divine The Apollinarians Believed in Christ and held that the Word assumed True Flesh But without a Created Soul Tell me now can you Abstract a Belief from these Erring Christians Common to all other That is safe sufficient and enough to constitute Saving and Catholich Faith Is it enough to say I do Believe in Christ without descending with my Faith to an explicit Belief of his Divinity also Hath one that saith I believe in Christ But I will abstract from a Belief of his two Natures from his having a Rational Soul from His Being God and Man And Becaus others have positively Disbelieved these Articles I will only Prescind from the Verity of them to prescind is les then expresly to deny them hath such an one I say Saving Faith enough to make him a Plain Haresy followâ— from these Sectaries Doctrin Member of the Holy Catholick Church No. For if so He needs not to believe at all the Divinity of Christ or his two Natures after Scripture is Red and Proposed unto him which obligeth him if He own it for Gods Word not to Abstract from the Belief of these Articles But positively to yeild an Assent to them with True Faith as most Fundamental Verities of Christian Religion You se Therfore how Impossible it is to draw one true Vniform Vniversal Doctrin From all erring Christians And to hold that on the one side sufficient for Catholick Faith And on the other to comply with that strict Obligation which express Scripture clearly proposed forceth us to Believe 4. This Point I insist on Becaus I know Protestants cannot so much as probably Name any Thing like a Holy united Catholick Church before Luther unles They first Answer as some of them seem to do by the Abstract Doctrin of all Christians now evidenced no Faith And say That particular Errors did Vncatholick none Or Secondly run to an invisible Church not at all Designable Or thirdly as They Protestants ought to acknowledg the Roman Catholick Church as True c. ought to do Acknowledge that the Roman Catholick Church was then and now is not only a Church But the Sole Holy and Catholick Church of Christ through the whole World With this Catholick Society I could show were it not amply don by others How all who Age after Age merited the Name of Catholicks have ioyned in Faith And all who parted from it Have been Branded with the ignominious Note of Or can find none Haereticks If I speak not Truth Name any Society of Christians before Luther That ever gained the None ever had the Name of Catholick but those of the Roman Faith Repute of Catholick But such only as were United in Faith with the Roman Church Name any one Society That Divorced it Self from this Church which Forthwith lost not that Ancient Title of Catholick Or was not upon That Separation Stiled Haeretical Schismatical or Both. If you say first the Roman Church wronged them I Ask. Quis te constituit judicem Who made you judge in this Case Name the injured Parties Were the Arians Pelagians Nestorians Donatists wronged when they left Communion with this Church The Gracians Waldenses c. No more wronged then Arians No. But the Waldenses the Albigenses the Hussits And most of all The later Graecians had Injury Don them And why so more Then Pelagians Is your bare Assertion Proof enough to Declare Those Guilty and These Innocent When you your selves as much condemn them as Catholicks Do For You utterly Disavow Their Doctrin Was ever General Council Convened That did more Patronize the Errour of these Waldenses Then those other of the Arians or That blamed the Roman Church for casting them out of Her Communion No. Why therfore do you Plead â—o much for a Bad cause when you have no more â—o Defend it Then your own Proofles Talk which Had you spent in an Apology For any Old Condemned Haeretick would have Help't as much That 's nothing at all as now you Advantage These later Men And Observe I Beseech you How weakly you Go to work You say the Hussits Waldenses Sectaries plead for condemned Hereticks without any Principle but their own Talk and Others were good Catholicks We deny it And Demonstrate their Vncatholick Doctrin To what Tribunal shall we Appeal for a just Sentence to your Saying I or to our No. To None And Thus you Proceed with us in all your Controversies We must either take your Word for your Assertion or Dispute without end upon nothing that hath the Appearance And make Controversies Endles of a received Principle 5. You Say Again The Later Graecians were Catholicks Before they Recanted their Errours in the Council of Florence How Prove you That By a glorious Empty Title A Defence of the Greek Church By Far fetch'd Vncertain Conjectures And meer Negative Arguments which are so slight That if all were put together in a Iust Ballance They would not weigh one Straw much â—es Out-weigh the Definition of a most Learned General Council against the Greeks Yet such Talk and Talk only lengthen's these new Books And makes them so Voluminous as They are And They Defend Doctrin denyed by the English Church by the way Note here a Pretty Humour The Greeks must be Defended in that Point of the Holy Ghosts Procession from the Father Only whilst the Church of England Anathematizeth the Doctrin Is not this Right think ye And well done by a Protestant 6. Well You shall se my plain Dealing with Graecians Hussits and Waldenses could not make the Catholick Church you I Licence you to take These Graecians Those Hussits Those Waldenses c. to make up a Church before Luther yet must Tell you They Do not the deed without more Company which cannot be found That These we have named make not the Church Catholick is Evident For first they were never Vniversal either in Time or Place Their late Beginnings and little Extent are known and upon Record 2. They were never United in one Doctrin But more at variance with One another Then you and Catholicks are This they only Agreed in to Oppose the Catholick Faith And if so much made them Protestants or good Catholicks You may call in Turks and Iewes to bear them Company 3. They were most contrary to Protestant Religion and not in Trifles only Why therfore have you recours to a People so Blasted Scattered and almost now Forgotten Alas Protestants Every way Churchles The Reason is clear Becaus without them you have nothing to make a Church of And yet with them you are Churchles I say therfore No Roman Catholick Church no Church No Roman Catholick Church no Church at all at all If no Church at all There was then
nor can say That the Belief of such and such Articles are to be excluded as Vnnecessary to Saluation 7. Nay I Affirm more It is Impossible for Them by their own Principles to Exclude any To prove my Assertion Observe First They can no more say by a true general Proposition This whole Bible I have now Sectaries cannot by their Principles distinguish between Fundamentals and others in my Hands is Gods own Word and exclude the least Verity in it from being Gods true Word Then They can say by a true general Proposition All men are by nature Mortal and exclude any particular Man from being Mortal For as the Mortality of every particular man makes so far forth This Proposition True That if One be by nature Immortal it is Fals so the Truth of every particular Article in Scripture Verifies so far the other Proposition To believe Scripture in a general way that implyes the Covenant of Grace is necessary to Saluation That if one Article be not Gods true Word the General Proposition is Fals also Now I Assume But Protestants say to Believe Scripture to be the true Word of God at least in a General way which implyes the Covenant of Grace and Faith in Christ is Indispensably necessary to Saluation Therfore They must also Say To believe every particular Article contained in Scripture as being truely Gods Word is in like manner Indispensably Necessary to Salvation Becaus this General Belief carries as well in The Reason it an Owning of every particular Truth in Scripture as the General Assertion of All mortal Ascrib's Mortality to every particular man The Reason is clear For as Scripture is not made up of Generalities But Essentially Scripture Cansist's of particular Verities is constituted of the particular Verities contained Therin so if my Faith truely and intierly Own Scripture for Gods Word it is Extended to no Generality in the Object For there is none But to particular Verities Though the Mode or Tendency of the Act be Faith must be of Particulars nos always perfectly Explicit 8. If you Say The Argument Here proposed seem's Fallacious Becaus it Proves at most That every little Matter in Scripture may be an Object of Faith But no way Inferr's the Belief of them Necessary to Saluation For 't is very different To Affirm Such a Thing I may Believe And another to own the Belief of The Belief of Every particular in Scripture relates to Eternal Happines it Necessary to Saluation if this I say be the Reply my Answer is That as well the Belief of every particular Verity in Scripture hath the same Relation to mans Eternal Happines as the general Belief of owning Scripture for Gods Word hath not only Becaus the Particular is included in the General But chiefly on this other Account That being a Supernatural Elicit Act of Faith it can aym at no other End But mans Supernatural Happines For under this Notion of Supernaturality it Leaves as it were the Limits of Nature and raiseth a Soul to Eternal Bliss Where you se That Both the Means and End Vnivocally Agree in being Supernatural and are alike suitable To one another Permit me to Evidence this Truth further and Ask Whether the Denial or Disbelief of the least Truth The Disbelief of the least matter in Scripture makes one an Haeretick That God Speaks in Scripture once Owned for his Word and Sufficiently Propounded makes not a Man an Haeretick Yes most assuredly For by Denying That to be True which He knows God Saith is True He pertinaciously Opposeth himself to an Infinit Veracity Ergo The True Act of Faith contrary That which makes one a Faithful Believer hath reference to Saluation to this Infidelity of Necessity makes him a Faithful Believer But that which necessarily makes him a Faithful Believer hath not only Reference to his last End But is also necessary to Saluation for as Infidelity looseth Heaven so True Faith is Necessary to gain it Therfore the Belief of every little Article is not of little But in this Sense of as main Consequence as the Greatest The Belief of Every little matter in the sense now explicated is not Little And here by The way you may well Reflect upon the Desperate Talk of some Later Men who Tell us That All things contained in Scripture are not so Necessary in order to our End some being at so great a Remove from this End That the only Reason of Believing them is Becaus they are Contained in Scripture A most unworthy saying Mr. Stilling fleet 's Doctrin refuted which makes God to have Spoken a Thousand idle Words in Scripture For there They stand uselesly in the Book without Benefit without Subserviency or Relation to any further good But only to be looked on You may Read them and pass by them as Things wholy Vnnecessary to our Final End A strange Conceipt They frame of Scripture that make it up as Ill Apothecaries do sometimes Physick of Vnnecessary Ingredients 9. You may Reply Some Catholicks seem to The sense of Divines Concerning Matters Necessary per se and secundarily Necessary Divide the Object of Faith into that which is Per se By it Self Necessary And By Accident or Secondarily Necessary Ergo They Acknowledge Fundamental and not Fundamental Doctrins in the Sense of the Question now Proposed I Deny the Consequence For They only hold some Verities to be so Principally Necessary to the Essence of Christian Faith That if They had not been Revealed at All or Now were unknown Christian Religion would absolutly Perish But it is not so in Others For example Had God never Revealed any thing Touching Christ our Lord the Sacred Mystery of the Incarnation or a Trinity c. The very Essence Why called Primacy Objects of Faith of our Religion would not have been And therfore These are called Primary Objects Ratione materiae Becaus if we have no knowledge or Faith in Christ we have no Christian Religion Contrarywise Had the Holy Ghost not at all Inspired the Hagiographers to write much of the Historical part in Scripture which is writ or never Told us that Abraham had two Sons yet we might have Known Christ and perfectly Believed in Him Such Something 's in regard of the Matter are not necessary Though being writ become Necessary Verities then Becaus of the Matter are not Per se so Necessary However Being now writ They are True Objects of Faith Becaus God Speak's Them It is Therfore one thing to say These lesser matters if not writ at all had not been necessary to constitute Religion And another thing to say Now when They are writ and spoken by Almighty God They do not integrate the total Object of Faith But They least matter in Scripture is an Object of Faith may be looked on as Parergons or as Things void of all Reference to our Eternal Happines It is I say Impossible to own them
to Observe these Three Things 1. If we Consider the Motive of Faith which is Gods Veracity what ever He Speaks little or great is with one and the same Respect and Profound Reverence to be Assented to And here is no Difference between Fundamentals and Others 2. If we speak of the Proposition One concerns the formal Object of Faith of Faith Herein also There is no Difference For no man can Believe a Fundamental Doctrin Sooner Then Not Fundamental unles the one as well as the Other be Sufficiently Proposed 3. If we The other relates to its proposal Speak of the Matter Revealed I have shewed Above That some Points in Themselves or Per se More Essentially Constitute Yea And more Conduce to Piety Then others But This makes no Distinction between The Third to the matter believed Fundamentals and not Fundamentals in the true sense of our Question Because the lesser as well as the greater Are upon Gods Testimony Equally Believed in every true Vniversal Act of Supernatural Faith wherby we say All is to be Assented to That God Reveal's CHAP. VI. Some Few Propositions of A late VVriter are Briefly Examined His Discours of Fundamentals Destroy's Protestant Religion 1. I Say Briefly For I leave much to be Answered Mr. Stillingfleets Propositions refuted by more Learned Adversaries One Proposition is The very Being of a Church doth suppose the Necessity of what is required to be Believed in order to Saluation Very good but what then Marry This followes If 't was a Church it Believed all Things Necessary before it Defined How comes it Therfore to make more Things Necessary by its Definition First A word ad Hominem Protestants Add to what They conceive Essential to a Church a company of new unproved Negative Articles They proceed not consequently to their Principles Protestants Have now a Church Essentially Constituted or Have not If not Protestancy is no Christian Religion If They have such a Church why do They Add to that which They Conceive to be the Essentials of it A Cluster of new Articles never owned by any Orthodox Society For example No Sacrifice no Purgatory no Transubstantiation c. Could they proceed Consequently to their Principles they should neither Deny a Sacrifice a Purgatory c. nor Assert them But hold them meer Parergons Because They have a Church Essentially founded without them Why therfore Do They either Deny or Affirm Why medle They at all with these Articles Why load They Protestancy with the Vnnecessary Burden of so many unproved Negatives when their Church hath its whole Being before these Negatives can be thought of 2. In Catholick Principles both the Proposition and Question are most Simple For we own more Essentials In Catholick Principles The Proposition and Question are more then simple then Sectaries Do and Therfore say As there was a Church in Being before any Word of Scripture was writ and consequently the Writing of Scripture Added no new Being to it Though it declared Things more Explicitly so in like manner The present Definitions of the Church Alter nothing of the Ancient Foundations of Faith But only declare more As Scripture when first writ altered not the Antecedent Churches Doctrin So the Church now Alters nothing of the Ancient Faith explicitly Christs Verities contained in Scripture and Tradition And this Power the Church ever Had in all Ages Mark well what is said here For it Clear's All the following Fallacies of our Adversaries Discours 3. A Second Proposition What ever Church own 's those things which are Antecedently Necessary to the Being of a Church cannot so long cease to be a true Church And here They say we must Distinguish those Things in the Catholick Church which give it Being from those Things which are the Proper Acts of it as the Catholick Church Very true But the only Question They wave the Difficulty is How much precise Doctrin That is which gives Being to the Catholick Church This our Adversaries Content with a general Word of a Churches Being wave whilst Catholicks Catholicks say All that God Reveal's is Necessary to the Being of the Church say plainly All that God Reveal's and is taught by the Church as Revealed is so Essentially necessary to the very Being of it That not one Article can be rejected after a Sufficient Proposal Dare Protestants say thus much of Their Negative Articles No Purgatory no Real Presence no Sacrifice c. Or own these as Essentials of Their Church of Protestancy To that Distinction of the proper Acts of the Church And One is the due Administration of Sacraments from the Faith connaturally precedes the use of Sacraments Being of it I answer the Faith of Sacraments which Connaturally Preced's the use or exercise of them is most Essential to the Being of a Church and This Belief every true Christian Hath 4. A third Proposition The Vnion of the Catholick Vnity of the Church and the Agreement are the same Church depend's upon the Agreement of it in making the Foundations of its Being to be the Grounds of its Communion For the Vnity being intended to preserve the Being there can be no reason given why the bonds of union should extend beyond the Foundation of its BEING which is the owning the Things necessary to Saluation It is not worth the while to catch at these improper Expressions The Vnion of the Church Depend's upon the Agreement of it For Nothing certainly Depend's on it Self now the Vnion of the Church whether we speak of the Objective Doctrin or of Faith tending into that Doctrin is Essentially its Agreement Therfore Properly it Depend's not on Agreement But really is Agreement As truely as Vnum Verum and Bonum Are Ens à Parte rei Whence I Say Vnity is not intended to Preserve the Being of the Church as a Cause preserves its Effect For Vnity essential to the Being is The very Thing Preserved Vnity essential to the Being of a Church is the Thing preserved by Almighty God by Almighty God And therfore cannot Preserve an Antecedent conceived Being without Vnity But let this pass Consider what follows They say The Bonds of Vnion should not extend beyond the Foundation of the Churches Being c. Very good What is next This it is Whatsoever Church imposeth the Belief of other Things necessary to Saluation which were not so Antecedently necessary to the Being of the Catholick Meer Talk without proof Church Break 's the Vnity of it and those Churches who desire to Preserve Vnity are bound therby not to have Communion with it so long as it doth so Here is little said less explicated and least of all Proved First they say not How much Doctrin precisely makes up the Catholicks extend not the unity of the Church beyond its Foundations for They Believe so much as God hath revealed and no more Churches Being nor shall ever tell us by their Principles 2.
old Believed Articles And consequently is lyable to Damnation 24. You se moreover It is not only suitable to Reason But necessary also for the very Preservation of Christian Religion That the Church to whom the Mysteries Necessary For Christian Religion of our Faith were committed Though it makes no new Articles nor Supposeth any other Foundation then what was laid by Christ and his Apostles May yet as That the Church declare more explicitly Necessity requires Declare more Explicitly the Primitive Doctrin of Christianity For by what better Means can we possibly arrive to the Knowledge of Primitive Doctrine those Necessary Truths which the Apostles either Believed or Taught Then by their Heirs and Successors The Successors of the Apostles Teach in the place of Those deceased Masters I mean The vigilant Watchmen who were and Still are substituted in the Place of those First Infallible Deceased Masters They Blessed Men ran up and down the World from Country to Country from House to House Testifying the Faith of our Lord Iesus Christ yet neither committed all the Truths Delivered by them to Holy Writ nor supposed The Apostles writ not all They taught the Ignorant and Vulearned fit Instruments to Teach as They had Taught The Legacies Therfore of our Christian Truths were left in surer Hands I mean Chiefly in the Custody of the Successors of those first great Masters Whence it is That the Deposited Doctrin commended to Timothy Apostle commend's to Timothy more then once the Keeping of a Depositum of mighty Value which the Fathers and none more expresly then Vincentius Lirinensis call the Common Catholick Doctrin Or to speak Talentum Catholicum saith Vinc. Lir. in this worthy Authors words upon the Text 1. Tim. 6. 20. lib. contr prof Hae. Novit Biblioth Patrum Tom. 4. cap. 27. Talentum Catholicum Fidei The Catholick Talent of our Faith Aurum accepistis Add's Vincentius aurum redde Thou O Bishop Pastor and Doctor hast received Gold render as pure Gold again c. What things thou hath learned so Teach Adorn and Illustrate and mark Here a further Declaration of the Deposited A further Declaration of Deposited Doctrin allowed of Doctrin Allowed of ut cum dicas Novè non dicas Nova That when Thou proposest Things anew Thou Teach not new Things but the old Doctrin And hence it also is That the Church of Christ is stiled by most Ancient Fathers Depositorium Dives a Rich Treasury The Church called by most Ancient Fathers Depositorium Dives wherin the Depositum of Apostolical Doctrin is Kept And not only once Kept and then lost But as a Depositum ought to be it s Handed down from Age to Age from Church to Church Successively continued to the Worlds End If therfore you look for the Apostolical Depositum Leap not I Beseech you over the Heads of all those Christians who have been betwixt Us and the first 3. or The Apostolical Depositum is in the Churches hands 4. Ages As if it were to be found There and no where els But Demand of this present Church now in Being 'T is She that Knows better And Inform's us more exactly of Apostolical Doctrin Then all the lost Writings of the The present Church best inform's us of Apostolical Doctrin Ancient Church could have done or those that are hitherto preserv'd can do Because they are all lyable to endles Disputes and Consequently can absolutely Decide no controversy Now if any one Boggles at this Assertion as if we could not have sufficient Certitude of The most Ancient writings are lyable to Dispute what the Ancient Church Delivered by the Testimony or Tradition of the Present Church But further Requir's Express Records to be Produced of all that was ever Taught Let him correct his Errour and know That what is Carved in Brass or Writ in Velume cannot be more securely Kept then Apostolical Doctrin Deposited in the Hands and writ in the Apostolical Doctrin better preserved in the hands of Christs Pastors thenif't had been carved in Brass Harts of Christs faithful Pastors is now Preserved For what 's in Brass or Partchment Time may wear out and blemish But that which God hath committed to his Church and Chief Pastors therof who are to Teach Christians Age after Age shall never Perish never Pass or be put out of Remembrance And this Doctrin the Church Deliver's more Explicitly in her Definitions chiefly when she Declares Truth against Haereticks CHAP. VII More of this Subject Objections are Answered 1. TO go on with our Discours I would willingly Know when the Apostle Exhort's the Galatians cap. 1. vers 8. 9. Not to Believe an Angel Preaching contrary to what He had Preached and They had formerly Received As also the Thessalonians 2. c. 2. 14. to Hold the Traditions learned by Word or Epistle Whether All that the Apostles Orally taught was neither writ nor can be supposed lost we can Imagin that all the Apostles Orally Delivered was Either Expresly Registred in Scripture or the whole Substance of that Divine Doctrin of equal Certitude with Gods written Word is now Totally lost Neither is Probable The Essentials therfore of that Doctrin laid up sure in the rich Treasury of the The Essentials of it remain in the Churches Treasury Church still Remain with Christs own Faithfull Pastors And this is the Depositum mentioned in Scripture wherby the Church Assisted by the Holy Ghost Regulates Her self when She Defines Therfore great Divines Assert That the Church never Teaches or will Teach any new Verity that was unknown to the Apostles The Doctrin of Divines Se Greg. de Valentia De Fide Disp 1. Quaest 1. Puncto 6. § Illud vero And § Hinc quoque Suarez Disp 2. De Fide Sect. 6. n. 18. Tanner Disp 1. de Fide Quaest 1. Dub. 7. n. 211. 2. St. Paul Methinks confirm's this Doctrin Roman 12. 6. According to the Rule of Faith Wherupon our What is meant by the Analogy of Faith Sectaries Because the Greek reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Endlesly talk of the Analogy of Faith Let us bring Words to Sense and Sense to Principles What is This Analogy This Measure or Proportion of Faith Is that which every Mans private Fancy fall's upon to be Faith the Measure and Analogy of it God forbid If so Faith would be as Various as Fancy is Changeable in Haereticks We must therfore find out a better Analogy And if you say it is Scripture I Answer Before the writing of Scripture A perfect Rule of Faith before Scripture was writ There was a true and perfect Rule of Faith Otherwise These words of St. Paul Presupposing the Rule He mentions before he writ This Epistle are insignificant Again When He Tell 's the Thessalonians Epist 1. c. 1. of Their being a Pattern to all that Believed in Macedonia and Achaia Of the Word of our Lord sounded out by them Scripture
proves it in every place Of their Faith Spread abroad c. What Think ye was this not yet written Word of our Lord or the true Analogy of the Thessalonians Faith As well Dilated as Approved of What Finally was that Form of Doctrin commended in the Romans cap. 6. 17 Why Did the Apostle blame the unsetled Galatians for Being so soon Transferred into another Gospel and Denounce Anathema cap. 1. 6. if they believed an Angel Preaching contrary to his former Doctrin All these and many other Passages of Holy Writ manifestly Declare Before the writing of Scripture there was a plat-form of Christian Religion That there was Divine Doctrin Taught by the very Founders of Christianity before the Writing of Scripture There was a Plat-form of Christian Religion made by the very Apostles before they Separated Themselves and began their Preaching to several Nations And to comply with this Rule or Form of Faith Blessed St. Paul Though full of the Holy Ghost went to confer with St. Peter and the rest Gal. 2. 2. Act. 15. 36. Upon it The Apostles Held Councils yea Councils held upon that platform and Scripture writ and as some Grave and Learned Doctors Affirm by the Measure therof the Holy Scriptures were written Se the notes on the Rhems Testament Rom. cap. 12. v. 6. 3. Be it how Sectaries will There was Faith in the World before written Scripture The Apostles who taught it Had their Rule of Doctrin prescribed by a The Apostles had their Rule of Doctrin from a certain Master good Master the Holy Ghost for they Taught not Christian Doctrin upon their own frail Iudgements considered as Men. No they had ever the Guidance and Direction of this Blessed Spirit with them and as His Instruments Delivered so much as this Master according to Christs Promise gave Assistance to and neither more nor less Now those Pious Christians The first pious Christians had their Rule from the Apostles who heard this Apostolical Learning made it most certainly Their Rule Their Measure of Faith Their Analogy and Form of Doctrin Whence I argue This Form or Rule of Oral Doctrin First laid up in the Brests of the Apostles and afterward Delivered to different Nations was neither All set down in Holy Scripture for Volumes would not contain it nor All intierly lost 'T is pitty such a rich Depositum should Perish Therfore it yet Remains somewhere in safe Custody That Doctrin is yet preserved in the Church But no Place is fitter for it then that which the Fathers call Thesaurarium dives the Rich Treasury of the Church where 'T is still Preserved and Those Timothies I mean those Evangelists Those Pastors Those Doctors mentioned Ephes 4. 11. Appointed by Providence to Edify the Mystical Body of Christ The Chief Preservers of this Legacy and Noble Depositum are as Necessity Requires to impart it and make it known to the World by their Definitions Least like Children we be carried away with every Wind of fals Doctrin And The Ground of Tradition herein lyes the very Ground of all Apostolical Tradition This is not mine but the Great Vincentius Lirinensis own Doctrin now cited Where pondering that of the Apostle O Timothy Keep thy Depositum He Asks Quis Est bodie Timotheus nisi vel universa Ecclesia vel specialiter totum corpus Praepositorum c. Who is now or at this The whole Church or Rulers of it preserve this Depositum Day our Timothy But either the Vniversal Church or more specially the Whole Body of those Guides and Rulers set over it that are Themselves to have the intire knowledge of Divine Worship or to infuse it into others c Afterward Quid est hoc Depositum What is this Deposited Doctrin He Answers Id quod tibi creditum est 'T is that which is committed to Thee not that Thou Invent's that which thou hast Received not what Thou hath Fancied of thy own Head It is a thing not of Wit but of Doctrin Non usurpationis propriae not of thy Private Vse Fashion or Practise Sed The Church no Author but Keeper of Divine Doctrin publicae Traditionis But of publick and known Tradition brought to Thee handed to Thee wherof thou art not to be Author sed Custos But a Keeper and Preserver Then he goes on Depositum Custodi Catholicae Fidei Talentum c. 4. And thus you Se we have a Church a Catholik Principles wheron the Church proceed's Talent of Faith committed to it A Depositum of Apostolical Doctrin laid up in its Treasury We have a Moral body of Timothies of Teachers united with one Supream Head and Pastor That Assures us more Explicitly by its Definitions what the Ancient Deposited Doctrin is And Reclaim's us if we swerve from it We have Express Scripture that both A Mystical body of Teachers Gods written and unwritten word Sectaries want all Proves and Approves the Churches Proceeding in Doing so And this Sacred written Word faithfully Interpreted And the unwritten Deposited Word also most Infallibly Proposed is our Form our Rule and perfect Analogy of Faith O Had Sectaries but Half as much For what They boldly Assert contrary to us And because every Man is a Chutch with them They Define more then our Church Defines The Consecrated Host is Bread only a Figure of Christs Body only There are two Sacraments only Works Iustify not but Faith only c. Had I say These men but half Protestants have no Authority for their Definitions so much Authority for their Definitions How would they warble out the Notes of their Novelties But God hath Silenced them For they have neither Church nor Scripture nor Ancient Depositum nor Tradition nor Analogy nor Rule of Faith nor Motives to Make Talk only of a Nullity and an unproved Negative Religion what They Define probable nor Any other Thing to talk of But of a meer Nothing I mean the Nullity of Their unproved Negative Religion 5. What hitherto is said of Catholick Definitions made by Pope and Councils Chiefly Relates to such Matters as have been Anciently without Dispute Revealed yea And believed also Though not perhaps in order One way of Defining to all so Explicitly And this way of Defining some Divines call Propositionem That is a Reproposing of Mysteries formerly Believed whether clearly Deduced Gods unwritten word of equall Authority with his written word out of Gods Word or drawn from undoubted Tradition 'T is the very same For as the Oral Taught Doctrin of the Apostles was and is certain as Doctrin Registred in Scripture so all that really is Gods Vnwritten Word when proposed to us by the Church as such is in Substance of equal Authority and Credit with the Written For it is not the setting down of Truths in Velume or Partchment that Add's more Weight to them or makes them higher Verities And here by the way I cannot but Reflect on the
Errors by pure Scripture Venture probably on such a VVork when you bave not so much as one VVord of Scripture that inables you to Advance a Proof against us Relying on these Grounds and firm Principles 15. We easily Solve another trivial Objection of Another objection solved of Scripture containing all Things Necessary Sectaries which is Scripture contains all Things Necessary to Saluation Therfore we need no new Definitions made by the Church I might say much less do we Stand in need of Protestants new Declarations forced on Scripture without a Church But y'le Answer in a Word Though Scripture contained all the Oral taught Apostolical Doctrin and what ever els is Necessary to Saluation which is Fals yet when we se with our Eyes that Sacred Book pittifully Abused by Haereticks not only Haereticks make Scripture useles in lesser Matters as They account of Them But in the very Highest Mysteries of our Christian Faith it must needs be a useles Book in Their Hands without an Infallible Interpreter And therfore cannot Decide Controversies nor Tell us what is Necessary to Saluation as I have largely proved Disc 2. Nay farther Some may justly Question It may be doubted whether an Angel could write a Book so plain of other High Mysteries which the vulgar would not misunderstand Whether if a very Angel writ a Book as full of other High Mysteries yet unknown to the World as the Bible now Contains And used his best Skill to Express Those Vertties in the most Clear and significant Language Imaginable Some I say may Doubt whether such a Written Book left only to the Private judgements of Those whole Multitudes who now read Scripture would not be misunderstood in a hundred Passages if no After Teacher Regulated the weak Readers of it in Their Difficulties or did not comply with the Duty of an Infallible Interpreter Therfore the Bible which is now Extant And contains the High Mysteries of our Faith often less clearly expressed much more need 's an Interpreter And perhaps the wise Providence of God would have it writ so on set Purpose that Christians should have Recours to a Living Oracle of Truth and Learn of it what They cannot Reach to by their own simple Reading You Church Doctrin is repeated again and Again None can be ignorant of it will say an Angel can write a Book as clear to all Capacities as the Churches Definitions are Very True What then That Book only once writ is left as we now Suppose to the Sentiments of private Ignorant Men as the Bible now is in Their Hands But God hath provided that the Churches Doctrin be not only once Delivered No. It is Laid forth anew it is implanted anew it is repeated and cast like good seed Again and Again into mens Harts and Memories by Faithful Pastors and Teachers who shall never fail the Church to the End of the World 16. A third objection The Churches Definitions Because Men declare them and all Men are Lyars cannot be Infallible and Therfore Ground no Faith Contra 1. Ergo Neither Sectaries Novelties Nor the General Doctrin A cleur Conviction of Sectaries owned by all Christians of one God and one Christ Becaus men Teach them And all are Lyars may yet be Fallible and Fals also Grant or Deny the Sequel you are Silenced Contra 2. If All are Fallible and consequently may be Lyars in what they Teach why Vent you my good Friends So many Negative Doctrins which may all be fals Truely if There be no Infallibility in the World you neither ought to Vapor as you do with your Inferiour Negatives not Blame our They Condemn Themselves whilst their Censure is Fallible Contrary Positives For in Doing so You condemn your own Iudgement and Advance no Proof against us Your Fallible Censure were our Church Fallible Goes not one Step above a tottering Fallibility And therfore is too faint to Oppose the Churches contrary Doctrin Though falfly Supposed Fallible Mark well I Our Churches Doctrin Though supposed fallible is as Good as Sectaries Confessed Fatliâ—â—e Doctrin must say it once more You Fallible men tell me That my Churches Doctrin is Fallible Admit of the Fals Supposition it is yet upon all Accounts as Good as yours or as This very fallible Affirmation is That says it's Fallible And if in real Truth it be Infallible it is much Better 17. One word more If Any People on Earth ought to stand for the Infallibility of a new Invented Religion The Abetters of Protestancy could they Proceed consequently should Do it Why They Deprive Men of their Estates cast them into Prison Bannish some Hang up Why Sectaries persecute Catholicks while Iewes are tolerated others And All this is Don Becaus poor Catholicks cannot in Conscience conform to a Religion that is Professedly Fallible and Vncertain Now if such Crueltly can be practized on Christians whilst Iewes And the worst of Haereticks are Tolerated to live quietly For a Thing that 's only Fallible and may as well be Fals as True we are The Reason is because we cannot believe a Religion That may be as likely Falsas True surely at an End of all good Discours grounded on Christian Principles What To Bannish us to Confiscate Mens Estates To Shed our Blood For a Religion That may be Fals when we Believe our Creed And Profess as much as these newer Sectaries make Essential to any Religion of Christians is to speak moderately an unheard of Severity Yet so it is They Do not Harrass us as they do Because we Believe in one God and one Christ or own a Doctrin common to all Christians For themselves Believe so much But Here is our supposed Mark well our supposed Crime Crime We cannot Assent to a Religion that may be Fals we cannot Subscribe to a Company of new Negative Nothings And Therfore we are lashed and Persecuted Nay and I 'll tell you a Wonder our Guilt goes not so High A wonder never enough to be admired For though we were in our very Harts Arians or As we are Catholicks yet if in the Exteriour we do as Sectaries do we are still lovely Children of the Church of England Learn Therfore this Truth it is Vndeniable All the Storms of Persecution Raised against us Are not upon any In real Truth we are persecuted because we will not be plain Hypocrits Account of want of True Faith But for this Sole Reason That we will not Believe one Thing and Force our Consciences to Profess an Other Which is to say We are Handled thus roughly Because we will not Dissemble with God and Man and become plain Hypocrits Herein only Lies our Trespas Iustus es Domine recta Iudicia tua Iudge you my God whether that no-offence Merit 's These Scourges 18. By what is now said You may easily Perceive That when Sectaries seemingly Bemoan our Blindnes God knows how much of The Grief lies at their
Succession of Their Church of Their Bishops of Their Pastors by virtue of any Immemorial Tradition Let Sectaries must solve Their own Argument them also Vouchsafe to give in that Title wherby They lay claim to a Possession of Truth What ever is Allegeable for the One or Other whether it be Tradition Scripture or Fathers will suffer more Contradiction from innumerable Called Christians then the least Article if any were little of our Catholick Faith Therfore they must Solve their own Argument The Reason is If they plead Traditioin for a continued Succession of a Protestant Church ever since Christ the whole Christian World yea even Protestants themselves Oppose the Paradox If Their Plea for Pure Protestancy be Scripture They 'l meet with as many Adversaries Having not one Syllable for it in Gods Word If finally They make a Belief Common to all Christians to be Their Essential Faith None likes the Doctrin Both Friends and Enemies Catholicks and Haereticks stand against them Therfore I say once more They must solve Their own Objection The Argument is solved 6. Now you shall have my Answer And I say An Argument That Drawes all the Force it has from the Opposition of Enemies And They were all known Opposition of Hereticks no proof against it Haereticks that Opposed our Catholick Tradition Destroys not only Evident Truths but also Impugn's Christ and Christian Religion Atheists make Objections Against God Jewes Against Christ yea And the very Instance now allowed of supposeth some wilful Zelots contrary to the common received Tradition of so many Monarchs undoubted Succession You Christian Truths meet with Adversaries He that will side with such Opponents shall at last desert Christianity se Therfore How weak this way of Arguing is Believe it There is no one Christian Verity but hath its Adversaries Therfore the Man that will Side with such Opponents and Cavil also Because a Company of Dismembred and jarring Sectaries Do so must look how He striks lest he cut to deep and Wound those He would not hurt For at last He shall be forced to shake of the very name an Notion of a Christian I 'll say in a word what is more amply laid forth Disc 1. Chap. 7. n. 4. 5. We have an Ancient Church against these Scattered Companies of Novellists A Church united in Doctrin Against their Iarrs and Endles Dissentions A Glorious Church manifested by such Marks and Motives as made the world Christian And these plead against Their Vnevidenced Opinions Finally we have most certain Tradition against their uncertain Guesses Vpon such Proofs which cannot be shaken we stand Therfore unles our Adversaries beside the Multitude of Opponents bring rational Proofs against our Possession which Rest at last upon undeniable Principles We are safe and cannot be Danted Alas The meer Number of known Enemies without Evidence Clamours of known Enemies without a rational Trial. Proofles to warrant what is Pretended Seem's much like unjust Clamours in a Disordered Common-wealth Loud 'T is true but as Sensles as Loud when Reason ought to have place and plead the Cause by Proofs and Principles Therfore we Appeal to Principles may They bear Sway we are content if not We told you Above Though as many Hereticks rise up against us As there are Atheists opposite to God And Iewes to Christ We Regard them not if they come Vnarmed and only Fight by the Votes of their own Scattered and Devided Companies But enough is said of this Subject in the Discours now Cited 7. Here I 'll only Add one Consideration more And it is to Assure our Adversaries Though They run to pass't Ages that is the whole world Over and Gather all the Votes of Enemies either against the Possession or the Ancient Tradition of our Church They only give us a Number of jarring Suffrages which bound up together cannot Amount to a weak Probability A weak probability though granted cannot clear Sectaries from Schism However Let Truth suffer Suppose them weakly Probable is this enough think you to warrant Sectaries Foule Schism Is here Ground enough to Iustify an Evident Divorce made from an Ancient Church wherin Their Ancestours Lived peaceably time out of mind Age after Age without Trouble and Disturbance No. All is improbable For what ever is less then Evidence Grounded on sure Principles will shew it self to be as it is a Proofles Cavil Against so long prescription and immemorial Possession of our Ancient Faith 8. Some may yet Reply All that 's Said hitherto An Objection Shows only a Personal Succession of Popes Prelates Pastors and People in foregoing Ages But is far from Proving the main point in Controversy They mean a full and quiet Possession of Truth which we make so Hereditary to These Popes and Bishops Descending from St. Peter That it was never lost This They say is to be Proved I Answer We are yet obliged to prove nothing For the very Testimony the Vnanimous When the Church gives in Her Evidence Sectaries are to Disprove it Consent the Constant Tradition of our united and learned Church without more are most pregnant Arguments as well for the Possession of Apostolical Truth laid claim to as For the Personal Succession of our Catholick Pastors Therfore unles Sectaries can weaken this Plea by a Contrary Evidence more strong then our Churches Tradition is and then the Proving is incumbent on them we stand firm upon our Olim Possideo which cannot be shaken I say by a contrary Evidence Stronger then our Churches Testimony and Tradition Speak now it 's your time of Proving What have you to Alledge against This sole Want of Principles makes Sectaries Cavils improbable Consent and Tradition Is it Scripture Produce it And we are silenced if not Vouchsafe to Hold your Peace Hereafter Have you the Consent of Fathers or Ancient Councils to make your cause Good against our Pleading Tradition and the Ancient Possession of Truth with it No. Examen These learned Volums you 'l not find one clear sentence favoring your unjust Process Against a Church That made your Progenitors Christians What then Remains Sectaries own Votes as weightles as the Arians to Scare us with But your own-self Simple Votes and if these Cast as it were in A ballance Against our Ancient Possession can out weigh it and so Deprive us of our Right The Arians long since had Destroyed us all for Their Votes were as weighty as united as yours Yes and more numerous 9. Well Though we are not Obliged to prove A Few Proofs briefly hinted at though we are not obliged to prove what both Tradition and our Ancient Possession Convince I 'll yet Hint most briefly at a few Proofs in Behalf of our just Possession First it is an undeniable Verity that Christ founded a Catholick Church And 'T is as Evident Sectaries Confess it that He invested the Roman Catholick Church in an Ancient Possession of Truth 2. It is an undoubted Verity
the Roman Catholick Church of Errour Causal of Their Schism I prove the first part of my Assertion No Probability can Acquit them of Schism when Evidence layes That crime on them But this is True And to prove the Assumption I will not Here Tell Them Evidence layes the Crime of Schism on Protestants How Improbable it is That This Schism which took its Rise from one Discontented Luther and a Disgusted Prince can have any Good in it The cause from whence it came look's like naught And the Doleful Effect which Followed wors Nor will I urge Again How Improbable it is That this one Prince and one Fryar of lives confessedly Vicious can be Supposed to have gon About any Work of God or Piety when meer Passion Hurried them on to struggle Against Their own Consciences Against a whole Church And the Faith of their Deceased Ancestours These Considerations I 'll wave 3. Yet I cannot But Note how improbable it is To Suppose That All those learned Councils which Anciently Taught Christianity All those Learned Bishops Those Doctors Those Religious who like Stars Beautified the Terrestrial Heaven of the Roman Catholick It is improbable to say that Sectaries Discovered Errours in the Church unseen by Thousands more learned and numerous then They. Church for a Thousand years Together Had notwithstanding Their Vigilancy such a Mist cast before Their Eyes as not to Discover Those Palpable Gross Errours which our Protestants have now so lately Espied Say Therfore the Question is worth Answering How came it to pass That our Protestants first saw these Errours And upon that Monstruous Sight Quitted Rome whilst Others As Sharp-sighted as Numerous And learned as They Saw none of them for many Ages Before Speak probably Why for example Did not so Eminent a Saint and Doctor as St. Gregory the Great was or his Clergy so many following Innocents so many Clements so many Vrbans se these Errours and upon the Discovery Separate themselves long since from this supposed Erring Church I would hear their Answer If they except Against These Becaus They were Popes I Ask Why at least Did not so many Bernards so many Malachies so many Bennets so many Anselms so many Kings so many Princes whose Temporal interest God knows lay not in Adoring Rome with innumerable Others long Agoe Desert This Supposed Erring Church and Revolt from it as Luther did Is it not a Degree of Madnes to Suppose That All These Learned and innumerable Professors must either be supposed stupidly blind or wickedly Hypocritical These Worthy Powerful and Learned Professors of the Catholick Faith were either so Stupidly Blind as not to have seen Such Errours or so Wickedly Hypocritical as to Have Winked at them After a clear Discovery I say more The Professors of this Church were so far of from not Seing those Doctrins which Protestants now call Errours For example The offering up of Sacrifice For the Dead Praying to Saints c. That the Denial of them was Positively condemned as Heretical in Foregoing Sectaries None shall ever Probably Answer this Question no more then give Satisfaction to an Other Viz. 4. When this Schism was first made by a few Disgusted men in England Why did so many not only in that Iland Though temporally Vndon for their The Opposition made so Vniversally against this Schism proves it monstruous pains But innumerable more in the Christian World abroad Stand up Against it and Oppose it on its first Appearance as a most Pernicious Novelty All these condemned it as Heretical and Held the Broachers of it for Hereticks Now had either Goodnes Reason or Religion accompanied this Schism it should have rather Gained an Vniversal Applaus from Others more numerous and learned then those were who Began it But all was contrary it Appeared like another Ismaël Manus eius contra omnes manus omnium contra eum as Opposit to All so Vniversally Opposed by All And how could these few Abberters of it When The intolerable Pride of Sectaries this foul Work first Began without intolerable Pride Think Themselves Wiser in Patronizing it Then the Rest of the Christian World in Condemning it 5. Here then is my first Argument Against this Schism A new Sect Schism or Heresy call it what A new Doctrin never heard of before and so Vniversally Opposed cannot be sound and Catholick you will which was never Heard of before in the World And on its first Appearance met with an Vniversal Opposition made by All other Christians who then Lived Cannot be from God or Sound and Approved Doctrin But thus the Schism of Protestants was at its first Rise Vniversally Opposed And is so yet Ergo it cannot be from God or sound Doctrin The Major is Evident in the cases of Arius Pelagius and other Hereticks For the universal Dislike As is clear in the cases of former Hereticks and Opposition Raised Against These Schisms and Heresies were even Antecedently to Their Condemnation in Councils Proof enough against them And if our Adversaries Require more to wit a Council condemnation We have it Also They cannot in Justice make Any more Exception Against the Council of Trent Then Arius made against the Nicene Council The Minor is as clear for all Christians who then were in being Condemned the English Heresy and Schism Graecians Disliked it and do so to this Day Arians Abyssins Nestorians c. And most of all Catholicks oppose it so far That not one will Believe as Protestants Do. So True it is Manus omnium contra eum All banded against this Novelty Therfore it cannot be from God or approved Doctrin Now. That our Protestants since their first Rise have Gained the company of some few Iarring and Dissenting Brethren Proves Nothing For Arius in time Got more and I believe had them better united in Doctrin Then These ever will be CHAP. XIII A Second Argument Against this Schism Of Sectaries Cavils Concerning Errours Entring the Church Insensibly 1. I Argue 2. Protestants seemingly at least Own An Argument ad Hominem against Sectaries a Holy Vniversal Catholick Church before Luther of a very large Extent which comprised a Generality of Christians Over and Above the number of Roman Catholicks This Church was surely that Hierusalem mentioned by the Prophet upon whose Wales Watchmen were placed And were by Duty to Speak in Gods Cause when his Honor was Concerned In this Church we shall Certainly find Those Vigilant Pastors Doctors and Teachers Ephes 4. Who Perfect Saints and still Edify the Mystical Body of Christ to the end That we be Protestants highly Disgrace that large Catholick Church which They own not carried Away by every wind of Doctrin c. Now I Assume But with our Protestants leave All the Watchmen all the Pastors all the Teachers of this Ample and far Extended Church were so Carelesly asleep so Negligent and Forgetful of their Duty For the vast interval of a Thousand
so much as Probably shew That They have mended the Matter or set Christian Faith right again on its old Foundations as it once stood pure It is therfore a most Discomfortable Reformation which only Tell 's us of our being Out of the high Rode of Truth Vnles the Reformers lead us and this with Assurance into the unerring way from whence we Strayed If This be not Don it follows upon the Supposition That both They and Their pretended Reformation most discomfortable We are yet pittifully Out and Therfore both of us must look after some third Guide to Reduce us 16. Now that Protestants are utterly unable to perswade any Rational man That they have exactly brought Christian Faith to its Ancient Purity is more then Evident Sectaries have nothing like a Principle wherby their Reformation is proved Probable It is one thing to say we have Erred and an Other to prove that they are Right For beside Their own bare Word which is worth little They have nothing like a Principle neither Scripture Councils nor Fathers to Ground a probable Discours Pertinent to that Purpose For None of These ever Knew what a Protestant was It is True They Pretend Though God knows to little Purpose That Scripture Councils and Fathers are against our Errours But it is one Thing slightly to tell us we have Erred and an Other solidly to Prove that They are Right and have broughr Christian Faith hitherto much Tainted to its Ancient Purity This last is the only Difficulty And I Conjure Them as They will give an Account of their Religion to Almighty God without Tergiversation or Far-fetch't Discourses Directly and Clearly to Solve it The Proposition to be Proved and Positively What They are obliged to prove is Thus. Protestants Becaus they will be Reformers are every way Right in Their Faith from which Faith Catholicks have Swerved Observe it You shall never have They can give no direct Answer to the Difficulty a direct Answer to chis Difficulty They may tell you Catholicks have Erred They follow Scripture Their Rule of Faith is what was Delivered in the first Primitive Ages and They know that better then Papists Do. They Hope all is well with Them c. And thus They I put you of with Empty Words But to Prove Solidly that Proposition is impossible Believe it Those Bonzies of Iapan had more Plausible Proofs to defend their Pagods and Impugn Christianity Then our Adversaries have to Evidence Protestancy to be the Primitive Faith and impugn the Now-standing Catholick Roman Religion CHAP. XIV A VVord to a Few Supposed and Vnproved Assertions VVherby Some Endeavour to clear Protestants of Schism 1. THeir first Proposition There is no Society of Mr. Stillingfleet Christians of any one Communion but may impose some things to be believed or practised which may be repugnant to The Assertion is Fals in Protestants Principles unles it be granted that their ample Catholick Church can destroy Christianity the general Foundations of Christian Society I Answer If the Assertion fall on That Imagined Vniversal Catholick Church more Ample then the Roman which must be a Society of Christians of one Communion it is Fals in Protestant Principles Vnles they say That this great Catholick Church can Impose Things to be Belieued or repugnant to the general Foundations of Christianity Again if it Relate to the Roman Catholick Church it is a meer unproved Fancy of their own For This Church as is largely shewed Defends its Infallibility by Proofs as Certain as the Common Grounds of Christianity are Be it how you will You have here our Adversaries Acknowledgement That their particular Church of Protestants may impose Things Contrary to the Grounds of Christianity Protestancy becaus Fallible may Impose Things repugnant to the Grounds of Christianity And this I easily Believe without further Proof 2. The 2. Proposition There being a Possibillity acknowledged that particular Churches may require Vnreasonable conditions of communion the Obligation to communion cannot be absolute and indispensable But only so far as nothing is required Destructive to the ends of Christian Society The The Author of the proposition sure enough supposeth himself fit to judge what is Destructive No Protestant can avouch so much as probably wherin the Church hath imposed Vnreasonable Conditions Protestants Profess them selves Fallible in all They Teach Assertion if I mistake not Supposeth the Roman Catholick Church to be only a particular Church Deficient and lyable to Errours which is not yet so much as probably Proved and Therfore I say the Obligation to Communicate with it is Absolute and Indispensable But let us wave this at Present and contrary to Truth Imagin That this Church hath imposed Vnreasonable conditions Destructive of Christian communion c. We Ask Again and very seriously who are They that can Mend the matter in case it hath Don so Or who dare Avouch by the Force of any received Principle that Such and Such particular Conditions imposed on Christians are Vnreasonable Where are the Equitable and infallible Iudges appointed by Almighty God to Decide in so weighty a Matter Are they Protestants No. It is impossible Hear my Reason If the Church hath Erred by imposing such Vnreasonable Conditions Protestants who Profess themselves Fallible in All They say may Err More Yea And spoil all whilst They go about to set Things Straight However if They dare Venture on so difficile a Work And therfore may more likely spoil Then mend what they Conceive Amiss They are First obliged to Prove And this not by Talk But by undeniable Principles That just so Far our Church Err's so Far it requires Vnreasonable Conditions of Communion And next That They the Illuminated men of the World have don no more But exactly Cancelled the Errours of our Church leaving all untouched that is not Destructive to the ends of Christian Society For we must believe They are the skilful Masters that always hit Right Though confessedly Fallible You shall sooner draw pure Gold out of meer dross Then get any Thing like a Tolerable Proof from these men to countenance One of these Desperate Assertions Alas They only Word it without Proof As Arians and Nestorians Do. And here is All you Have from Them 3. The 3. Proposition Nothing can be more unreasonable The proposition supposeth what is to be proved then that the Society imposing such conditions of Communion should be judge whether those conditions be just and equitable or no. I Answer And nothing can be more Vnreasonable then to make a Receding Party from an Rebell 's are not to be Iudges in Their own Cause Ancient Church a few Rebellious People against it Iudges in their own Cause The Arians judged thus for Themselves and so do Protestants All rebellion in Kingdoms and Commonwealths is Patronized if those who Revolt may Clear Themselves from Guilt upon their own Votes and saying Such conditions imposed
may have Yours Also We are all yet of One Church and Need not to break of any Catholick Unity Becaus though both you and I err We may yet retain the Essence of a Catholick Churck Hereticks hitherto Never Pleaded thus for their Cause But as Pertinaciously Defended Hereticks as strongly defend their particular Errours as the Common Doctrin of Christianity their Private Opinions as They did the Common Doctrin of all Christians Only our Protestants now Pressed with Vnanswerable Arguments concerning the plain Naming of a Catholick Church before Luther like men living by shifting Seek out a woful Subterfuge and make all Erring Churches partly good and Catholick in the Common Ligaments of Christianity And partly Naught and Heretical in Their particular Errours Wheras the Spouse of Christ is but One Immaculate moral Body and can be no More Tainted with Errour then the pure Primitive Church was No nor more Corrupted then the whole Bible The entire purity of the Church Necessary now is and yet remain Purely Gods Word 3. Grant which is the greatest Chimaera Imaginable That the Common Ligaments and Grounds of Catholick Faith are to be found amongst all the erring Societies of Christians Protestants have yet an endles Task in hand Which is to Perswade All men Opposit to them That They by their Discerning Spirit Have just Protestants cannot prove that they have taken so much Doctrin to themselves as is purely Catholick hit the nail on the Head And taken so much to Themselves as is Purely Catholick Doctrin without Mixture of Errour with it Believe me it will be hard to prove so much done And if They Prove it not by Vndeniable Principles Farwell Protestants say I For They may be more in Errour by Their late Reformation Then all those Erring Churches together Which They have gon about to Reform 6. In another Chapter Intituled the Reformation of the Church of England justified These very men after they had made the Catholick Church like a Common field layd open to all those Inhabitants who own the Fundamentals of Christian Faith Tell us That the Roman Church stand's Guilty of the violation of Publick Right and Add's Neither Proof nor Inference Good many Particular Doctrins many Superstitious Practises which have no Foundation in Scripture or Consent of the Primitive Church Therfore this Roman Church is Separated from the Communion of the Catholick Church And so is become Schismatical But their Church of England hath hit Right and is only so far Separated from Rome as Rome hath Devided Her self from the Belief of the Vniversal Church What have we here A Cluster of meer superfluous Words I am Astonished to Se men run on with such proofles Generalities However We will have Patience and friendly Ask How far is that large field of the Catholick Church to be extended Point out the Limits of it Name those Christians and Them only Not one of These particulars can be proved by certain Principles who Inhabite that large field What are those Fundamentals of Faith How many are there of Them ninty nine or a Hundred Specify with a Proof at the end of it but Proofs are now out of fashion with Protestants Those particular Fals Doctrins of the Roman Church so contrary to Scripture Say once Plainly what that Catholick Church is From which Rome Separated and something is Don But above all make good your wild Assertion That just so far you are Devided from Rome not one Inch more or less as Rome is Separated from the Vniversal Catholick Church To do this justice Requir's an exact Proof of these three Things First That you particularly Shew us Three Propositions to be proved What or how much the Precise Doctrin of that imagined Catholick Church is which dwell's in your Fancy 2. Wherin the Roman Church hath Swerved from that true Doctrin 3. And this will cost you some pains make good upon any Received Christian Principle That you are right in your Faith And have just Divided your selves so far from the Roman Church as this is from Another Church more Vniversal and Catholick Could these men live to Mathusalem's Age They would never come neer to the likelyhood of a rational Proof for any one of these Particulars I say of a Proof For I would have Them know That to talk at random and vent their own fancies as They do here will weigh but little when Reason comes to Ballance all with a close Arguing in good Form 7. When again They are Told in the same Chapter That the Separation of Protestants was not only from the Church of Rome But as Calvin Confesseth from the whole Christian World which necessarily Implyes a Separation from the True Catholick Church They Answer We have not separated from the whole Christian World in any thing wherin the whole Christian VVorld is Agreed Is this so great No Heretick Separated from the Vniversal Doctrin believed by all Christians a matter to be Praised for Not to Separate from what men cannot Separate if they Own Christ and Deserve the name of Christians Mark well I beseech you Neither the Arians nor Nestorians nor Donatists Nor any other condemned Hereticks Separated from any Thing wherin the whole Christian World Agreed in For They Believed in Christ a Saviour and Redeemer and Thus much all Christians Hold But is This Faith enough to save us without Believing more Pray you Answer Again These Hereticks Added something what got Them the Name of Separatists or Hereticks to that General owned Belief of All And this got them the name of Separatists or Hereticks not Becaus they Deserted the Common Doctrin of the whole Christian World But becaus They Abandoned that Ancient Church wherin they were Baptized Protestants have Don the like in leaving the same Ancient Church And have Added That to Their Specifical Religion which was neither the Common Doctrin of All Christians no nor Held by any Christian Society in the World Vpon this Account Therfore They as justly Deserve the Name of Hereticks and Separatists as either Arian or Nestorian And thus much I Prove by their own Concession Protestants proved Schismatichs by Their own Doctrin For They grant that the Donatists were Separatists and Schismaticks Becaus they confined the Catholick Church within their own Bounds of Africa Yet by Their good leave These very Donatists Dissented in nothing that was held all over Common Christian Doctrin For they Acknowledged the same Christ as we Do yet were Hereticks Vpon the Account of their particular The Donatists no Schismaticks in Protestants Principles Doctrin Though They clashed with nothing held Vniversally You will say But They did Clash For without all Proof They Confined the Church to one place Only Contra. And you my good Friends without all Likelyhood of Proof make the Church a mighty wide One You give it Arms which embrace all called Christians Though Hereticks in their particular Tenents Did therfore the particular
unproved Fancy 12. Yet more And this is to Show you the strange Grant what Sectaries would have Nothing is Proved weaknes of our Adversaries whole Discours Let us suppose this falsity of a true Catholick Church in Luthers Days much wider Then the Roman withal that the Roman was only a corrupted Part of that more Ample Church Believe it These men are yet far enough from Proving their Intent For Admit upon the Supposition That the Church of Rome Draws the bounds of Catholick Communion within Her self and Confin's all Truth within Her own Community This is only Her own particular Opinion which Draws no more Confines no more Then Protestants do now For do Protestants pretend as much to have Christs verities taught by Them as Catholicks Do not They Prosess that the Doctrin of Christ is more Purely and less Erroneously taught in England at this Day Then in any other Society of Christians That Dissent's from Them Yes Here then is as much Drawing of Truth to Themselves and this Drawing consequently implyes a great Division from that Fancied And consequently They Divide Themselves from their Catholick Church Catholick Church Which I am sure Never Taught that the Gospel of Christ is Preached most purely and without Errour amongst a few English Protestants Meer Opinions Therfore of particular Churches as long as the General Doctrin of all Christians Stand's unshaken Cannot in these mens Principles Vnchurch any Christian Society or if They can both They I mean our Protestants And all other Sectaries are Vnchurched Becaus all of them Believe more then the General Essentials of Faith Exact of any Christian 13. It may be Answered Though they believe more Yea And particularly hold That Christs Doctrin is more purely Taught and believed in England Then in other places Yet this is not a Necessary Condition of Communion with them No I hope it is a To have Communion with Protestants is without Doubt necessary to Believe something of pure Protestancy Necessary condition of Communion with Protestants Though Vnnecessary for Communion with that other Fancied Vniversal Church and the General Doctrin Therof The Reason is No man can be more a Protestant unles He Believe All particular owned Articles of that Religion as Pure and Orthodox Then a good Papist and not Believe what that Church particularly Teacheth 14. Now Becaus we are got thus far into a Matter wherin I Hold our Adversaries much Overseen I would A Question proposed not to be Answered by Sectaries gladly have a clear Answer to this one Question Viz. Whether after a due Proposal it be absolutely Necessary to Saluation to Communicate with Protestants That is Firmly to Believe any one Article of our Protestants Reformed Faith as it is Protestancy For example Two Sacraments only no Real Presence no Sacrifice or what els you will If they Answer Yes Then I Infer The Belief of that Doctrin Vniversal and If Doctrin Common â—â— all be not sufficient something of Protestancy must be owned necessary Common to all Christians is not Enough to Saluation For now They require more Viz a Belief of some Doctrin peculiar to Protestancy as it is reformed Contrarywise if they Grant nothing within the Bounds of pure Protestancy to be a Doctrin of such absolute Necessity to Saluation it follows Evidently Though a Protestant after a perfect knowledge had of his Religion as Reformed doth both Abjure and Anathematize that particular If Nothing of Protestancy be accounted of as Necessary one may abjure all that Religion and yet be a Faithful Believer Doctrin And Believ's only with a General Faith Common to Arians and all other Hereticks He may yet be saved Becaus the Belief of no one Article within the Compass of Protestancy Avail's him one whit to Saluation If so Tell me I beseech you what a Religion have we Here Shall we say That the Authors and Professors of Protestancy have made a shameful Bustle to bring in a Novelty which must be called the true Reformed Religion And now Hear theâ— Teach That is Teaches nothing Necessary to Saluation Grant thus much and Throw Protestancy A shameful Schism about Protestancy that Teaches nothing necessary to Saluation out of the World Men may be saved without it 15. Some Perhaps will Reply Protestants at least judge That amongst the many Religions which now swarm in the World Their reformed Novelty is one of the best and the Securest way to Heaven Alas We We Ask not what Protestants Iudge but demand for a Proof of that Iudgement enquire not what They Meer fallible Men Judge Every Heretick speak's favorably in his own Cause But we go further and Ask into what Vndoubted Principle that Judgement is finally Resolved or Whether These men withall the Judgement and Learning They have are able Solidly and Rationally to Prove that Their particular Articles of Protestancy rest firmly and Rely upon the Object of all Faith Which is Gods certain and If Protestants can resolve the Belief of their particular Articles into Divine Revelation it will be Necessary to Saluation Divine Revelation If this can be Don the particular Tenents of Protestancy are as Certain and consequently the Belief of Them as Necessary to Saluation As is the belief of that General Doctrin which all Christians Own The Reason is clear Becaus the Testimony the Authority of the same God and the same Eternal Verity as now we must Suppose Warrant 's as well the One as the Other Again If They say And They must say it God hath not revealed in the whole Bible one Article of Protestancy and therfore the Belief of not one reformed Article is Necessary to Saluation It follows That this Religion Thus Separated If not Protestancy is no part of Christian Religion from the true center of Divine Faith Gods infallible Revelation is no Christian Religion at all But stands tottering on Fancy and fancy only which is a great Verity 16. Occasionally I here Answer to a Trivial Objection of others that much Extol the Clemency of Protestants who like Papists do not Excommunicate all that believe not as They Believe Good Reason say I For why should they Excommunicate any for not Believing a Religion which is built on Fancy Could they judge in Conscience or Assure us That what they hold as Sectaries were Revealed by The want of Zeal in Sectaries for Protestancy God Necessary to Saluation or worth Believing They should so far stand for Gods Cause and set so great a Value on it as to Induce all even by spiritual Menaces it is a Sweeter way Then to Deprive Men of their Lives and Fortunes to embrace Their Novelties But Alas The real Guilt of Schism which lyes like lead at their Harts makes them most frigid in Advancing a Religion laid hold on by meer chance and a most unfortunate Casuality Almighty God soften these concealed Harts by sorrowful Repentance and Forgive all Sectaries Their double great sin both
are obliged to Answer directly without Ambages I or No. Let them say Plainly These Proofs are Good or show them to be Fallacious and if they Hold them Fallacies Let this be Evidenced by Contrary clear Proofs grounded on Received Principles Thus We Proceed Proofs and Principles Parallelled 22. For Example we say This is an Vndoubted Principle we are here forced Again to Parallel Proof with Proof and Principle with Principle that the Apostolical Church Evidenced by Miracles great Sanctity of life Efficacy of Doctrin Admirable Conversions c. Proved it self by these very Marks and Signs to be no Counterfeit But a True Orthodox Church And Here is an Other sure Principle Laid by it The Roman Catholick Church And no other Society of Christians Hath Age after Age Evidenced it Self by the very like Signs of undoubted Miracles of Admirable Conversions of Efficacy in Doctrin of Dispossessing Devils c. This whole learned Society Own 's these Wonders They have been and yet are Manifest to mens eyes and senses The Ancient Miracles and Conversions Proofs for Miracles and Conversions wrought by the Roman Catholick Church Stand upon certain Record Authors of unquestionable Fidelity Recount the later Not only Friends but Enemies also Allow them so much credit That they justly Deem the Man neer a Degree of Madnes That shall Offer to Deny All That are on Record Therfore The Church which Hath Ever Manifested And yet Doth Manifest These Wonders Proves its Doctrin in that Manner As the Apostles and Primitive Church Proved Theirs Observe now well If Sectaries go about to Infringe the Validity of this One Proof or vvill What Sectaries are obliged to â—o if they Deny These Proofs yet Deny these Miracles and Conversions vvrought by our Church They are obliged to Ground that Denial on a Proof as Strong if not Stronger as is This Cloud of Witnesses produced by Catholicks For the Contrary Affirmative And this is not only Improbable But vvholy Impossible It is therfore meer Talk at Random to Tell us As They are wont Many Miracles have been Fained Senses may be Deceived Papists are too Credulous Historians sometimes Recount Things upon too slight Credit All are weightles Words unproved Guesses Toughts of Fancy and Fancy only As Vnproved Guesses no Proof wide from Proofs and Principles as Truth is from Heresy Disc 1. c. 9. 23. Again it is an Evident Truth That the Roman Catholick Sectaries without proof censure the Roman Catholick Church never censured by any Vniversal Church Church hath Don God Great Service And never was Censured by any Vniversal Church Say Therfore upon what Owned Principle can Protestants Deny this Good service Don for God Vpon what undoubted Proof Dare they so freely Censure and condemn it I 'll tell you their own Saying Doth All. They have no Better Proof 24. 3. It is a most Evident Truth That all those Wise and Learned Doctors That Taught Christians Popery for a Thousand years and more Were neither Fools nor mad men nor Two other most certain Truths Vniversally blinded with Errour If this be not Evident thus Much certainly is The wise Providence of God never suffered those whole Millions of Christians Instructed by these Teachers to be cheated so long and Abused with Fooleries Now my harty Wish is That our Adversaries will Once plainly Tell us by what Proof or Received Principle they are An Vnanswerable Difficulty proposed to Sectaries able to convince That all These Learned Doctors no less wise then They were Besotted so long or that God for so vast a time Owed so much ill will to Innumerable poor Christians as not only to Se them cheated and Misled But They are to prove not by Talk but sure Principles First That all the Learned Doctors of the Roman Catholick Church were besotted with Fooleries for ten Ages Secondly That God permitted Innumerable Christians to be cheated for so long a time Thirdly That Protestants have Exactly setled Christianity Right on its Ancient Foundations more utterly to withdraw his Providence And suffer them to Grown under so lasting a Misery of Falshood And this which is ever to be Noted whilst There was no Other Christian Society in the world to afford them true Instruction in the Pure Christian Faith May it please Sectaries candidly To clear this one Difficulty upon a Rational Principle They will much Oblige me This Don Let Them also Vouchsafe to Add a Word more for my Satisfaction It is If They Digest These Harsh Propositions All those Doctors were Fooled God Deserted his Church for so long a time That They next come to a Solid Principle and Prove That Protestants among so many other Sectaries were the Only Elect people appointed by Providence to Mend what They conceived Amiss in an old Decayed Church And They must Shevv this Don vvithout mixture of Errour in their Reformation Yea and vvithout Danger of Marring more Then they vvent about to Mend. They tell us of their setling Christianity Right Again on its Ancient Foundations Here is place to make that Talk good let us have a Strenuous Proof for it If they say they do it by Scripture not one clear Text can be quoted without Twenty Glosses and Fancies added to it And yet all will not Do. If again they will need 's shake Hands with us And say We and They are all One and right in Fundamentals It is an unproved Assertion But might it Pass No Assurance can be given That they have setled all straight in Non-fundamentals Se Disc 3. c. 10. n. 2. and C. 9. n. 3. 2. 25. 4. Amongst the many other Evidences of our A fourth Evidence of Catholick Religion drawn from Gods special Providence our Roman Catholick Religion This is none of the least That God by special Providence hath Preserved it both in Being and Honor for 16. whole Ages This Church hath Stood so long Invincible and Glorious in the heat of all Persecutions It Resisted the Violence of Iewes and Heathen Princes It Encountred known Hereticks and Defeated Them No Counsel or Wit of Man nor Power of Devils have been hitherto Able to Dissolve it whilst Whole Kingdoms and Common-wealths lost their Ancient Glory And were Subverted Whence I Argue as the Learned Gamaliel once did Act. 5. 39. If this Counsel and work be of men it will be Dissolved But if it be of God you Sectaries who so vigorously Oppose it cannot Dissolve it Now here is A Convincing Argument my Dilemma Either this Church Subsisted for so vast a time by meer cheats and Humane Policy or was and is Protected by Gods special Providence If the first be granted It would have Perished long Ago and come to nothing And if God by Special Providence Preserved it in Being It is Vndubitably the Orthodox Church of Christ And cannot be Argued of Disloyalty To confirm this Truth I ask Whether the Reasons now Alleged Whatever Argument Proves Christian Religion in General
to have been preserved by God Proves also the Roman Christian Religion Graciously preserved The Reason Prove True Christian Religion taken under that General Notion to have been Preserved in so many Storms of Persecution by Gods special Assistance If Sectaries Answer Yes The very same Arguments applyed to the Roman Catholick Church Prove that also Graciously upheld by Providence The Reason is Becaus as I have largely Proved True Christian Religion Though never so Generally taken And the Roman Catholick Religion are Synonima's and the very Same There is no Difference between Them Now if Sectaries say That as well the Christian as the Roman Catholick Religion have subsisted so long vvithout special Assistance by Mans meer Industry and Humane Policy They do not only Enervate Old Gamaliels Argument But more Vent a Paradox which can If Sectaries Say Religion hath been so long preserved by Humane Policy They vent an unproved Paradox never be Proved Or Brought to any known Principle But to Fancy only 26. And thus much briefly of some Few Arguments for the Roman Catholick Religion which if reduced to Form And 't is easy to do it are Vnanswerable You have more in the Treatise Let us now se in the next place what Sectaries can Say for their Novelties or upon what Proofs Antecedent to their Faith They are able so far to Evidence the Credibility of Protestancy As to make it in a Poor Measure Probable CHAP. II. Protestancy is an Vnevidenced And a most Improbable Religion Or rather no Religion but a meer Fancied Opinion 1. IT is Vnevidenced For the Professors of it can by no Rational Arguments Previous to Belief more Prove That Their Owned Novelties ought to be Admitted of as prudently Credible Then the worst Protestancy as much Vnevidenced as Arianism of Heresies Take for an Instance Arianism Hear my reason The very Grounds wheron Rational Proofs ought to stand Fail them They have no Antiquity no Vniversality no Succession of Protestant Bishops and Pastors They want lawful Mission Miracles and all other prudential Signs of Truth as is largely Declared in the first Discours c. 9. Yet from These and the like Motives Previous rational Proofs manifesting the Credibility of Religion must be Drawn Or The Religion which is Asserted Rational Motives must Evidente the Credibility of Religion or 'T is upheld by his bare word that sayes it is True to be True or Credible will Appear Naked and Vnevidenced having nothing to Vphold it But the bare Word of Him who Sayes it is True And Therfore is no Religion I need not to Vrge this Point further Becaus Sectaries tacitly Suppose the Credibility of their Religion to be Vndemonstrable by outward Signs and Marks of Truth For Inquire of Them Why They rather Embrace Protestancy then Popery or any other Doctrin of Hereticks You never Hear a word of the long Continuance Sectaries seem to make no Account of these Antecedent Motives of Their Church of their lawful Mission of the Succession of Their Protestant Bishops from Christs time Nor of Vndoubted Miracles c. No. But they presently run to Scripture and Tell you That both their Faith and the Motives of it internal to the Book Stand there sufficiently Evidenced Shall we se a little the Vanity of this Assertion 2. Methinks I enter into a Study where a learned Protestant Sit's with a Bible before Him And much Dissatisfied with his Novelties I Assure him The The Bible Alone proves Nothing for Protestancy very want of rational Proofs Grounded on Objective Motives Drawes me from His Religion which is neither evidently nor So much as Probably made Credible to Any The man Points at his Bible And saith This Book both Proves Protestant Religion and Gives you Motives for it Make Sir say I this your Assertion Good Viz. The Bible Delivers Protestant Religion He Argues The Bible Teaches that Iesus is the Christ the Eternal Son of God the Redeemer of the World And thus much Protestancy Teaches also Ergo Scripture Proves Protestancy To prove Doctrin by Scripture Common to all Christians is not to prove Protestancy I Answer The Argument à Genere ad speciem Proves just nothing For these Doctrins Common both to Catholicks and other Sectaries are no specifical Articles of Protestancy as it is Reformed Now These Sir you must Show Contained in Scripture For Example As a Protestant you Believe no Sacrifice Offered upon the Altar No Purgatory No Transubstantiation c. Pray you Warrant these Negative believed Articles by Scripture-proof He Replyes After his long Reading Scripture He Find's no Mention made at all of a Sacrifice of Transubstantiation And the like I Answer Others as learned as He find Them And Prove all by Scripture Here Therfore is no Owned Principle to Ground his Denial on But let this Pass 3. I Argue against my Doctor Though you find not a Sacrifice or Purgatory in Scripture nay more Though we falsly Suppose both to be unrevealed Sectaries Negative way of Arguing Demonstrated Proofles Mysteries Yet you cannot Positively say by an Act of faith A Sacrifice is not Purgatory is not I prove it Nothing can be Believed by Divine Faith But what God Positively Reveal's But God hath not said any where Positively There is no Purgatory no Sacrifice no Transubstantiation Ergo These Negatives cannot be Believed by Divine Faith Sectaries Grant the Major The Minor is as Evident For They shall as soon Prove That God now Positively Reveal's who shall be the last man alive in the World as Prove that Scripture Positively Teaches Purgatory is not a Sacrifice is not c. Whence I Inferr If Protestants Believe no Purgatory For Example It is not enough to say We Read of no such Place in Scripture For were this True It is Only a bare Negative And at most Showes That God What Protestants are to prove if The believe any of Their Negatives hath Omitted to Speak at all of Purgatory Which silence can Ground no Act of Faith Vnles this Consequence be good Becaus an infinite Verity neither Affirm's nor Denyes That Third Place Therfore I will Believe no Purgatory To Believe then no Purgatory or No Sacrifice It is Necessary not only to Say God saith nothing in Scripture of these Mysteries But more is required Viz. to Prove That His infallible Revelation Positively Denies Them For Before Sectaries positively Deny Catholick Doctrin They are to prove that God hath positively Denied it in his Word Before I Positively Deny a Purgatory by my Faith I must prove it Positively Denyed by an Infinite Verity Which is utterly Impossible Se this Point more amply Declared Disc 2. c. 8. n. 4. 5. 4. Perhaps the Doctor will Tell me These Negatives of No Sacrifice No Purgatory c. Are no Essentials of Protestant Religion But certain By-articles which may as well be Rejected as maintained whilst the Common and All-over Owned Doctrin of Christianity is firmly Believed If He
Answer Thus First Protestant Religion comes to Nothing for all or the most pare of it is made up of these Negatives 2. This Reformed Part is no Christian Religion If Sectaries make Their Negatives not Essential to Protestancy Their Reformed Religion is no Christian Religion For Christian Religion at last Resolvable into Gods certain Revelation cannot be Yeilded to and Denied as men Pleas Vnles we grant That that may be Denied vvhich God saith is True 3. It follows Though a Protestant Curse and Anathematize the specifical Articles of his Reformed Religion as Reformed He may yet be a good Protestant and gain Salvation by the General Faith Common to Arians and other Heteredox Christians I would gladly hear of a good Solution to these Difficulties more largely laid Forth Disc 3. c. 11. n. 13. 14. In the mean while you se How Vnevidenced a Thing Protestant Religion is which hath Neither rational Motives to make it Credible nor Protestancy hath Neither Motives to make it Credible nor a word of Scripture to make it probable so much as one Favorable Word of Scripture to make it probable You se moreover How Scripture Alone without a Church and a naked Church not manifested by Prudent Motives Leaves us in Darknes Lead's into Labyrinths Yea And utterly Impossibilitat's no less the Search Then the Finding out of true Religion 5. From the Evident Vnevidence of this new Religion the From the unevidence of Protestancy the improbability of it follows Improbability of it follows as a Property doth to its Essence For an Vnproved Religion is Improbable And an Improbable Religion is no Christian Religion Pray you Tell me If one Pretend to be a Wise man and never Gives Sign or Proof of his Wisdom to be Learned and shewes Himself a Dunse in all Company to be Liberal And An Instance Relieves none in Necessity Will you Admit of all without Proof upon the bare Word of him who Sayes He is Wise Learned and Liberal No you will Slight such Talk as Vnworthly of Credit and Hold it Improbable This is the real Case of Protestants who Vapour much Talk much of the Truth of their Pure Reformed Gospel But When Things come to the Test and Proofs are justly Called No Principles wherby to prove Protestancy probable for to make Words good They can neither Say by force of any Received Principle why They Believe Protestancy in General to be Christs True Religion Nor why They give Assent by Divine Faith to so much As to one Article within the compas of Protestancy as it is Reformed The Doctrin Asserted the proofs of it The Opposition made against Catholicks and the Method held in Arguin 〈…〉 g improbable 6. You will Say this Charge goes High And Therfore justly Require of me to Declare further wherin Chiefly Our Adversaries Speak so Improbably I Answer They do it not in One Particular only But in every Thing they Say The Doctrin Asserted by them is Improbable The Proofs of Their new Religion are Improbable The Oppositi made against our Roman Catholick Faith is Improbable The Very Method Held in Arguing against us is Improbable All Fall's All is Deficient And it Cannot be Otherwise For who is able to Perswade Himself without Assenting to a most Desperate Improbability That in this Old Age of the World when all rather Expect the Day of Iudgement Then a Settlement of a new Religion a Little Knot of men wholy Vnknown a Hundred Years Agon Should now Start up And Speak to the Purpose when They go about not only to Cast Down a long Standing Church But More To make a Novelty Credible Wherof the World had no Knowledge at all For fiften Ages Before This I say is Highly Improbable But Ad Rem 7. I say First Their Doctrin is Improbable And Prove it Protestancy not resolvable into Gods Revelation stand's on Fancy and therfore Improbable Protestants Glosses as improbable as the Arians No Doctrin Fallibly Taught can be Vltimatly Resolved into Gods Infallible Revelation But into Fallible Guesses Or Fancy Only The professed Doctrin of Protestancy as Reformed is Fallibly Taught And cannot be Resolved into Gods infallible Revelation Therfore it Finally Resteth on meer Guesses or Fancy And Consequently is Improbable Se Disc 1. c. 1. n. 6. 8. 2. It is Improbable to say That Scripture Alone without an Infallible Interpreter makes any man Certain in what he Glosses or at all Infallible For both Arians And Pelagians Read it and Gloss it Yet Err Grosly in Points most Essential Protestants who Own No infallible Interpreter both Read and Gloss As These Do by their own uncertain Guesses And therfore Gloss as Improbably Disc 1. c. 4. n. 7. 8. Vniversal Opposition makes Protestancy Improbable 9. 3. A Doctrin which at Its first Rise And after Also vvas and is still as much Opposed by Other Christians the vvhole World over As Ever Arianism vvas and is Improbable Protestancy Had and hath still This Vniversal Opposition made against it And therfore upon that sole Acount is Improbable Disc 1. c. 6. n. 3. 10. 4. To Say on the one side That Protestancy is the true Protestancy Dishonors Christ and Therfore is Improbable Orthodox Religion And on the Other to Grant That the Roman Catholick Church which Sectaries Condemn of Error Hath Infinitely Obscured Protestancy with the Splendor of most Glorious Marks of Truth manifestly known to the World as Miracles Conversions c. is Highly Improbable Becaus Dishonorable to Christ and Injurious to God who cannot make a Fals Religion more clear to Reason or more Prudently Credible then his own Truths and Verities are Disc 1. c. 12. n. 1. 2. A new coyned Heresy may be better Defended then Protestancy 11. 5. A new Coyned Heresy without Motives of Credibility may as well be Invented and better Defended by the bare Words of Scripture Then Protestancy Can be Defended But such an Heresy is Improbable Therfore Protestancy upon that Account is Much more Improbable Disc 1. c. 12. n. 3. 4. 5. Sectaries improbably allow God no more but a Lame and half Providence 12. 6. To say That God had only care of a Bible and Preserved that free from Corruption But withall Permitted His own Immaculate Spouse the Church which He Founded Pure To play the Harlot And afterward to Deceive Christians vvith Damnable Errours Is not only to Allow him a Lame and Half Providence But also to Vent a Doctrin more then improbable They must say that a Church Essentially errable may as easily lose the Consolation of Grace at Truth Both are Improbable That is Enormously Impious Sectaries say so And therfore Speak improbably Disc 2. c. 2. n. 7. 13. 7. A Church essentially Errable may loose All Truth And consequently as easily All Consolation of Grace And so Become vvholy Divorced from Christ The first Protestants Assert And Therfore must maintain the Other Which is Heretical And more then Improbable
Doctrin Disc 2. c. 6. n. 7. 8. 14. 8. Though contrary to both Truth and Conscience it were Supposed That We Prove not our Catholick They Improbably found Their Doctrin upon Fals supposed Negatives Being fallible and therfore not Assisted by the Holy Ghost They pretend Improbably to Teach Christs Doctrin with Certainty Verities Yet no Absolute Denial of these Verities follovvs from our not Proving Them But Protestants upon this Fals Supposed Negative We Prove Not vvithout the least Appearance of any infallible Revelation for them Ground their Faith Which is a most Desperate Improbability Disc 2. c. 8. n. 2. 3. 15. 9. It is Improbable to Say That Protestants whilst they Teach their Novelties or Interpret Scripture Do either the One or Other as Faithful Oracles or Instruments Assisted by the Holy Ghost For These men whether They Teach or Interpret Profess Themselves Fallible in All They Say Therfore are not assisted Instruments of this Blessed Spirit who Teaches by none The Necessary Doctrin of a Vniversal Church Interpret's by None but such as do it Infallibly Disc 2. c. 9. n. 8. 16. 10. To say That that Article of our Creed I Believe the Holy Catholick Church was not True in all Ages before Luther is more Then Improbable Protestants who They make Improbably an Article of our Creed Fals. can name no other Catholick Church but the Roman which They Hold Erroneous must both Vow and Vote the Creed Fals for so vast a time Disc 3. c. 1. n. 1. To Teach that a Doctrin common to Hereticks is enough for Saluation is Improbable A Religion essentially Hypocritical Improbable 17. 11. It is highly improbable to Say That either the true Church of Christ can be corrupted in Doctrin or that a Doctrin common to All Hereticks is enough for Saving Faith Protestants Affirm both Disc 3. c. 2. 18. 12. A Church Essentially Hypocritical That may Believe One thing And must Profess an other is unworthy of Credit and cannot be judged to Hold probable Doctrin Protestants own such a Church Disc 3. c. 6. n. 10. 19. 13. A Church or Religion that hath not one Article of Faith Grounded on Scripture as it is Reformed yet So is a Church without a word of Scripture for it Another Improbability of Sectaries Pretend's to Draw all to it By Force of Scripture Delivers most improbable Doctrin Protestancy is such a Religion Ibidem n. 11. 20. 14. Protestants that Pretend to submit to the Authority of one two or three of the Ancient Fathers And Scornfully Reject the Authority of the Roman Church Proceed Improbably Disc 3. c. 7. n. 9. And thus much Briefly of a few Doctrinal Improbabilities Taught by Protestants The Treatise afford's you more Touching the Liberty The Vnconstancy The Endles Dissentions of Sectaries with other sad Effects that follow This new Gospel These I wave in this place And 21. Say 2. The proofs of Sectaries for Their new Religion Sectaries Proofs of their own Religion are Improbable The Reason are Improbable The Assertion is consequential and Stand's Firm Vpon what is said already For a Doctrin Proved Improbable by undoubted Principles cannot be made Evidently Credible by any rational Arguments Vnles Truth be contrary to Truth But The Doctrin of Protestancy is Demonstrated Improbable Therfore no Rational Proofs can make it Evidently credible nor so much as weakly Probable To confirm this Do no More but Demand of any Sectary the Question hath been often Proposed Vpon what Rational Proof A Protestant cannot say upon a rational Principle why He judges his Religion true or the best of all other or received Principle Antecedent to his Faith He Believes Protestancy I do not say Christian Religion taken in what General way you will To be the Best and Purest Religion now Professed He cannot Pretend that this Novelty is ex Terminis Evidently True or Credible for no Religion is so Much less That He Believes without Reason or Becaus He will Believe Therfore after he hath Declared what He Believes He must also Satisfy the Doubt And Tell us Why He Believes And Ground his Answer upon a Rational Principle But it is as impossible to Satisfy This one Demand as to Remove the Pyraenean Mountains from the place they Stand in The Reason is It is It is highly Against Reason to Embrace a Religion without Prudent Motives Protestancy hath no Prudent Motives If they have any in store They can be laid forth to Reason Highly Against all Reason to Embrace any Religion whether new or old without Rational Proofs Grounded on sure Motives Which Plead as it were in Gods behalf and make Religion Evidently Credible Before vve Yeild Assent to it But Protestants have no rational Motives Antecedent to their Belief of Protestancy which Hold a strict Analogy with Those of Christ and his Apostles as is Amply Proved Disc 1. c. 9. 10. 11. 12. therfore their Religion as Protestancy is without Proof Vnevidenced If they can Gainsay my Assertion let them Speak And Bring their Motives to Light We would gladly hear what can be Answered plainly to this one plain Demand 22. After a General View Taken of Protestancy We may Descend to Particulars and enquire in the next Place Why the Professors of it Believe so much as one Article of this Novelty For example Two Sacraments only no Sacrifice no Church Infallible Why They Believe And 'T is the Worst of all Yea and a Paradox Astrange Paradon of Protestants beyond Expression That Christ Abandoned the very Church he Founded in the greatest Need and Danger that can concern a Church Which was and is to Defend it from Heresy Here we may justly stand astonished and Ask How it came to Pass that ouâ— Careful Lord Iesus like one Drowsy or Forgetful of his Charge Withdrew his Providence From that Church He Founded What Hath He been asleep so long 'T is True when He Entred a little Boat Matt. 8. It was a Type of the Church a great Tempest arising He seemed regardles of his Disciples feares And Slept a while But to Say He hath now Slept on For a Thousand Christ founded the Roman Catholich Church yet Protestants say he suffered it to perish Years and like one Retchles Suffered that Arke He Built not only to be Tossed with the worst of Tempests But to be overturned with a Deluge of Errours and Fals Doctrin is a Novelty fitter for Protestants to Broach then Any Christian in the World to Hear or Think of Ask therfore what Scripture what Vnanimous Consent of Fathers or Councils have They for this long Supposed Negligence of our Vigilant Lord I 'll tell you They can Allege just so much proof for this Vnheard of Paradox as They Do For Their other Novelties which is purely Nothing Protestancy therfore whether we consider Protestancy Every way unproved it in a General Way or Descend to the particular Tenents Therof is meerly Fancy An Vnproved and
exclamation The Prophets Lesson and the wise Counsel of the son of Syrach the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! Quis cognovit sensum Domini Who hath known the mind of our Lord or who hath been his Counseller Learn well that good Lesson Esay 55. 9. My Thoughts are not your Thoughts for as the Heavens are Exalted above the Earth sâ— are my Wayes Exalted above Yours and my Cogitations above your Cogitations Learn more of JESU the Wise son of Syrach Eccles 33. 15. And Look with Him upon all Teach â—â— to Reverence Gods permission of Evil. the Works of the Highest You se Two against Two and One Against One Against Evil is Good Against Death is Life Against a Iust man is a Sinner And I Add Against Truth you have Heresy S. Austin lib. 11. de Civitate c. 18. Call's S. Austins Discours of Contrarieties in Gods works these Things Râ—rum Antitheta Contrarities in the works of God And moreover Assures us That His Goodnes would never have Created either Men or Angels in whom Evil was Foreseen Nisi pariter nosset quibus eos Bonorum usibus accommodaret unles He had also Known how Useful Subservient and Beneficial I 'll would Prove at last to Vertuous Good Men. Atque ita in ordinem seculorum tanquam pulcherrimum Carmen etiam ex quibusdam quasi Antithetis honestaret And How that in the Cours of Ages He might Commend and set Forth all We Se like a well made Vers with certain Contrarieties Evil graceth virtâ—â— and Errour gives a lustre to Truth Evil Therfore Hath its Good and Gives a Grace to Virtue Errour Add's a Comliness to Truth And the more Ugly Heresy is the More it Sett's forth the Lustre of Christs Orthodox Church And makes it glorious S. Austin confirm's the Doctrin Pictor novit They are Words of S. Austin Serm. De Diversis c. 5. fine ubi ponat nigrum colorem ut sit decora pictura nescit Deus ubi ponat peccatores ut sit ordinata creatura A Painter Knowes well where to lay Darker Colours That his Piece may be Fair to the eye And Shall not God Know where to Place Sinners the like is of Hereticks That His Creatures may Therby Appear And shâ—wâ—s of what use erring men are to the Church Seemly and in Order Yes most Assuredly This great Doctor Saith yet More lib. de Vera Beligione c. 6. Haec enim Catholica Ecclesia per totum orbem validè lateque diffusa omnibus errantibus ad profectus suos ad eorum Correctionem cum Evigilare voluerint c. This Catholick Church so far and neer Diffused makes Benefit of all Poor erring Souls Yea and Doth so for their Amendment when They Shall Please to Awake out of their Drowsines It makes Vse of Gentils to let them Se the Wonders it Works of Hereticks to Prove its Holy Doctrin of Schismaticks to give them a Lesson of better Stability of Iewes to Shevv them the Beauty of Christian Religion c. So it is All the Blindnes in the world saith S. Austin els Were Ad aliquem usum Sanctorum ordinatur is Ordained for some Heresy serviceable to the Church Profit and Service of Gods Elect and Chosen People 8. Conclude therfore As there will be Deluded Souls whether Iewes or Gentils As There will be Sin Oppression and Open Injustice to the End of Ages Sic oportet Haereses esse So there will be Heresies also No wonder that some wilfully Shut their Eyes to the Evidence of the Church And Those who Wilfully Shut their Eyes to the Evidence of a Glorious Mother Church And wonder not at it For you Know That the Son of God Himself came into the World Et mundus cum non cognovit And the World would not know Him His sacred Doctrin was Preach't All over But Seemed Iudaeis Scandalum Gentibus Stultitia A Scandal to the Iewes and a Foolery When the Son of God was not known to All. to the Gentils What Marvel is it then that His Own Holy Church Be less Regarded by Dispirited Souls and the Doctrin therof set Light by Have Patience Wait on Gods Good Leisure No Hart is so Hard but Grace can Soften it These Dimm Eyes of Deceived Men Will at last be Opened Et videbit omnis caro Salutare Dei And all shall Se and Know That as There is no Other Saviour but One Christ our Lord So There is no other Church but No other Christ but one No other Church but the one only Roman Catholick Church One Wherin Salvation long Sought for can be Found But in the One only Ancient Apostolical Catholick and Holy Roman Church CREDO SANCTAM ECCLESIAM CATHOLICAM FINIS THE CHAPTERS IN ORDER THE FIRST DISCOVRS Of an Infallible Church and Infallible Teachers CHAP. I. There are Infallible Teachers of true Christian Religion Page 16. CHAP. II. The Infallible Doctrin of Christ Necessarily requires Infallible Teachers 20 CHAP. III. Other Proofs for Teachers and a Church infallible 29 CHAP. IV. Replyes to these Arguments are Answered 36 CHAP. V. A Controversy with some later Sectaries concerning Moral certainty 49 CHAP. VI. Faith only morally certain is no Faith Protestants have no Moral certainty of Protestant Religion 63 CHAP. VII How Sectaries err in the search made after Religion Of their weak and improbable Opposition The Objection is more fully Answered 70 CHAP. VIII A few Reflections made upon these Motives of Credibility No Religion hath Motives founding moral certainty but One only which is 〈◊〉 Roman Catholick Religion 78 CHAP. IX A short Digression concerning the shufling of Protestants in this matter 88 CHAP. X. Protestants have no rational Motives wherby their new Faith is evidenced to be so much as Probable 96 CHAP. XI Arguments drawn from Reason against Protestants upon the consideration of These declared Motives 114 CHAP. XII Protestants for want of rational Motives cannot convert an Infidel to Christian Faith 119 CHAP XIII Protestancy for want of Rational Motives dishonor's Christ and makes way for any new coyned Heresy 128 THE SECOND DISCOVRS Of Scripture CHAP. I. Scripture is useles if none declare infallibly the sense of it 135 CHAP. II. The Fallacy of Protestants concerning Scripture and the Interpretation of Scripture is discovered 144 CHAP. III. All substantials of Faith are not plain in Scripture without an infallible Teacher 153 CHAP. IV. Sole Scripture without an infallible Interpreter can be no Rule of Faith Protestants have no Scripture for their Religion as it is Protestancy 162 CHAP. V. The Reason of private men and their private spirit cannot interpret Scripture 169 CHAP. VI. The new mode of Protestants Misinterpreting Scripture which proves the Churches Infallibility is more Amply Refuted 179 CHAP. VII More of this subject 187 CHAP. VIII The new Mode of Sectaries misinterpreting Scripture destroyes Protestant Religion 195 CHAP. IX Of the Means left by Almighty God to interpret Scripture Truely One
Passage more of Scripture Proving Infallible Teachers is quoted 203 CHAP. X. Objections are Answered 217 THE THIRD DISCOVRS Of Sectaries Vnreasonable Proceeding CHAP. I. Protestants are Vnreasonable whilst They seemingly hold a Catholick Church Distinct from the Roman neither known nor Designable by any 231 CHAP. II. Of a late Writers Doctrin 236 CHAP. III. The Pretended Reformation of Protestants is unreasonable if Faith in Christ Only suffice for Saluation A more Explicit Faith is proved Necessary 244 CHAP. IV. The Ambiguous Discourses of Protestants concerning Fundamentals in Faith are Proved unreasonable 250 CHAP. V. An Answer to one Reply More of this subject 262 CHAP. VI. Some Few Propositions of a late Writer are briefly Examined His Discours of Fundamentals Destroy's Protestant Religion 271 CHAP. VII More of this subject Objections are Ansvvered 291 CHAP. VIII Protestants are unreasonable in the Defense of Their late Manifest and undoubted Schism 315 CHAP. IX Protestants cannot make Good Their Charge Against the Roman Catholick Church concerning causal Schism 323 CHAP. X. The Roman Catholick Church whilst Evidence comes not Against it stands Firm upon its Ancient Possessed Right This long Possession Proves the Church Orthodox 333 CHAP. XI Of a late Writers Exceptions Against our Pleading Possession 339 CHAP. XII Another Objection And whether Protestants can Acquit themselves of Schism 357 CHAP. XIII A second Argument Against this Schism Of Sectaries Cavils concerning Errours Entring the Church insensibly 362 CHAP. XIV A Word to a Few supposed and unproved Assertions Wherby some Endeavour to clear Protestants of Schism 379 CHAP. XV. More of These Authors confused Doctrin is Refuted 387 THE FOVRTH DISCOVRS Of the Churches Evident Credibility Of the Improbability of Protestancy CHAP. I. Christs Church is Proved to be no Other But the Roman Catholick Sectaries are convinced of errour 405 CHAP. II. Protestancy is an unevidenced And a most improbable Religion or rather no Religion but a meer Fancied Opinion 420 CHAP. III. A Word more of Sectaries new Mode of Arguing laid forth by Touching on one Controversy concerning the Doctrin of Purgatory 434 CHAP. IV. A Parallel of Proofs for and Against tâ—e Doctrin of Purgatory A solution to a late Adversaries Objections 452 CHAP. V. An objection proposed and solved in a Discours of another Controversy Which is the Real Presence 477 CHAP. VI. Sectaries without either Proof or Principles wrest Christs Words to an improper sense and vent an Heresy upon meer Fancy 489 CHAP. VII How differently We and Sectaries proceed in this Controversy VVhat they are to Prove 506 CHAP. VIII The Conclusion The Churches Evidence 517 SOME FEW OF THE MORE CHIEF CONTENTS OF THIS TREATISE THE FIRST DISCOVRS Of Infallible Teachers and the Motives of Credibility CHrists Church hath infallible Teachers of true Christian Religion Christs infallible Doctrin requires infallible Teachers A Doctrin that is fallible may be fals Christ sent none to teach any other Doctrin but that which may be resolved into Gods certain Revelation but such a Doctrin can neither be fals nor fallible Sectaries preach no other Doctrin but what is fallible and may be fals The Objective infallibility of Gods Word in Scripture is not ex terminis Evident and no Church as They say Ever yet told them or can tell them infallibly that it is infallible If all Pastors and Doctors may err in their delivery of Christian Doctrin God would as indifferently oblige us to believe a lye as his certain verities If God deprive all Pastors of infallible Assistance Christian Religion now stands on no more firm ground then mans weak mutable and erring opinion Gods infallible Revelation avails nothing in order to Faith unles Christians lay hold on the certainty therof by Faith which cannot be don unles that Oracle which proposeth the Revelation to all be infallible If the Proponent of a Revelation only say doubtfully I think God speaks as I preach but am not certain the Assent given to his Preaching is also doubtful and no Faith Faith surpasseth in its strength and Tendency all moral and Metaphysical certainty Though Moral certainty were sufficient for Faith yet Sectaries have not so much for Protestancy as it is reformed How Sectaries err in their search made after Religion and both weakly and improbably oppugn the Doctrin of the Catholick Roman Church Reflections upon the motives of credibility It is impossible after the establishment of true Faith in the world that God permit a fals Religion to be more clearly evidenced to reason by force of rational Motives then true Religion is manifested A fals Religion cannot equalize Gods true Religion in the evidence of prudent motives inducing to Faith No Religion hath motives founding moral certainty prerequired to Faith but the Roman Catholick Religion only Protestants have nothing like rational motives wherby Protestancy as Protestancy is proved to be so much as probable Where Mr. Stillingfleet Treats of resolving Protestants Faith He waves the Question wholy and speak's no more in behalf of Protestancy then Arianism or another Heresy Arguments drawn from Reason against Protestants upon the consideration of the Churches motives Sectaries cannot for want of prudent motives inducing to Faith convert an infidel to Christian Religion Their Religion Dishonors Christ and makes way to any new coyned Heresy THE SECOND DISCOVRS Of Scripture SCripture is a useles book in the hands of Sectaries if none as they confess Declare infallibly the sense of it in high points of Controversies Arians interpret Scripture as probably as Protestants when they oppose the sense received by the Church Sectaries make Scripture a book that proves all Religions and more significant for Arianism then Protestancy The fallacy of Protestants concerning the Interpretation of Scripture is discovered Grant no infallible Church we have no Assurance of true and interrupted Scripture Scripture might be more easily corrupted then a whole Church cheated into fals Doctrin No man can prudently suppose that God had more care to preserve Scripture uncorrupt then a Church free from errour All Substantials of Faith are not in Scripture A Learned Philosopher by his own reading Scripture cannot judge what it meanes in a hundred Passages without an Interpreter Sectaries now are in the very same case without an infallible Interpreter Sectaries in their Glosses on Scripture do nothing but add and substract from Gods Word When They Oppose the Churches sense of Scripture Sole Scripture without an infallible Interpreter can be no Rule of Faith Protestants have not one word of Scripture for their Religion as it is Protestancy The Reason of private men or of a private spirit cannot interpret Scripture The new mode of Protestants misinterpreting Scripture is amply refuted All our Sectaries endeavour is to turn Scripture off from the Catholick sense by their own fancies and then think the work don It is one thing to say and only to say it that Scriptures alleged by us prove not what we intend and another positively to prove the Doctrin contrary
to us to be grounded on Scripture In this Sectaries always fail The new mode of Sectaries interpreting Scripture destroyes Protestant Religion Here is the sequel of Sectaries We Catholicks Prove not what we assert therfore they make the contrary Doctrin an Article of their new Faith Faith cannot rely on such Negatives Of the means left by Almighty God to interpret Scripture The Holy Ghost only speaking by the Oracle of the Church Interpret's Scripture infallibly in those matters which concern the general belief of all Protestants who profess themselves to be fallible in what ever they teach are no Instruments assumed by the Holy Ghost to teach and interpret infallibly Gods Word No Sectary can judge the Church but the Church is to judge all Sectaries THE THIRD DISCOVRS Of the unreasonable proceeding of Protestants in some Chief matters of Controversy PRotestants who seemingly hold a Catholick Church before Luther larger then the Roman Catholick Church and cannot design it Proceed unreasonably and must falsify that Article of our Creed I believe the Holy Catholick Church Before Luther there were no Christians in the world for a thousand years at least but Roman Catholicks and known Hereticks neither those Catholicks alone as Protestants say nor the known Hereticks nor both together constituted the true Catholick Church therfore there was no true Catholick Church on earth for so vast a time No abstract Doctrin common to all who are named Christians is sufficient to constitute Catholick Doctrin Mr. Stillingfleet is confuted and his Doctrin shewed improbable Faith in Christ only as a Redeemer is insufficient to Saluation A more explicite Faith of other particulars is proved Necessary If Catholicks and Sectaries are right in the fundamentals of Faith all the pretended Reformation of Protestants comes to a slight work about Non Essentials which may have made Things wors then before It is not the less or more weight of things revealed that makes Faith less or more valued of but the Submission we yeild to Gods Veracity which is one and of equal Authority in what ever he Reveal's Though a Distinction were granted between Fundamentals and not Fundamentals Yet Protestants cannot so much as probably sever the Fundamentals from the others by any known Principle If there be no Catholick Church owned at least infallible in Fundamentals all Faith both of Christ and Creed may perish before the world end 's And if there be such an Infallible Church in Fundamentals Sectaries ought to design it and say to whom that Spirit is granted in what subject it resides c. A Protestant who so far Denies Christs true Church That he cannot say where it is and endeavour's to reform others before he have certainty of his own half well made Reformation cannot probably go about to withdraw a prudent Catholick from his Religion Some Propositions of Mr. Stillingfleet are examined His Discours of Fundamentals destroy's Protestant Religion He Speaks of the Being of a Church and saith not precisely how much Doctrin constitutes that Being He cannot name any Orthodox Church that ever Excepted against the Articles believed by the Church of Rome He makes the Negative Articles of the English Church not to be Articles of Faith but only inferiour Truths held only in order to peace and tranquillity His Church therfore is essentially Hypocritical which may believe one thing and must profess an other Though Protestants were very Papists in hart yea and Anathematized all These Negative Articles They may be looked on as Blessed Children of this new Negative Church if their Exteriour be fairly Protestant-like He makes his Church no more an English Church then a Church of Arians and of all condemned Hereticks He saith the English Church makes no Articles of Faith but such as have the Approbation of the whole Christian world and of Rome it self The Assertion is Evidently Vntrue For no Orthodox Church no Heretical Society no Consent â—f the whole Christian World Ever taught That a Doctrin wherin all Christians agree is sufficient to Saluation When Sectaries Say Christs gave to his Disciples a Sign only of his Body This very Doctrin is either an Article of Their Faith or one of their Inferiour Truths If the first They believe that which never had the approbation of the whole Christian World much less of Rome it self If the second be granted They have no Divine Faith at all of the Blessed Sacrament The Nullity of our Adversaries ground 's is declared though the Church made new Articles of Faith If we speak rigourously The Church makes no new Articles but only declares more Explicitly what was anciently believed The Fathers call the Church a rich Treasury wherin the Depositum of Apostolical Doctrin is securely preserved The Analogy of Faith is explicated There was a Platform of Christian Religion before Scripture was Writ and the Apostles separated Themselves and Preach't to several Nations Sectaries who seemingly acquiesce in the Judgement of one or two Ancient Fathers most inconsequently reject the Authority of a Learned General Council that is of greater weight and Estimation If the Churches Definitions are therfore to be thought fallible because men declare them and all men are lyars much more are our Sectaries Novelties and Glosses on Scripture to be valued of as Fallible upon the same ground These fallible men tell me my Churches Doctrin is fallible suppose falsly it were so it is altogether as good as this very fallible Proposition is that sayes 'T is Fallible and if which is true it be infallible it is much better No man that holds His Religion fallible can probably endeavour to convert an other though the contrary Religion Professed by this other be acknowledged to be no more but fallible Much less can he persecute Him for not yeilding Assent to a fallible Religion All the Storms of persecution raised against Catholicks are not upon any account of want of Faith but for this sole cause that we will not believe one thing and force our Consciences to Profess an other Which is to say we are persecuted becaus we will not be Hypocrits The Vnreasonablenes of Protestants Schism laid forth from the VIII Chap. of the third Discours to the XV. THe Separation of Protestants from the Roman Catholick Church is as plain and manifest a sinful Schism as ever was Decryed Rebellion in a Kingdom or any Violation of a Countries Right The formal Schism of Sectaries is evident but the Causal charged on Catholicks is no more but an unproved Calumny Proofs brought to received Principles fail Sectaries whilst they make the Roman Church to be the cause of their Formal Schism The supposed errours charged on the Roman Catholick Church by Sectaries are not like the first Principles in nature Evident ex terminis and therfore must be proved by a Discours grounded on certain Principles We Licence Sectaries in their Discours against us to make use of all Imaginable sound Principles Scripture Fathers Tradition or what They pleas and only exclude
Their own self-voting from the nature of a rational Proof and Principle When a Rebellion is manifest in a Kingdom the sole Authority of them who began it is insufficient to make it Justifiable And the Authority of Sectaries is as forceles to Justify their Evident Schism against the Church Whilst Evidence comes not against our Church it stand's most firm upon its ancient possessed right This long Possession proves our Church Orthodox Examples Hereof Mr. Stillingfleets Exceptions against our pleading Possession are proved to be weak forceles and meer ungrounded Suppositions Though the Obligation of proving Evidently lies on our Adversaries who are the Aggressors yet we prove not only a personal Succession of our Popes and Prelates in forgoing Ages but also manifest a Quiet Possession of Truth that descended with these continued Popes and Bishops from the dayes of S. Peter to this very Age. No just Exception can be made against our Tradition which is Evidently its one Proof for there cannot be a clearer Mr. Stillingfleet supposeth that our Right of pleading Truth is a meer Occupancy He is to prove this becaus he is the Accuser No Antecedent Law hath determined Contrary to what we Challenge by vertue of our Possession We have both the Law for us and ancient Possession besides And there is no Reason when we allege two Proofs Law and Possession that we Quite the one which is Possession as Mr. Stillingfleet pretend's we should do which is against all rational Discours of this subject It is improbable to say that Protestants first saw these supposed errours imputed to our Church when others as Quick-sighted more numerours and Learned then They saw them not for ten whole Ages before Luther It is a degree of madnes to suppose that all those worthy and Learned Professors of the Catholick Faith were either so stupidly blind as not to have seen such supposed errours or so wickedly Hypocritical as to have wincked at them after their plain Discovery It is a Paradox to say that our new men saw these too plain and visible errours when that great Catholick Church which Sectaries make more large then the Roman saw them not but permitted Rome to countenance these supposed errours without check or reprehension Of the Impossibility of errours entring the Church after the first 4. or 5. hundred years Though Sectaries should convince which is impossible the Roman Catholick Church to be guilty of errour yet they cannot show that they have set Christian Faith right again on its old Foundations as it once stood pure All Principles fail them in this particular Fancy only and nothing like a rational Proof uphold's this charge of errour against our Church Mr Stillingfleets Assertions are refuted If the Roman Catholick Church has erred by imposing unreasonable conditions Sectaries who Profess themselves fallible in all they say may have erred more and spoil'd all they went about to mend Nothing can be more unreasonable then to make a few Rebellious people receding from an ancient Church first to accuse it and then to sit judges in their own cause and condemn it None can probably show that these late Reformers of Protestants who opposed all other Religions are untainted or purely Orthodox As no men before the Donatists made the Church so strait as they did so never Christians before these later Sectaries made it so wide as to hold in it all the Hereticks in the world Protestancy as Protestancy is no Christian Religion at all if the belief of that Doctrin which is common to all Christians be amply sufficient to Salvation Protestants may Anathematize all the Doctrin within the compass of their reformed Religion and yet be saved THE FOVRTH DISCOVRS Of the Churches Evidence and Improbability of Protestant Religion PRotestants as they make not good their own Doctrin by Proofs grounded on certain Principles so they never impugn the Roman Catholick Faith by rational Arguments Catholicks contrarywise prove their Churches Doctrin by undeniable Principles The Grounds of Catholick Religion are briefly laid forth As it is an evident Principle that all those Wife and Learned Doctors who taught Christians Popery for a thousand years were neither fools nor perversly blind So it is more evident that God suffered not those millions of Christians instructed by these Teachers to be grosly abused with fals Doctrin whilst there was no other Catholick Society in the world â—o unbeguile them All other Sectaries who deserted the Roman Catholick Church erred grosly and it is improbable to think that Protestants only among so many straying Teachers were the only priviledged people elected by God to mend had any thing been amiss in a old decayed Church without mixture of errour or marring more then they mended Protestancy is unevidenced and an improbable Religion that is no Religion but a fancied opinion No Doctrin fallibly taught as Protestancy is can be ultimately resolved into Gods infallible Revelation Scripture alone without an infallible Interpreter makes no man infallible A Doctrin which at its first rise was and is still opposed by all Christians excepting the Sectaries who broach it is as improbable as Arianism A Church essentially errable may loâ—s all Truth and consequently all grace and so become divorced from Christ. A Doctrin proved improbable by undoubted Principles cannot be made credible by rational Arguments unles Truth be contrary to Truth Of the slight way of Sectaries Arguing against Catholick Doctrin Mr. Stillingfleet like his other Brethren in a Discours of Purgatory begins with Ieers with Mistakes and dissembling of Difficulties He states not the Question rightly between the Latin and Greeks The Dispute between the Latins and Greeks is clearly laid forth by Leo Alatius a Grecian What passed in the Council of Florence concerning This Dispute The Greeks most certainly both before and after the Council held a place of punishment for souls departed from which place they are freed by the Prayers of the Living They also hold that souls enioy the beatifical Vision before the day of Judgement The weaknes of our Adversaries cause is best seen by a Parallel of Proofs for Purgatory and against it The Catholick Principles for Purgatory S. Austins was not the first that held Purgatory Mr. Stillingfleet misunderstands two passages in S. Austin The Sectary when He Explicates Scripture or Fathers makes his own Gloss the surest ground of his Interpretation When the Catholick explicates a dubious passage He relies on a sure Principle distinct from his Interpretation Objections are Answered How the Supplications of the Church respect mercy and Forgivenes to be shewed the just at the Day of Judgement An Objection is proposed in behalf of Sectaries and solved in another Discours concerning the Blessed Sacrament The Grounds of our Catholick Doctrin for the Real Presence The contrary Opinion of Sectaries is proved to be meer Fancy Sectaries cannot by vertue of any one received Principle remove the Catholick from the plain and Obvious senfe of Christs most significant words The
Testimonies of Fathers are as clear for our Catholick Doctrin as the words of the Council of Trent A Parallel of Proofs for and against the Doctrin of the Real Presence The way of Sectaries is chiefly to loos Themselves in proposing difficulties against us without casting a serious thought on sure Principles that solve them They find the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament uneasy to sense but reflect not that They believe two or three other Mysteries fully as hard if not more difficile for Example a Trinity the Incarnation and Original sin It is most Evident what Ever Principle whether it be Scripture Church Authority or consent of Fathers that moves to believe these Verities that very Principle is as pressing forceable and urging yea and often more express for the Belief of our Sacrament wherat they boggle What the Sectary is obliged to prove if He except against our grounds in this Controversy We admit of Christs plain Words according to their most obvious sense we find them so understood by a number of the most venerable ancient Fathers as we understand them and moreover have a Learned Church that speak's as both Scripture and Fathers speak Can Sectaries now exact of us that we leave these strong Principles and rely on their word because They will have us do so It is impossible unles They give us in lieu of the se as plain Scripture as plain Testimonies of Fathers and produce the warrant of some other Church more ancient and Orthodox then ours is that once Patronized their Novelty If they say They can explicate our Scripture and ancient Fathers I have Answered above Their explication is worth nothing unles it be grounded on more express Testimonies that favour their Novelty then our contrary authorities are for Catholick Doctrin If again they reply As we must explicate their Authorities brought against us so They can explicate ours alleged against them I Answer if a stop be made here neither they no◠we yet come to the last Principles But here will be the final Decision of all We appeal to the clear Words of Scripture They have Evidently non so express We appeal to the most manifest Testimonies of Fathers delivered i◠this Controversy The Council of Trent speaks not more clearly They Oppos◠a few dark Sentences help't on with their Glosses contrary to the Fathers sense a◠is largely proved Lastly we appeal to the Judgement of our Ancient and fa. extended Church Herein they are forced to yeild for they have no Church comparable to it that Defends their Novelty The Churches Evidence Why God permits Heresy to be in the World A FEW NOTES UPON MR. POOLES APPENDIX AGAINST CAPTAIN EVERARD 1. I Say a few for I must be brief finding very little to stay me in the Appendix which is not directly solved in the foregoing Treatis And therfore wonder not it I often remit the Reader to the former Discourses as occasion requires it being impossible to reply to an Adversary upon this subject of Infallibility without touching on what is sayd already where the Direct Answer is given to His objections I would not indeed have writ thus much against Mr. Poole but only to hinder a little vanity in the man for if no notice had bin taken of his Appendix He might perhaps have thought too well of his work and judged it so learned a piece that none would Dare to meddle with it To gain what time is possible I pass by all His jeers his harsher language and Calumnies cast on Catholick c. Those Personal exceptions also uniustly made against the Converted Captain and some vulgar Difficulties solved a hundred times shall give me no work at present who will only fall and closely upon that which Mr. Poole its likely may think most material and to the purpose And because the best strength He hath lies in the beginning of the Appendix I 'le examin that most and make his errours manifest by sound proofs and Principles Briefly 2. The occasion of Mr. Everards Conversion was a Discours held with a Catholick Gentleman Who Asked me saith the Captain whether I was so certainly infallibly assured of the Truth of the Christian Religion that it was not possible for me or those that taught me Christianity to be mistaken therin and He gave me this reason for his question that otherwise as to me Christianity could be no more then probably true And we could not condemn the Iew or Turk or Pagan since they were as well perswaded of their several wayes as we could be of ours upon a fallible certainty And for ought we knew not having any infallible certainty for our Christianity some of them might be in the right and we in the wrong way sor it is possible you may be mistaken Thus Mr. Poole Appendix page 8. who slight's the Discours as silly weak and ungrounded 3. I say Contrary The Discours is strong rational and most convincing The ground of my Assertion further declared Disc 1. c. 1. 2. is thus A Doctrin which by vertue of all the Principles it hath or can rely on cannot but be fallibly taught by all Teachers now within the bounds of Christianity is by force of its Proposition and merit of the Doctrin precisely considered most certainly fallible and may be fals But such a taught Doctrin which by vertue of all the Principles it hath or can rely on and merit also of the Doctrin or force of its Proposition is fallible and may be fals is not the certain Doctrin of Christ which cannot by the vertue of any Principle it hath or merit of the Doctrin and force of its proposition be either fallible or fals Ergo such a taught Doctrin is not Christs certain Doctrin which neither is nor can be fallible or fals Now further A Doctrin which is not Christs certain Doctrin because remo 〈…〉 from certain Principles can be no other but the Doctrin of mans errable judgement or Fancy And consequently gives as little Assurance to him that teaches it fallibly or those that hear it as that of the Jewes gives to them Observe my reason equally Convincing in both cases Therfore we say the Doctrin of a Jew gives If you say the Doctrin of a Jew is not only fallible but fals also you suppose what is to be proved against him no Assurance to Him that Teaches and those who hear it because it is removed from all infallible Principles and relies only on his errable judgement or Fancy that teaches it but the Fallible Doctrin of these Sectaries now mentioned is also removed from all Infallible Principles for no man amongst them can deliver Doctrin infallibly Therfore it relies only on an errable judgement or fancy that teaches it and by good consequence is none of Christs infallible Doctrin But if it be none of Christs Doctrin it gives no more Assurance to them that Hear it than the Doctrin af a Jew gives to any of his Sect Ergo. Here briefly is my
Faith precisely rest's alwaies on Gods Revelation as the last and ultimate Motive without the mixture of any other See Disc 1. c. 5. n. 5. 6. as also Chap. 6. Now if you desire to know more concerning the certainty of him that Proposeth the Object of Faith darkly revealed in Holy Scripture read the 4. Chap. of the first Discours 10. By what is said hitherto you se Good Mr. Poole that true Christian Religion must either signify the Objective Infallibility of Gods Revelation or the Assent of Faith wherby we Captivate our understanding and submit to an Infallible Veracity both the one and other goe farr beyond the mean measure of meer Probabilities or the highest moral certainty Therfore your Instances of Iamaica and a Calf are here useles and insignificant I say True Christian Religion or to speak in your words The Truth of Christianity For if by the essential Truth of Christianity you will understand the prudent Motives or Inducements that precede Faith and shew us where True Christianity is professed and call these the Essentials of Christian Religion know first you have none of them as is proved Disc 1. C. 8. 9. and 10. Know secondly that these Motives previously pondered before we believe though most requisit to belief are not the Essentials of Faith whether you take Faith obiectively For the matter believed or subiectively for the Act of Belief But objects of Science as you may read in Chapters now Quoted For Faith which essentially constitutes Religion follows in every good Christian after the Consideration of these Motives and sub Notione fidei or as Divine Faith ultimately relies not on them 11. Vpon these Grounds all comes to nothing that you have P. 10. and 11. where you say If besides the Infallibility of the Thing there be required Certitudo subjecti the Infallibility of the person you will bring this fox out of his hole by a notable Dilemma A word only in passing Pray you Sir what 's here understood by the Infallibility of the Thing You either mean Gods certain Revelation and this certainly most infallibly is not to be called a Thing but ought to be spoken of with greater Reverence or you mean and your context bears no other sense the material Objects of our Christian belief now these solely considered can no more properly be called fallible or infallible then probable and improbable No man saith that a stone which he sees in the high way is either fallible or infallible probable or improbable The Reason is Because these Terms certain fallible infallible probable improbable c. note ever the tendency of vital Acts proceeding from an intellectual power And therfore most improperly belong to objects neither vital nor intellectual Thus much only by the Bye Now to your foxing it and fearful Dilemma Either say you a subjective certainty or infallibility of Belief mark your own words of the Truth of Christianity is necessary for particular Christians or it is not If it be not necessary then Papists too vainly boast of it and must Confess probable evidence sufficient for particular Christians and infallibility necessary only for the Pope and Councel if a subjective infallibility be necessary for particular Christians then every Papist in England hath a Pope in his belly c. Here is the substance of your Dilemma and it is a strange piece of confused Stuff Observe well You begin with the Subjective infallibility of the Belief of the Truth of Christianity and then run further then to Iamaica to talk of that which you call the probable evidence of it Good Sir the evidence of credibility belonging to true Christianity is totally distinct from the infallible belief of it That if we make a right Analysis precedes Faith Faith followes and is far more certain then the judgement is all have of the Evidence of Credibility See Disc 1. c. 7. 8. 9. 10. Briefly I say first The belief of true Christianity is subjectively infallible in every faithful Christian who therfore may have as sound Faith as the Pope himself or any that sitt's in Councel The Reason already given and further declared Disc 1. c. 1. is thus God an infinite Verity speaks to us for this end that we believe him He speaks infallibly Faithful Christians believe both what He speaks and answerably to their power as He speaks Ergo they believe infallibly Again A fallible Belief cannot be ultimately resolved into an infallible Revelation none therfore that holds himself obliged to Believe an infinit Verity owned as infallible can proceed doubtfully upon that Motive for he knowes An infinit Verity speak's not doubtfully or opinatively I say secondly Infallible Faith of the Truth of Christianity is miscalled if you style it probable Evidence it is not probable but certain because it relies on an infinit Verity It is not Evident but obscure because Argumentum non apparentium Thus much is undoubtedly true if we speak of the Assent of Divine Faith Now if when you talk of particular Papists haveing a Pope in their belly you grosly Imagin that every one can Define or Declare infallibly Christian Doctrin in order to the whole Church as the Pope and Councel Doe you fight with shadowes no Papist hold's such fooleries And by this you se the last strength of your weak Dilemma brought to nothing 12. You are also as unlucky in your next Assault where you Chalenge the whole Club of Jesuits to Answer solidly By the Grace of God you shall have an Answer that will make you silent hereafter Thus you go on Were the Popish opinion of the Churches infallibility true in it self certitudine Objecti so also is the Protestants opinion concerning the infallibility of Scripture true in it self and certitudine Objecti as the must desperate Papists Grant For they say the Scripture is Divine true and certain in it self but not quoad nos therfore hitherto there is no difference It is not worth the while to insist here upon a Catacresis or abuse of words or to say how incompossible these two termes combined together are in the Papist Opinion and certainty of the Object For Catholicks in Matters of Faith content not themselves with a bare opinion where there is certitudo Objecti or Gods certain Revelation duely proposed that exacts from them no Opinion but a sure Assent of Faith And so we say that the infallibility of the Church is a matter believed by us because God hath revealed it consequently it s no Opinion But Sir this is not what I ayme at We will hear you say all And come to the strength of the Difficulty If say you it be a sufficient foundation for a Romanist that He hath such probable evidence of this Doctrin of the Churches infallibility why should it not be as sufficient a fundation for a Protestant that He hath such nay infinitly more probable evidence of the Doctrin of the Scriptures infallibility Since the evidence of the later is granted by the Papists