hope of your Salvation but upon these grounds that unaffected ignorance may excuse you or true repentance obtain pardon for you neither do the heavy censures which Protestants you say pass upon your errors any way hinder but they may hope as well of you upon Repentance as I do For the fierce Doctrine which God knows who teacheth that Christ for many Ages before Luther had no visible Church upon earth will be mild enough if you conceive them to mean as perhaps they do by no visible Church none pure and free from corruptions which in your judgement is all one with no Church But the truth is the corruption of the Church and the destruction of it is not all one For if a particular Man or Church may as you confess they may hold some particular Errors and yet be a Member of the Church Universal why may not the Church hold some Universal Error and yet be still the Church especially seeing you say it is nothing but opposing the Doctrine of the Church that makes an Error damnable and it is impossible that the Church should oppose the Church I mean that the present Church should oppose it self And then for the English Protestants though they censure your Errors deeply yet by your favour with their deepest censures it may well consist that invincible ignorance may excuse you from damnation for them For you your self confess That Ignorance may excuse Errors even in Fundamental Articles of Faith so that a man so erring shall not offend at all in such his ignorance or error they are your own words Pref. § 22. And again with their heaviest censures it may well consist that your Errors though in themselves damnable yet may prove not-damning to you if you die with true repentance for all your sins known and unknown 5. Thus much Charity therefore if you stand to what you have said is interchangeably granted by each Side to the other that Neither Religion is so fatally destructive but that by Ignorance or Repentance Salvation may be had on both Sides though with a difference that keeps Papists still on the more uncharitable side For whereas we conceive a lower degree of Repentance that which they call Attrition if it be true and effectual and convert the heart of the penitent will serve in them They pretend even this Author which is most charitable towards us that without Contrition there is no hope for us But though Protestants may not obtain this purchase at so easie a rate as Papists yet even Papists being Judges they may obtain it and though there is no entrance for them but at the only door of Contrition yet they may enter Heaven is not inaccessible to them Their errors are no such impenetrable Isthmus's between them and Salvation but that Contrition may make away through them All their Schism and Heresie is no such fatal poison but that if a man joyn with it the Antidote of a general Repentance he may die in it and live for ever Thus much then being acknowledged I appeal to any indifferent Reader whether C. M. be not by his Hyperaspist forsaken in the plain field and the Point in question granted to D. Potter viz. That Protestancy even without a particular Repentance is not destructive of Salvation So that all the Controversie remaining now is not simply Whether Protestancy unrepented destroys Salvation as it was at first proposed but Whether Protestancy in it self that is abstracted from Ignorance and Contrition destroys Salvation So that as a foolish fellow who gave a Knight the Lye desiring withall leave of him to set his Knighthood aside was answered by him that he would not suffer any thing to be set aside that belonged unto him So might we justly take it amiss that conceiving as you do Ignorance and Repentance such necessary things for us you are not more willing to consider us with them than without them For my part such is my Charity to you that considering what great necessity You have as much as any Christian Society in the World that these Sanctuaries of Ignorance and Repentance should always stand open I can very hardly perswade my self so much as in my most secret consideration to devest you of these so needful qualifications But whensoever your errors superstitions and impieties come into my mind and besides the general bonds of Humanity and Christianity my own particular Obligations to many of you such and so great that you cannot perish without a part of my Self my only comfort is amidst these Agonies that the Doctrine and Practice too of Repentance is yet remaining in your Church And that though you put on a face of confidence of your innocence in point of Doctrine yet you will be glad to stand in the eye of Mercy as well as your fellows and not be so stout as to refuse either God's pardon or the King 's 6. But for the present Protestancy is called to the bar and though not sentenced by you to death without Mercy yet arraigned of so much natural malignity if not corrected by ignorance or contrition as to be in it self destructive of Salvation Which Controversie I am content to dispute with you tying my self to follow the Rules prescribed by you in your Preface Only I am to remember you that the adding of this limitation in it self hath made this a new Question and that this is not the Conclusion for which you were charged with want of Charity But that whereas according to the grounds of your own Religion Protestants may die in their supposed errors either with excusable ignorance or with Contrition and if they do so may be saved you still are peremptory in pronouncing them damned Which Position supposing your Doctrine true and ours false as it is far from Charity whose essential Character it is to judge and hope the best so I believe that I shall clearly evince this new but more moderate Assertion of yours to be far from verity and that it is Popery and not Protestancy which in it self destroys Salvation 7. Ad § 7. 8. In your gradation I shall rise so far with you as to grant That Christ founded a visible Church stored with all helps necessary to Salvation particularly with sufficient means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity and compose Schisms to discover and condemn Heresies and to determine all Controversies in Religion which were necessary to be determined For all these purposes he gave at the beginning as we may see in the Epistle to the Ephesians Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Doctors who by word of mouth taught their Contemporaries and by writings wrot indeed by some but approved by all of them taught their Christian posterity to the world's end how all these ends and that which is the End of all these ends Salvation is to be atchieved And these means the Providence of God hath still preserved and so preserved that they are sufficient for all these intents I say sufficient
she delivers for that reason because she delivers it And if you meant only Protestants will have men to believe some Books to be Scripture which the Roman Church delivers for such may not we then ask as you do Do not Papists perfectly resemble these men which will have men believe the Church of England delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning the Church of Rome 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the Truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible Expounder of Scriptures and Judg of Controversies Nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a Member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministery of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently enquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ commanded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those Miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary Lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Pope's Infallibility his Authority over Kings c. So new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving Authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe then the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily perswade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and fals◠Authors have taken a fair way to make the faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our Belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolike Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one age and some in another some more anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the shell as the Pope's infallibility the blessed Virgin 's immaculate Conception the Pope's power over the Temporalties of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolike Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teacheth me and not others and some things which she teacheth to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this Conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgement of those that have wisdom and experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our Belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rom◠neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Intepretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judg of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not
being prepared in mind to come out of all Error in Faith or material Heresie which certainly you will not deny or if you do you pull down the only pillar of your Church and Religion and deny that which is in effect the only thing you labour to prove through your whole Book 79. The latter Creed which now we have is so uneffectual for these good purposes that you your self tell us of innumerable gross damnable Heresies that have been are and may be whose contrary Truths are neither explicitly nor by consequence comprehended in this Creed So that no man by the belief of this Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary Points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to mis-guide men into this as you conceive it pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary Points of Faith whereas indeed according to you they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better than that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed propos'd by me I believe the Roman Church to be infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 80. But say you by this kind of arguing one might infer quite contrary If the Apostles Creed contain all Points necessary to Salvation What need have we of any Church to teach us And consequently what need of the Article of the Church To which I answer that having compared your inference and D. Potter's together I cannot discover any shadow of resemblance between them nor any shew of Reason why the perfection of the Apostles Creed should exclude a necessity of some body to deliver it Much less why the whole Creed's containing all things necessary should make the belief of a part of it unnecessary As well for ought I understand you might avouch this inference to be as good as D. Potters The Apostles Creed contains all things necessary therefore there is no need to believe in God Neither doth it follow so well as D. Potter's Argument follows That if the Apostles Creed contains all things necessary that all other Creeds and Catechisms wherein are added divers other Particulars are superfluous For these other Particulars may be the duties of obedience they may be profitable Points of Doctrine they may be good expositions of the Apostles Creed and so not superfluous and yet for all this the Creed may still contain all Points of Belief that are simply necessary These therefore are poor consequences but no more like D. Potters than an apple is like an oister 81. But this consequence after you have sufficiently slighted and disgraced it at length you promise us news and pretend to grant it But what is that which you mean to grant That the Apostles did put no Article in their Creed but only that of the Church Or that if they had done so they had done better than now they have done This is D. Potter's inference out of your Doctrin and truly if you should grant this this were news indeed Yes say you I will grant it but only thus far that Christ hath referred us only to his Church Yea but this is clean another thing and no news at all that you should grant that which you would fain have granted to you So that your dealing with us is just as if a man should proffer me a courtesie and pretend that he would oblige himself by a note under his hand to give me twenty pound and instead of it write that I owe him forty and desire me to subsctibe to it and be thankful Of such favours as these it is very safe to be liberal 82. You tell us afterward but how it comes in I know not that it were a childish argument The Creed contains not all things necessary Ergo It is not profitable Or The Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient means Ergo She must teach us without means These indeed are childish arguments but for ought I see you alone are the father of them for in D. Potter's book I can neither meet with them nor any like them He indeed tels you that if by an impossible supposition your Doctrin were true another and a far shorter Creed would have been more expedient even this alone I believe the Roman Church to be infallible But why you should conclude he makes this Creed which we have unprofitable because he says another that might be conceived upon this false supposition would be more profitable or that he lays a necessity upon the Church of teaching without means or of not teaching this very Creed which now is taught these things are so subtil that I cannot apprehend them To my understanding by those words And sent us to the Church for all the rest he does rather manifestly imply that the rest might be very well not only profitable but necessary and that the Church was to teach this by Creeds or Catechisms or Councels or any other means which she should make choice of for being Infallible she could not chuse amiss 83. Whereas therefore you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if in stead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the Faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion For then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary Points of simple Belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbol should
as good be of none at all Nor to trouble you Fourthly with this that a great part of your Doctrine especially in the points contested makes apparently for the temporal ends of the Teachers of it which yet I fear is a great scandal to many Beaux Esprits among you Only I should desire you to consider attentively when you conclude so often from the Differences of Protestants that they have no certainty of any part of their Religion no not of those points wherein they agree Whether you do not that which so Magisterially you direct me not to do that is proceed a destructive way and object arguments against your Adversaries which tend to the overthrow of all Religion And whether as you argue thus Protestants differ in many things therefore they have no certainty of any thing So an Atheist or a Sceptique may not conclude as well Christians and the Professors of all Religions differ in many things therefore they have no certainty in any thing Again I should desire you to tell me ingenuously Whether it be not too probable that your portentous Doctrine of Transubstantiation joyned with your fore-mentioned perswasion of No Papists no Christians hath brought a great many others as well as himself to Averroes his resolution Quandoquidem Christiani adorant quod comedunt sit anima mea cum Philosophis Whether your requiring men upon only probable and prudential Motives to yield a most certain assent unto things in humane reason impossible and telling them as you do too often that they were as good not believe at all as believe with any lower degree of faith be not a likely way to make considering men scorn your Religion and consequently all if they know no other as requiring things contradictory and impossible to be performed Lastly Whether your pretence that there is no good ground to believe Scripture but your Churches infallibility joyned with your pretending no ground for this but some texts of Scripture be not a fair way to make them that understand themselves believe neither Church nor Scripture 9. Your calumnies against Protestants in generall are set down in these words Chap. 2. § 2. The very doctrine of Protestants if it be followed closely and with coherence to it self must of necessity induce Socinianism This I say confidently and evidently prove by instancing in one error which may well be tearmed the Capital and mother-Heresie from which all other must follow at ease I mean their heresie in affirming That the perpetual visible Church of Christ descended by a never interrupted succession from our Saviour to this day is not infallible in all that it proposeth to be believed as revealed truths For if the infallibility of such a publique Authority be once impeached what remains but that every man is given over to his own wit and discourse And talk not here of Holy Scripture For if the true Church may erre in defining what Scriptures be Canonicall or in delivering the sense and meaning thereof we are still devolved either upon the private spirit a foolery now exploded out of England which finally leaving every man to his own conceits ends in Socinianism or else upon natural wit and judgement for examining and determining What Scriptures contain true or false doctrine and in that respect ought to be received or rejected And indeed take away the authority of God's Church no man can be assured that any one Book or parcel of Scripture was written by divine inspiration or that all the contents are infallibly true which are the direct errors of Socinians If it were but for this reason alone no man who regards the eternal salvation of his soul would live or dye in Protestancy from which so vast absurdities as these of the Socinians must inevitably follow And it ought to be an unspeakable comfort to all us Catholiques while we consider that none can deny the infallible authority of our Church but joyntly he must be left to his own wit and wayes and must abandon all infused faith and true Religion if he do but understand himself aright In all which discourse the only true word you speak is This I say confidently As for proving evidently that I believe you reserved for some other opportunity for the present I am sure you have been very sparing of it 10. You say indeed confidently enough that The deny all of the Churches infallibility is the Mother-Heresie from which all other must follow at ease Which is so far from being a necessary truth as you make it that it is indeed a manifest falshood Neither is it possible for the wit of man by any good or so much as probable consequence from the denyal of the Churches Infallibility to deduce any one of the ancient Heresies or any one error of the Socinians which are the Heresies here entreated of For who would not laugh at him that should argue thus Neither the Church of Rome nor any other Church is infallible Ergo The doctrine of Arrius Pelagius Eutyches Nestorius Photinus Manichaeus was true Doctrine On the other side it may be truly said and justified by very good and effectual reason that he that affirms with you the Pope's infallibility puts himself into his hands and power to be led by him at his ease and pleasure into all Heresie and even to Hell it self and cannot with reason say so long as he is constant to his grounds Domine cur ita facis but must believe white to be black and black to be white vertue to be vice and vice to be vertue nay which is a horrible but a most certain truth Christ to be Antichrist and Antichrist to be Christ if it be possible for the Pope to say so Which I say and will maintain howsoever you daub and disguise it is indeed to make men Apostate from Christ to his pretended Vicar but real Enemy For that name and no better if we may speak truth without offence I presume He deserves who under pretence of interpreting the Law of Christ which Authority without any word of express warrant he hath taken upon himself doth in many parts evacuate and dissolve it So dethroning Christ from his dominion over mens consciences and instead of Christ setting up Himself Inasmuch as he that requires that his interpretations of any Law should be obeyed as true and genuine seem they to mens understandings never so dissonant and discordant from it as the Bishop of Rome does requires indeed that his interpretations should be the Lawes and he that is firmly prepared in minde to believe and receive all such interpretations without judging of them and though to his private judgement they seem unreasonable is indeed congruously disposed to hold Adultery a venial sin and Fornication no sin whensoever the Pope and his Adherents shall so declare And whatsoever he may plead yet either wittingly or ignorantly he makes the Law and the Law-maker both stales and obeyes only the Interpreter As if I should pretend that I should
first because the experience of innumerable Christians is against it who are sufficiently assured that the Scripture is divinely inspired and yet deny the infallible authority of your Church or any other The second because if I have not ground to be assured of the Divine authority of Scripture unless I first believe your Church infallible than I can have no ground at all to believe it because there is no ground nor can any be pretended why I should believe your Church infallible unless I first believe the Scripture Divine 15. Fiftly and lastly You say with confidence in abundance that none can deny the infallible authority of your Church but he must abandon all infused faith and true religion if he do but understand himself Which is to say agreeable to what you had said before and what out of the abundance of your heart you speak very often That all Christians besides you are open Fools or concealed Atheists All this you say with notable confidence as the maner of Sophisters is to place their confidence of prevailing in their confident maner of speaking but then for the evidence you promised to maintain this confidence that is quite vanished and become invisible 16. Had I a minde to recriminate now and to charge Papists as you do Protestants that they lead men to Socinianism I could certainly make a much fairer shew of evidence than you have done For I would not tell you You deny the infallibility of the Church of England ergo you lead to Socinianism which yet is altogether as good an Argument as this Protestants deny the infallibility of the Roman-Church ergo they induce Socinianism Nor would I resume my former Argument and urge you that by holding the Popes infallibility you submit your self to that Capital and Mother-Heresie by advantage whereof he may lead you at ease to believe vertue vice and vice vertue to believe Antichristianity Christianism and Christianity Antichristian he may lead you to Socinianism to Turcism nay to be Devill himself if he have a minde to it But I would shew you that divers wayes the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the ancient Doctors 17. For Scripture your men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very earnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tannerus in Colloquio Ratisbon And also by Vega Possevin Wick us and Others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients That that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the world that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any error in this matter in or neer his time denied the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the fifth Chapter of his fourth Observation And doth he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Councel of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tried by them And are not your fellow-Jesuits also even the prime men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Floyd in his book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. James speak dangerously to the same purpose in his discourse of the resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will clearly see that to common people they are unanswerable yea that common people are not capable of the answers that learned men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Councel of Nice whose speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minimè consentiunt Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. God's Presciâ—â—ce of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to reason whereunto you in particulr subscribe unawares in saying From truth no man can by good consequence inferr Falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the world as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if men follow their Reason and discourse they will if they understand themselves be lead to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhorre and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken reeds and out of the paper-fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the sword of the Spirit the Word of God Of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered by Abimelech Non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19. Thus Protestants in general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your calumny I proceed now to do the same service for the Divines of England
upon those very Books which they entituled Of the contempt of Glory What then shall we say of D. Potter who in the Title and Text of his whole Book doth so tragically charge Want of Charity on all such Romanists as dare affirm that Protestancy destroyeth Salvation while he himself is in act of pronouncing the like heavy doom against Roman Catholiques For not satisfied with much uncivil language in affirming the Roman Church many (a) Pag. 11. ways to have plaid the Harlot and in that regard deserved a bill of divorce from Christ and detestation of Christians in styling her that proud (b) Ibid. and curst Dame of Rome which takes upon her to revel in the House of God in talking of an Idol (c) Pag. 4. Edit 1. to be worshipped at Rome he comes at length to thunder out this fearful sentence against her For that (d) Pag. 20. Mass of Errors saith he in judgement and practice which is proper to her and wherein she differs from us we judge a reconciliation impossible and to us who are convicted in conscience of her corruptions damnable And in another place he saith For us who (e) Pag. 81. are convincted in conscience that she erres in many things a necessity lies upon us even under pain of damnation to forsake her in those Errors By the acerbity of which Censure he doth not only make himself guilty of that which he judgeth to be a hainous offence in others but freeth us also from all colour of crime by this his unadvised recrimination For if Roman Catholiques be likewise convicted in conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must in conformity to the Doctor 's own rule judge a reconciliation with them to be also damnable And thus all the Want of Charity so deeply charged on us dissolves it self into this poor wonder Roman Catholiques believe in their conscience that the Religion which they profess is true and the contrary false 2. Nevertheless we earnestly desire and take care that our doctrine may not be defamed by misinterpretation Far be it from us by way of insultation to apply it against Protestants otherwise than as they are comprehended under the generality of those who are divided from the only one true Church of Christ our Lord within the Communion whereof he hath confined salvation Neither do we understand why our most dear Countrymen should be offended if the Universality be particularized under the name of Protestants first given (f) Sleidan l. 6. fol. 84. to certain Lutherans who protesting that they would stand out against the Imperial decrees in defence of the Confession exhibited at Ausburge were termed Protestants in regard of such their protesting which Confessio Augustana disclaiming from and being disclaimed by Calvinists and Zwinglians our naming or exemplifying a general doctrine under the particular name of Protestantism ought not in any particular manner to be odious in England 3. Moreover our meaning is not as mis-informed persons may conceive that we give Protestants over to reprobation that we offer no prayers in hope of their salvation that we hold their case desperate God forbid We hope we pray for their Conversion and sometimes we find happy effects of our charitable desires Neither is our Censure immediatly directed to particular persons The Tribunal of particular Judgement is God's alone When any man esteemed a Protestant leaveth to live in this world we do not instantly with precipitation avouch that he is lodged in Hell For we are not always acquainted with what sufficiency of means he was furnished for instruction we do not penetrate his capacity to understand his Catechist we have no revelation what light might have cleared his errors or Contrition retracted his sins in the last moment before his death In such particular cases we wish more apparent signs of salvation but do not give any dogmatical sentence of perdition How grievous sins Disobedience Schism and Heresie are is well known But to discern how far the natural malignity of those great offences might be checked by Ignorance or by some such lessening circumstance is the office rather of Prudence than of Faith 4. Thus we allow Protestants as much Charity as D. Potter spares us for whom in the words above mentioned and elsewhere he (g) See P. 39. makes Ignorance the best hope of salvation Much less comfort can we expect from the fierce doctrine of those chief Protestantss who teach that for many Ages before Luther Christ had no visible Church upon earth Not these men alone or such as they but even the 39. Articles to which the English Protestant Clergy subscribes censure our belief so deeply that Ignorance can scarce or rather not at all excuse us from damnation Our Doctrine of Transubstantiation is affirmed to be repugnant to the plain words of (h) Art 28. Scripture our Masses to be blasphemous (i) Art 31. Fabies with much more to be seen in the Articles themselves In a certain Confession of the Christian Faith at the end of their books of Psalms collected into Meâ—ter and printed Cum privlegio Regis Regali they call us Idolaters and limmes of Antichrist and having set down a Catalogue of our doctrins they conclude that for them we shall after the General Resurrection be damned to unquestionable fire 5. But yet lest any man should flatter himself with our charitable Mitigations and thereby wax careless in search of the true Church we desire him to read the Conclusion of the Second Part where this matter is more explained 6. And because we cannot determine what Judgement may be esteemed rash or prudent except by weighing the reasons upon which it was grounded we will here under one aspect present a Summary of those Principles from which we infer that Protestancy in it self unrepented destroyes Salvation intending afterward to prove the truth of every one of the grounds till by a concatenation of sequels we fall upon the Conclusion for which we are charged with Want of Charity 7. Now this is our gradation of reasons Almighty God having ordained Mankind to a supernatural End of eternal felicity hath in his holy Providence setled competent and convenient Means whereby that end may be attained The universal grand Origen of all such means is the Incarnation and Death of our Blessed Saviour whereby he merited internal grace for us and founded an external visible Church provided and stored with all those helps which might be necessary to Salvation From hence it followeth that in this Church among other advantages there must be some effectual means to beget and conserve Faith to maintain Unity to discover and condemn Heresies to appease and reduce Schisms and to determine all Controversies in Religion For without such means the Church should not be furnished with helps sufficient to salvation nor God afford sufficient means to attain that End to which himself ordained Mankind This means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion whether it
though through the malice of men not always effectual for that the same means may be Sufficient for the compassing an end and not Effectual you must not deny who hold that God gives to all men sufficient means of Salvation and yet that all are not saved I said also Sufficient to determine all Controversies which were necessary to be determined For if some Controversies may for many Ages be undetermined and yet in the mean-while men be saved why should or how can the Churche's being furnisht with effectual means to determine all Controversies in Religion be necessary to Salvation the end it self to which these means are ordained being as experience shews not necessary Plain sense will teach every man that the necessity of the means must always be measured by and can never exceed the necessity of the end As if eating be necessary only that I may live then certainly if I have no necessity to live I have no necessity to eat If I have no need to be at London I have no need of a horse to carry me thither If I have no need to fly I have no need of wings Answer me then I pray directly and categorically Is it necessary that all Controversies in Religion should be determined or is it not If it be Why is the the Question of Predetermination of the immaculate Conception of the Pope's indirect power in Temporalties so long undetermined If not What is it but hypocrisie to pretend such great necessity of such effectual means for the atchieving that end which is it self not necessary Christians therefore have and shall have means sufficient though not always effectual to determine not all Controversies but all necessary to be determined I proceed on farther with you and grant that this means to decide Controversies in Faith and Religion must be endued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine Truth For if it may be false in any one thing of this nature in anything which God requires men to believe we can yield unto it but a wavering and fearful assent in any thing These Grounds therefore I grant very readily and give you free leave to make your best advantage of them And yet to deal truly I do not perceive how from the denial of any of them it would follow that Faith is Opinion or from the granting them that it is not so But for for my part whatsoever clamour you have raised against me I think no otherwise of the Nature of Faith I mean Historical Faith than generally both Protestants and Papists do for I conceive it an assent to divine Revelations upon the Authority of the Revealer Which though in many things it differ from Opinion as commonly the word opinion is understood yet in some things I doubt not but you will confess that it agrees with it As first that as Opinion is an Assent so is Faith also Secondly that as Opinion so Faith is always built upon less evidence than that of Sense or Science Which Assertion you not only grant but mainly contend for in your sixth Chapter Thirdly and lastly that as Opinion so Faith admit degrees and that as there may be a strong and weak Opinion so there may be a strong and weak Faith These things if you will grant as sure if you be in your right mind you will not deny any of them I am well contented that this ill-sounding word Opinion should be discarded and that among the Intellectual habits you should seek out some other Genus for Faith For I will never contend with any man about words who grants my meaning 8. But though the essence of Faith exclude not all weakness and imperfection yet may it be enquired Whether any certainty of Faith under the highest degree may be sufficient to please God and attain Salvation Whereunto I answer That though Men are unreasonable God requires not any thing but Reason They will not be pleased without a down-weight but God is contented if the scale be turned They pretend that heavenly things cannot be seen to any purpose but by the mid-day light But God will be satisfied if we receive any degree of light which makes us leave the works of darkness and walk as children of the light They exact a certainty of Faith above that of sense or science God desires only that we believe the Conclusion as much as the Premisses deserve that the strength of our Faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the Motives to it Now though I have and ought to have an absolute certainty of this Thesis All which God reveals for truth is true being a Proposition that may be demonstrated or rather so evident to any one that understands it that it needs it not Yet of this Hypothesis That all the Articles of our Faith were revealed by God we cannot ordinarily have any rational and acquired certainty more than moral founded upon these Considerations First that the goodness of the precepts of Christianity and the greatness of the promises of it shews it of all other Religions most likely to come from the Fountain of goodness And then that a constant famous and very general Tradition so credible that no wise man doubts of any other which hath but the fortieth part of the credibility of this such and so credible a Tradition tells us that God himself hath set his Hand and Seal to the truth of this Doctrine by doing great and glorious and frequent Miracles in confirmation of it Now our Faith is an assent to this Conclusion that the doctrine of Christianity is true which being deduced from the former Thesis which is Metaphysically certain and from the former Hypothesis whereof we can have but a Moral certainty we cannot possibly by natural means be more certain of it than of the weaker of the Premisses as a River will not rise higher than the fountain from which it flows For the Conclusion always follows the worser part if there be any worse and must be Negative particular Contingent or but Morally certain if any of the Propositions from whence it is derived be so Neither can we be certain of it in the highest degree unless we be thus certain of all the Principles whereon it is grounded As a man cannot go or stand strongly if either of his legs be weak Or as a building cannot be stable if any one of the necessary pillars thereof be infirm and instable Or as If a message be brought me from a man of absolute credit with me but by a messenger that is not so my confidence of the Truth of the Relation cannot but be rebated and lessened by my diffidence in the Relatour 9. Yet all this I say not as if I doubted that the Spirit of God being implored by devout and humble prayer and sincere obedience may and will by degrees advance his servants higher and give them a certainty of adherence beyond their certainty of evidence But what God gives as a reward
soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily believe that they indeed maintain it and have great shew of reason to induce them to believe so and therefore are not to be damned as men opposing that which they either know to be a Truth delivered in Scripture or have no probable Reason to believe the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolved as men who endeavour to find the Truth but fail of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceive impossible is very obvious and easie 14. To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sin to deny any one Truth contained in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knew it to be so or have no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15. To the second Whether there be in such denial any distinction between Fundamental and not-Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a Distinction But the Reason is because those Points either in themselves or by accident are Fundamental which are evidently contained in Scripture to him that knows them to be so Those not-Fundamental which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16. To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alledge the Creed as containing all Fundamental Points of Faith as if believing it alone we were at Liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alledged to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more than a sufficient Summarie of those Points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitly and that only of such which were meerly and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17. To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that Of Persons contrary in belief one part only can be saved I answer By no means For they may differ about Points not contained in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alledged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Heresie and a self-condemning Obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter do not take it ill that you believe your selves may be saved in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrarie he may justly condemn you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you do that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. What is that means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion OF our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestans themselves do in fact give testimony while they possess it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody No cause imaginable could avert our will from giving the function of supreme and sole Judge to holy Writ if both the thing were not impossible in it self and if both reason and experience did not convince our understanding that by this Assertion Contentions are increased and not ended We acknowledge holy Scrippture to be a most perfect Rule for as much as a Writing can be a Rule We only deny that it excludes either divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an external Judge to keep to propose to interpret in a true Orthodox and Catholique sense Every single Book every Chapter yea every period of holy Scripture is infallibly true and wants no due perfection But must we therefore inferr that all other Books of Scripture are to be excluded lest by addition of them we may seem to derogate from the perfection of the former When the first Books of the Old and New Testament were written they did not exclude unwritten Traditions nor the Authority of the Church to decide Controversies and who hath then so altered their nature and filled them with such jealousies as that now they cannot agree for fear of mutual disparagement What greater wrong is it for the written Word to be compartner now with the unwritten than for the unwritten which was once alone to be afterward joyned with the written Who ever heard that to commend the fidelity of a Keeper were to disauthorize the thing committed to his custody Or that to extol the integrity and knowledge and to avouch the necessity of a Judge in suits of Law were to deny perfection in the Law Are there not in Common-wealths besides the Laws written and unwritten customs Judges appointed to declare both the one and the other as several occasions may require 2. That the Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies of Faith we gather it very clearly From the quality of a writing in general From the nature of holy Writ in particular which must be believed as true and infallible From the Editions and Translations of it From the difficulty to understand it without hazard of Error From the inconveniences that must follow upon the ascribing of sole Judicature to it and finally From the Confessions of our Adversaries And on the other side all these difficulties ceasing and all other qualities requisite to a Judge concurring in the visible Church of Christ our Lord we must conclude that She it is to whom in doubts concerning Faith and Religion all Christians ought to have recourse 3. The name notion nature and properties of a Judge cannot in common reason agree to any meer writing which be it otherwise in it its kind never so highly qualified with sanctity and infallibility yet it must ever be as all writings are deaf dumb and inanimate By a Judge all wise men understand a person endued with life and reason able to hear to examine to declare his mind to the disagreeing parties in such sort as that each one may know whether the sentence be in favour of his cause or against his pretence and he must be applyable and able to do all this as the diversity of Controversies Persons Occasions and Circumstances may require There is a great and plain distinction betwixt a Judge and a Rule For as in a Kingdom the Judge hath his Rule to follow which are the received Laws and Customs so are not they fit orable to declare or be Judges to themselves but that office must belong to a living Judge The holy Scripture may be and is a Rule but cannot be a Judge because it being always the same cannot declare it self any one time or upon any one occasion more particularly then upon any other and let it be read over an hundred times it will be still the same and no more fit alone to terminate Controversies in Faith than the Law
a mans Religion that he was born and brought up in it For then a Turk should have as much reason to be a Turk as a Christian to be a Christian That every man hath a judgment of Discretion which if they will make use of they shall easily find that the true Church hath alwayes such and such marks and that their Church hath them and no other but theirs But then if any of theirs be perswaded to a sincere and sufficient tryal of their Church even by their own notes of it and to try whether they be indeed so conformable to Antiquity as they pretend then their note is changed You must not use your own reason nor your judgement but referr all to the Church and believe her to be conformable to Antiquity though they have no reason for it nay though they have evident reason to the contrary For my part I am certain that God hath given us our Reason to discern between Truth and Falshood and he that makes not this use of it but believes things he knows not why I say it is by chance that he believes the truth and not by choice and that I cannot but fear that God will not accept of this Sacrifice of fools 114. But you that would not have men follow their Reason what would you have them to follow their Passion Or pluck out their eyes and go blindfold No you say you would have them follow Authority On God's name let them we also would have them follow Authority for it is upon the Authority of Universal Tradition that we would have them believe Scripture But then as for the Authority which you would have them follow you will let them see reason why they should follow it And is not this to go a little about to leave Reason for a short turn and then to come to it again and to do that which you condemn in others It being indeed a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to Reason for he that doth it to Authority must of necessity think himself to have greater reason to believe that Authority Therefore the confession cited by Breerely you need not think to have been extorted from Luther and the rest It came very freely from them and what they say you practise as much as they 115. And whereas you say that a Protestant admits of Fathers Councels Church as farr as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himself I say you admit neither of them nor the Scripture it self but only so far as it agrees with your Church and your Church you admit because you think you have reason to do so so that by you as well as by Protestants all is finally resolved into your own reason 116 Nor do Heretiques only but Romish Catholiques also set up as many Judges as there are men and women in the Christian world For do not your men and women judge your Religion to be true before they believe it as well as the men and women of other Religions Oh but you say They receive it not because they think it agreeable to Scripture but because the Church tels them so But then I hope they believe the Church because their own reason tels them they are to do so So that the difference between a Papist and a Protestant is this not that the one judges and the other does not judge but that the one judges his guide to be infallible the other his way to be manifest This same pernitious Doctrin is taught by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others It is so in very deed But it is taught also by some others whom you little think of It is taught by S. Paul where he sayes Try all things hold fast that which is good It is taught by S. John in these words Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. It is taught by S. Peter in these Be ye ready to render a reason of the hope that is in you Lastly this very pernitious Doctrin is taught by our Saviour in these words If the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch And Why of your selves judge you not what is right All which speeches if they do not advise men to make use of their Reason for the choice of their Religion I must confess my self to understand nothing Lastly not to be infinite it is taught by M. Knot himself not in one page only or chapter of his Book but all his Book over the very writing and publishing whereof supposeth this for certain that the Readers are to be Judges whether his Reasons which he brings be strong and convincing of which sort we have hitherto met with none or else captious or impertinences as indifferent men shall as I suppose have cause to judge them 117. But you demand What good Statesmen would they be who should idaeate or fancy such a Common-wealth as these men have framed to themselves a Church Tâ—uly if this be all the fault they have that they say Every man is to use his own judgement in the choice of his Religion and not to believe this or that sense of Scripture upon the bare Authority of any learned man or men when he conceives he hath reasons to the contrary which are of more weight then their Authority I know no reason but notwithstanding all this they might be as good Statesmen as any of the Society But what hath this to do with Common-wealths where men are bound only to external obedience unto the Laws and Judgement of Courts but not to an internal approbation of them no nor to conceal their Judgement of them if they disapprove them As if I conceived I had reason to mislike the law of punishing simple theft with death as Sr. Thomas Moore did I might profess lawfully my judgment and represent my Reasons to the King or Common-wealth in a Parliament as Sr. Thomas Moore did without committing any fault or fearing any punishment 118. To the place of S. Austin wherewith this Paragraph is concluded I shall need give no other Reply but only to desire you to speak like an honest man and to say Whether it be all one for a man to allow and disallow in every Scripture what he pleases which is either to dash out of Scripture such Texts or such Chapters because they cross his opinion or to say which is worse Though they be Scripture they are not true Whether I say for a man thus to allow and disallow in Scripture what he pleases be all one and no greater fault than to allow that sense of Scripture which he conceives to be true and genuine and deduced out of the words and to disallow the contrary For Gods sake Sir tell me plainly In those Texts of Scripture which you alledge for the Infallibility of your Church do you not allow what sense you think true and disallow the contrary And do not you this by the direction of your private
of Irenaeus alledged here by you is utterly and plainly impertinent Or whether by this discourse you mean as I think you do not your Discourse but your Conclusion which you discourse on that is that Your Church is the Infallible Judge in Controversies For neither hath Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition And in saying That to this order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of GOD without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had no eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no legs we must have used crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our legs we need not crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so Doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary Which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole Tradition Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Upon which place Bellarmine's two Observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostle's Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things are not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but some things to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelates and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they preached in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition in case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your Assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as He says it was then easie to receive the Truth from God's Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the Ancient and Apostolique Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and Heretical to all other that it is as easie but extreamly difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 147. As for the last clause of the sentence it will not any whit advantage but rather prejudice your Assertion Neither wil I seek to avoid the pressure of it by saying that he speaks of small Questions and therefore not of Questions touching things necessary to Salvation which can hardly be called small Questions But I will favour you so far as to suppose that saying this of small Questions it is probable he would have said it much more of the Great but I will answer that which is most certain and evident and which I am confident you your self were you as impudent as I believe you modest would not deny That the Ancient Apostolique Churches are not now as they were in Irenaeus his time then they were all at Unity about matters of Faith which Unity was a good assurance that what they so agreed in came from some one common Fountain and that no other than of Apostolique Preaching And this is the very ground of Tertullian's so often mistaken Prescription against Heretiques Variâsse debuerat Errer Ecclesiarum quod autem apud multos unum est non est erratum sed traditum If the Churches had erred they could not but have varied but that which is one among so many came not by Error but Tradition But now the case is altered and the mischief is that these ancient Churches are divided among themselves and if we have recourse to them one of them will say This is the way to heaven another that So that now in place of receiving from them certain and clear truths we must expect nothing but certain and clear contradictions 148. Neither will the Apostle's depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof that the Church shall certainly keep this depositum entire and sincere without adding to it or taking from it for this whole depositum was committed to every particular Church nay to every particular man which the Apostles converted And yet no man I think will say that there was any certainty that it should be kept whole and inviolate by every man and every Church It is apparent out of Scripture it was committed to Timothy and by him consigned to other faithful men and yet S. Paul thought it not superfluous earnestly to exhort him to the careful keeping of it which exhortation you must grant had been vain and superfluous if the not keeping of it had been impossible And therefore though Irenaeus says The Apostles fully deposited
in the Church all truth yet he says not neither can we infer from what he says That the Church should always infallibly keep this depositum entire without the loss of any truth and sincere without the mixture of any falshood 149. Ad § 25. But you proceed and tell us That beside all this the Doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certains and infallible means not to err in interpreting or not If not Scripture to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible faith If they have and so cannot err in interpreting Scripture then they are able with infallibility to hear and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies beside Scripture alone And may not we with as much reason substitute Church and Papists instead of Scripture and Protestants and say unto you Besides all this the doctrin of Papists is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in the choice of the Church and interpreting her Decrees or they have not If not then the Church to them cannot be a sufficient but meerly a phantastical ground for infallible faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies For unless I be infallibly sure that the Church is infallible How can I be upon her Authority infallibly sure that any thing she says is Infallible If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in the choice of their Church and in interpreting her Decrees then they are able with Infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith although they pretend to make the Church their Guide And thus against their own Doctrine they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides the Church alone Nay every one makes himself a chuser of his own Religion and of his own sense of the Churches Decree which very thing in Protestants they so highly condemn and so in judging others condemn themselves 150. Neither in saying thus have I only cried quittance with you but that you may see how much you are in my debt I will shew unto you that for your Sophism against our way I have given you a Demonstration against yours First I say your Argument against us is a transparent fallacy The first Part of it lies thus Protestants have no means to interpret without Errour obscure and ambiguous places of Scripture therefore plain places of Scripture cannot be to them a sufficient ground of Faith But though we pretend not to certain means of not erring in interpreting all Scripture particularly such places as are obscure and ambiguous yet this me-thinks should be no impediment but that we may have certain means of not erring in and about the sense of those places which are so plain and clear that they need no Interpreters and in such we say our Faith is contained If you ask me How I can be sure that I know the true meaning of these places I ask you again Can you be sure that you understand what I or any man else says They that heard our Saviour and the Apostles preach could they have sufficient assurance that they understood at any time what they would have them do If not to what end did they hear them If they could Why may we not be as well assured that we understand sufficiently what we conceive plain in their writings 151. Again I pray tell us whether you do certainly know the sense of these Scriptures with which you pretend you are led to the knowledge of your Church If you do not How know you that there is any Church Infallible and that these are the notes of it and that this is the Church that hath these notes If you do then give us leave to have the same means and the same abilities to know other plain places which you have to know these For if all Scripture be obscure how come you to know the sense of these places If some places of it be plain Why should we stay here 152. And now to come to the other part of your Dilemma in saying If they have certain means and so cannot err methinks you forget your self very much and seem to make no difference between having certain means to do a thing and the actual doing of it As if you should conclude because all men have certain means of Salvation therefore all men certainly must be saved and cannot do otherwise as if Whosoever had a horse must presently get up and ride Whosoever had means to find out a way could not neglect those means and so mistake it God be thanked that we have sufficient means to be certain enough of the truth of our Faith But the priviledge of not being in possibility of erring that we challenge not because we have as little reason as you to do so and you have none at all If you ask seeing we may possibly err How can we be assured we do not I ask you again seeing your eye-sight may deceive you How can you be sure you see the Sun when you do see it Perhaps you may be in a dream and perhaps you and all the men in the World have been so when they thought they were awake and then only awake when they thought they dreamt But this I am sure of as sure as that God is good that he will require no impossibilities of us not an Infallible nor a certainly-unerring belief unless he hath given us certain means to avoid error and if we use those which we have will never require of us that we use that which we have not 153. Now from this mistaken ground That it is all one to have means of avoiding error and to be in no danger nor possibility of error You infer upon us an absurd Conclusion That we make our selves able to determine Controversies of Faith with Infallibility and Judges of Controversies For the latter part of this Inference we acknowledge and embrace it We do make our selves Judges of Controversies that is we do make use of our own understanding in the choice of our Religion But this if it be a crime is common to us with you as I have proved above and the difference is not that we are chusers and you not chusers but that we as we conceive chuse wisely but you being willfully blind chuse to follow those that are so too not remembring what our Saviour hath told you When the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch But then again I must tell you You have done ill to confound together Judges and Infallible Judges unless you will say either that we have no Judges in our Courts of Civil Judicature or that they are all Infallible 154. Thus have we cast off your Dilemma and broken both the horns of it But now my retortion lies heavy upon you and will not be turned off For
are comprised all Points by us taught to be necessary to Salvation in these words We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholique Visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God If any be of another mind all Catholiques denounce him to be no Catholique But enough of this And I go forward with the Infallibility of the Church in all Points 20. For even out of your own Doctrin that the Church cannot err in Points necessary to Salvation any wise man will infer that it behoves all who have care of their souls not to forsake her in any one Point 1. Because they are assured that although her Doctrine proved not to be true in some Point yet even according to D. Potter the Error cannot be Fundamental nor destructive of Faith and Salvation neither can they be accused of any the least imprudence in erring if it were possible with the universal Church Secondly since she is under pain of eternal damnation to be believed and obeyed in some things wherein confessedly she is indued with infallibility I cannot in wisdom suspect her credit in matters of less moment For who would trust another in matters of highest consequence and be afraid to relie on him in things of less moment Thirdly since as I said we are undoubtedly obliged not to forsake her in the chiefest or Fundamental Points and that there is no Rule to know precisely what and how many those Fundamental Points be I cannot without hazard of my soul leave her in any one Point lest perhaps that Point or Points wherein I forsake her prove indeed to be Fundamental and necessary to Salvation Fourthly that Visible Church which cannot err in Points Fundamental doth without distinction propound all her Definitions concerning matters of Faith to be believed under Anathema's or Curses esteeming all those who resist to be deservedly cast out of her Communion and holding it a Point necessary to Salvation that we believe she cannot err wherein if she speak true then to deny any one point in particular which she defineth or to affirm in general that she may err puts a man into a state of damnation Whereas to believe her in such Points as are not necessary to Salvation cannot endanger Salvation and likewise to remain in her Communion can bring no great harm because she cannot maintain any damnable error or practice but to be divided from her the being Christ's Catholique Church is most certainly damnable Fifthly the true Church being in lawful and certain possession of Superiority and Power to command and require Obedience from all Christians in some things I cannot without grievous sin withdraw my obedience in any one unless I evidently know that the thing commanded comes not within the compass of those things to which her Power extendeth And who can better inform me how far God's Church can proceed than God's Church her self Or to what Doctor can the Children and Scholars with greater reason and more security flye for direction than to the Mother and appointed Teacher of all Christians In following her I shall sooner be excused than in cleaving to any particular Sect or Person teaching or applying Scriptures against her Doctrin or Interpretation Sixthly the fearful examples of innumerable persons who forsaking the Church upon pretence of her Errors have failed even in Fundamental Points and suffered shipwrack of their Salvation ought to deter all Christians from opposing her in any one Doctrin or practice as to omit other both ancient and modern heresies we see that divers chief Protestants pretending to reform the corruptions of the Church are come to affirm that for many ages she erred to death and wholly perished which D. Potter cannot deny to be a Fundamental Error against that Article of our Creed I believe the Catholique Church as he affirmeth it of the Donatists because they confined the Universal Church within Africa or some other small tract of soil Lest therefore I may fall into some Fundamental Error it is most safe for me to believe all the Decrees of that Church which cannot err fundamentally especially it we add That according to the Doctrin of Catholique Divines one error in Faith whether it be for the matter it self great or small destroys Faith as is shewed in Charity Mistaken and consequently to accuse the Church of any one Error is to affirm that she lost all Faith and erred damnably which very saying is damnable because it leaves Christ no visible Church on earth 21. To all these Arguments I add this Demonstration D. Potter teacheth that there neither was (c) Pag. 75. nor can be any just cause to depart from the Church of Christ no more than from Christ himself But if the Church of Christ can err in some Points of Faith men not only may but must forsake her in those unless D. Potter will have them to believe one thing and profess another and if such errors and corruptions should fall out to be about the Churches Liturgy publique Service administration of Sacraments the like they who perceive such errors must of necessity leave her external Communion And therefore if once we grant the Church may err it followeth that men may and ought to forsake her which is against D. Potter's own words or else they are inexcusable who left the Communion of the Roman Church under pretence of errors which they grant not to be Fundamental And if D. Potter think good to answer this argument he must remember his own Doctrin to be that even the Catholique Church may err in Points not Fundamental 22. Another argument for the universal Infallibility of the Church I take out of D. Potter's own words If saith he we (d) Pag. 97. did not dissent in some opinions from the present Roman Church we could not agree with the Church truly Catholique These words cannot be true unless he presuppose that the Church truly Catholique cannot err in Points not Fundamental For if she may err in such Points the Roman Church which he affirmeth to err only in Points not Fundamental may agree with the Church truly Catholique if she likewise may err in Points not Fundamental Therefore either he must acknowledge a plain contradiction in his own words or else must grant that the Church truly Catholique cannot err in Points not Fundamental which is what we intended to prove 23. If Words cannot perswade you that in all Controversies you must relie upon the infallibility of the Church at least yield your assent to Deeds Hitherto I have produced Arguments drawn as it were ex natura rei from the Wisdom and Goodness of God who cannot fail to have left some infallible means to determine Controversies which as we have proved can be no other except a Visible Church infallible in all her Definitions But because both Catholiques and Protestants receive holy Scripture we may thence also prove the infallibility of the Church in all matters which concern Faith and Religion Our
dead in any sense And yet D. Potter doth not deny but that Aerius was esteemed an Heretique for denying (r) Pag. 35. all sort of Commemoration for the dead Nothing of the Churches Visibility or Invisibility Fallibility or Infallibility nor of other Points controverted betwixt Protestants themselves and between Protestants and Catholiques which to D. Potter seem so hainous corruptions that they cannot without damnation joyn with us in profession thereof There is no mention of the Cessation of the Old Law which yet is a very main Point of Faith And many other might be also added 15. But what need we labour to specifie particulars There are as many important Points of Faith not expressed in the Creed as since the worlds beginning now and for all future times there have been are and may be innumerable gross damnable Heresies whose contrary truths are not contained in the Creed For every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two contradictory Propositions in the same degree if the one is false the other must be true As for example if it be a damnable error to deny the blessed Trinity or the Godhead of our Saviour the belief of them must be a Truth necessary to Salvation or rather if we will speak properly the Error is damnable because the opposite Truth is necessary as death is frightful because life is sweet and according to Philosophy the Privation is measured by the Forme to which it is repugnant If therefore the Creed contain in particular all fundamental Points of Faith it must explicitely or by cleer consequence comprehend all Truths opposite to innumerable Heresies of all Ages past present and to come which no man in his wits will affirm it to do 16 And here I cannot omit to signifie how you (Å¿) Pag. 255. applaud the saying of D. Usher That in those Propositions which without all controversie are universally received in the whole Christian world so much Truth is contained as being joyned with holy Obedience may be sufficient to bring a man to everlasting Salvation neither have we cause to doubt but that as many as walk according to this Rule neither overthrowing that which they have builded by superinducing any damnable heresies thereupon nor otherwise vitiating their holy faith with a lewd and wicked conversation peace shall be upon them and upon the Israel of God Now D. Potter knows that the Mystery of the B. Trinity is not universally received in the whole Christian world as appears by very many Heretiques in Polony Hungary and Transilvania and therefore according to this Rule of D. Usher approved by D. Potter the denyal of the B. Trinity shall not exclude Salvation 17. Let me note by the way that you might easily have espied a foul contradiction in the said words of D. Usher by you recited and so much applauded For he supposeth that a man agrees with other Churches in belief which joyned with holy Obedience may bring him to everlasting Salvation and yet that he may superinduce damnable heresies For how can he superinduce damnable heresies who is supposed to believe all Truths necessary to Salvation Can there be any damnable heresie unless it contradict some necessary Truth which cannot happen in one who is supposed to believe all necessary Truths Besides if one believing all Fundamental Articles in the Creed may superinduce damnable haeresies it followeth that the Fundamental Truths contrary to those damnable heresies are not contained in the Creed 18. According to this Model of D. Potters foundation consisting in the agreement of scarceone Point of Faith what a strange Church would he make of men concurring in some one or few Articles of belief who yet for the rest should be holding conceits plainly contradictory so patching up a Religion of men who agree only in the Article That Christ is our Saviour but for the rest are like to the parts of a Chimaera having the head of a man the neck of horse the shoulder of an Oxe the foot of a Lion c. I wrong them not herein For in good Philosophie there is greater repugnancy between assent and dissent affirmation and negation est est non non especially when all these contradictories pretend to relie upon one and the self same Motive the infallible Truth of Almighty God than between the integral parts as head neck c. of a man horse lion c. And thus Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholique Divines in questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church And while thus they stand only upon fundamental Articles they do by their own confession destroy the Church which is the house of God For the foundation alone of a house is not a house nor can they in such an imaginary Church any more expect Salvation than the foundation alone of a house is fit to afford a man habitation 19. Moreover it is most evident that Protestants by this Chaos rather than Church do give unavoidable occasion of desperation to poor souls Let some one who is desirous to save his soul repair to D. Potter who maintains these grounds to know upon whom he may relie in a matter of so great consequence I suppose the Doctors answer will be Upon the truely Catholique Church She cannot erre damnably What understand you by the Catholique Church cannot general Councels which are the Church representative err Yes they may weakly or (t) Pag. 167. wilfully misapply or misunderstand or neglect Scripture and so err damnably To whom then shall I go for my particular instruction I cannot conferr with the united body of the whole Church about my particular difficulties as your self affirmes that the Catholique Church cannot be told (u) Pag. 27. of private injuries Must I then consult with every particular person of the Catholique Church So it seems by what you write in these woâ—ds The whole (w) Pag. 150. Militant Church that is all the members of it cannot possibly err either in the whole Faith or any necessary Article of it You say M. Doctor I cannot for my instruction accquaint the universal Church with my particular scruples You say the prelates of God's Church meeting in a lawful general Council may err damnably It remains then that for my necessary instruction I must repair to every particular member of the universal Church spred over the face of the earth and yet you teach that the Promises (x) Pag. 151. which our Lord hath made unto his Church for his assistance are intended not to any particular persons or Churches but only to the Church Catholique with which as I said it is impossible for me to conferr Alas O most uncomfortable ghostly Father you drive me to desperation How shall I confer with every Christian soul man and woman by sea and by land close prisoner or at liberty c. Yet upon supposal of this miraculous Pilgrimage for Faith before I have the faith of
before I told you if you will believe all the Points of the Creed you cannot choose but believe all the Points of it that are Fundamental though you be ignorant which are so and which are not so Now I believe your desire to know which are Fundamentals proceeds only from a desire to be assured that you do believe them which seeing you may be assured of without knowing which they be what can it be but curiosity to desire to desire to know it Neither may you think to mend your self herein one whit by having recourse to them whom we call Papists for they are as far to seek as we in this Point which of the Articles of the Creed are for their nature and matter Fundamental and which are not Particularly you will scarce meet with any amongst their Doctors so adventurous as to tell you for a certain Whether or no the conception of Christ by the Holy Ghost his being born of a Virgin his Burial his Descent into Hell and the Communion of Saints be Points of their own nature and matter Fundamental Such I mean as without the distinct and explicite knowledge of them no man can be saved 63. But you will say at least they give this certain Rule that all Points defined by Christ's visible Church belong to the foundation of faith in such sense as to deny any such cannot stand with Salvation So also Protestants give you this more certain Rule That whosoever believes heartily those books of Scripture which all the Christian Churches in the world acknowledge to be Canonical and submits himself indeed to this as to the rule of his belief must of necessity believe all things Fundamental and if he live according to his faith cannot fail of Salvation But besides What certainty have you that that rule of Papists is so certain By the visible Church it is plain they mean only their own and why their own only should be the Visible Church I do not understand and as little why all Points defined by this Church should belong to the foundation of faith These things you had need see well and substantially proved before you rely upon them otherwise you expose your self to danger of imbracing damnable errors instead of Fundamental truths But you will say D. Potter himself acknowledges that you do not err in Fundamentals If he did so yet me-thinks you have no reason to rest upon his acknowledgement with any security whom you condemn of error in many other matters Perhaps excess of Charity to your persons may make him censure your errors more favourably than he should do But the truth is and so I have often told you though the Doctor hopes that your errors are not so unpardonably destructive but that some men who ignorantly hold them may be saved yet in themselves he professes and proclaims them damnable and such as he fears will be certainly destructive to such as you are that is to all those who have eyes to see and will not see them 64. Ad § 20 21 22 〈◊〉 In the Remainder of this Chapter you promise to answer D. Potter's Arguments against that which you said before But presently forgetting your self instead of answering his Arguments you fall a confuting his Answers to your own The arguments objected by you which here you vindicate were two 1. The Scripture is not so much as mentioned in the Creed therefore the Creed contains not all things necessary to be believed 2. Baptism is not contained in the Creed therefore not all things necessary To both which Arguments my answer shortly is this that they prove something but it is that which no man here denies For. D. Potter as you have also confessed never said nor undertook to shew that the Apostles intended to comprize in the Creed all Points absolutely which we are bound to believe or after sufficient proposal not to disbelieve which yet here and every where you are obtruding upon him But only that they purposed to comprize in it all such doctrines purely speculative all such matters of simple belief as are in ordinary course necessary to be distinctly and explicitly believed by all men Now neither of these objections do any way infringe or impeach the truth of this Assertion Not the first because according to your own doctrin all men are not bound to know explicitely what books of Scripture are Canonical Nor the second because Baptism is not a matter of Faith but practice not so much to be believed as to be given and received And against these Answers whether you have brought any considerable new matter let the indifferent Reader judge As for the other things which D. Potter rather glanceth at than builds upon in answering these objections as the Creeds being collected out of Scripture and supposing the Authority of it which Gregery of Valentia in the place above cited seems to me to confess to have been the Judgment of the Ancient Fathers and the Nicene Creeds intimating the authority of Canonical Scripture and making mention of Baptism These things were said ex abundanti and therefore I conceive it superfluous to examine your exceptions against them Prove that D. Potter did affirm that the Creed contains all things necessary to be believed of all sorts and then these objections will be pertinent and deserve an answer Or produce some Point of simple belief necessary to be explicitely believed which is not contained either in terms or by consequence in the Creed and then I will either answer your Reasons or confess I cannot But all this while you do but trifle and are so far from hitting the Mark that you rove quite beside the Butt 65. Ad § 23 24 25. D. Potter demands How it can be necessary for any Christian to have more in his Creed than the Apostles had and the Church of their times You Answer That he trifles not distinguishing between the Apostles belief and that abridgment of some Articles of faith which we call the Apostles Creed I reply that it is you which trifle affectedly confounding what D. Potter hath plainly distinguished the Apostles belief of the whole Religion of Christ as it comprehends both what we are to do and what we are to believe with their belief of that part of it which contains not duties of obedience but only the necessary Articles of simple Faith Now though the Apostles Belief be in the former sense a larger thing than that which we call the Apostles Creed yet in the latter sense of the word the Creed I say is a full comprehension of their belief which you your self have formerly confessed though somewhat fearfully and inconstantly and here again unwillingness to speak the truth makes you speak that which is hardly sense and call it an abridgement of some Articles of Faith For I demand these some Articles which you speak of Which are they Those that are out of the Creed or those that are in it Those that are in it it comprehends at large
pretend or only as you say I know not what is another Question and which comes now to be farther examined D. Potter in confirmation of it besides the authorities which you formerly shifted off with so egregious tergiversation urges five several Arguments 73. The sense of the first is this If all the necessary Points of simple of Belief be not comprized in the Creed it can no way deserve the name of the Apostles Creed as not being their Creed in any sense but only a part of it To this you Answer § 25. Upon the same affected ambiguity c. Answ It is very true that their whole faith was of a larger extent but that was not the Question But whether all the Points of simple belief which they taught as necessary to be explicitely believed be not contained in it And if thus much at least of Christian Religion be not comprized in it I again desire you to inform me How it could be called the Apostles Creed 74. Four other Reasons D. Potter urges to the same purpose grounded upon the practice of the Ancient Church The last whereof you answer in the second part of your Book But to the rest drawn from the ancient Churches appointing her Infants to be instructed for matters of simple belief only in the Creed From her admitting Catechumens unto Baptism and of Strangers to her Communion upon their only profession of the Creed you have not for ought I can perceive thought fit to make any kind of Answer 75. The difficulties of the 27. and last § of this Chapter have been satisfied So that there remains unexamined only the 26. Section wherein you exceed your self in Sophistry Especially in that trick of Cavillers which is to answer objections by other objections an excellent way to make controversies endless D. Potter desires to be resolved Why amongst many things of equal necessity to be believed the Apostles should distinctly set down some in the Creed and be altogether silent of others Instead of resolving him in this difficulty you put another to him and that it is Why are some Points not Fundamental expressed in it rather than others of the same quality Which demand is so far from satisfying the former Doubt that it makes it more intricate For upon this ground it may be demanded How was it possible that the Apostles should leave out any Articles simply necessary and put in others not necessary especially if their intention were as you say it was to deliver it in such Articles as were fittest for those times Unless which were wondrous strange unnecessary Articles were fitter for those times than necessary But now to your Question the Answer is obvious These unnecessary things might be put in because they were circumstances of the necessary Pontius Pilate of Christ's Passion The third day of the Resurrection Neither doth the adding of them make the Creed ever a whit the less portable the less fit to be understood and remembred And for the contrary reasons other unnecessary things might be left out Beside who sees not that the addition of some unnecessary circumstances is a thing that can hardly be avoided without affectation And therefore not so great a fault nor deserving such a censure as the omission of any thing essential to the work undertaken and necessary to the end proposed in it 76. You demand again as it is no hard matter to multiply demands Why our Saviour's descent to Hell and Burial was expressed end not his Circumcision his manifestation to the three Kings and working of Miracles I answer His Resurrection Ascension and Sitting at the right hand of God are very great Miracles and they are expressed Besides S. John assures us That the Miracles which Christ did were done and written not for themselves that they might be believed but for a farther end that we might believe that Jesus was the Christ and believing have eternal life He therefore that believe this may be saved though he have no explicite and distinct faith of any Miracle that our Saviour did His Circumcision and Manifestation to the Wise men for I know not upon what grounds you call them Kings are neither things simply necessary to be known nor have any neer relation to those that are so As for his Descent into hell it may for ought you know be put in as a thing necessary of it self to be known If you ask why more than his Circumcision I refer you to the Apostles for an answer who put that in and left this out of their Creed and yet sure were not so forgetful after the receiving of the Holy Ghost as to leave out any prime and principal foundation of the Faith which are the very words of your own Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. 2. c. 10. num Likewise his Burial was put in perhaps as necessary of it self to be known But though it were not yet hath it manifestly so near relation to these that are necessary his Passion and Resurrection being the Consequent of the one and the Antecedent of the other that it is no marvel if for their sakes it was put in For though I verily believe that there is no necessary Point of this nature but what is in the Creed yet I do not affirm because I cannot prove it that there is nothing in the Creed but what is necessary You demand thirdly Why did they not express Scriptures Sacraments and all Fundamental Points of Faith tending to practice as well as those which rest in Belief I answer Because their purpose was to comprize in it only those necessary Points which rest in Belief which appears because of practical Points there is not in it so much as one 77. D. Potter subjoyns to what is said above That as well nay better they might have given no Article but that of the Church and sent us to the Church for all the rest For in setting down others besides that and not all they make us believe we have all when we have not all This consequence you deny and neither give reason against it nor satisfie his reason for it which yet in my judgment is good and concluding The Proposition to be proved is this That if your Doctrin were true this short Creed I believe the Roman Church to be infallible would have been better that is more effectual to keep the believers of it from Heresie and in the true Faith than this Creed which now we have A Proposition so evident that I cannot see how either you or any of your Religion or indeed any sensible man can from his heart deny it Yet because you make shew of doing so or else which I rather hope do not rightly apprehend the force of the Reason I will endeavour briefly to add some light and strength to it by comparing the effects of these several supposed Creeds 78. The former Creed therefore would certainly produce these effects in the believers of it An impossibility of being in any formal Heresie A necessity of
it is which is the mark of Heresie the Ancient Fathers tell us more in particular that it is from the Church of Rome as it is the Sea of Peter And therefore D. Potter need not to be so hot with us because we say and write that the Church of Rome in that sense as she is the Mother-Church of all others and with which all the rest agree is truly called the Catholique Church S. Hierome writing to Pope Damasus saith I am in the Communion (h) Lib. 1. Apolog of the Chair of Peter I know that the Church is built upon that Rock Whosoever shall eat the Lamb out of this house he is prophane If any shall not be in the Ark of Noe he shall perish in the time of the deluge Whosoever doth not gather with thee doth scatter that is he that is not of Christ is of Antichrist And elsewhere Which doth he (i) Ibid. lib. 3. call his faith That of the Roman Church Or that which is contained in the Books of Origen If he answer The Roman then we are Catholiques who have translated nothing of the error of Origen And yet farther Know thou that the k Roman faith commended by the voyce of the Apostle doth not receive these delusions though an Angel should denounce otherwise than it hath once been preached S. Ambrose recounting how his Brother Satyrus inquiring for a Church wherein to give thanks for his delivery from shipwrack saith He called unto him (l) De obitu Satyri fratris the Bishop neither did he esteem any favour to be true except that of the true faith and he asked of him whether be agreed with the Catholique Bishops that is with the Roman Church And having understood that he was a Schismatique that is separated from the Roman Church he abstained from communicating with him Where we see the privâ—ledge of the Roman Church confirmed both by word and deed by doctrin and practice And the same Saint saith of the Roman Church From thence the Rites (m) Lib. 1. ep 4. ad Imperatores of Venerable Communion do flow to all Saint Cyprian saith They are bold (n) Epist 55. ad Cornel. to sail to the Chair of Peter and to the principal Church from whence Priestly Unity hath sprung Neither do they consider that they are Romans whose faith was commended by the preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Where we see this holy Father joyns together the principal Church and the Chair of Peter and affirmâ—th that falshood not only hath not had but cannot have access to that Sea And elsewhere Thou wrotest that I should send (o) Epist 52. a Copy of the same letters to Cornelius our Colleague that laying aside all sollicitude he might now be assured that thou didst communicate with him that is with the Catholique Church What think you M. Doctor of these words Is it so strange a thing to take for one and the same thing to communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to communicate with the Catholique Church S. Irenaeus saith Because it were long to number the succession of all Chuâ—ches (p) Lib. 3 cont haer c. 3. we declaring the Tradition and faith preached to men and coming to us by Tradition of the most great most ancient and most known Church founded by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by evil complacence of themselves or vain glory or by blindness or ill opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful people of what place soever in which Roman Church the Tradition which is from the Apostles hath alwayes been conserved from those who are every where Saint Augustine saith It grieves us (q) In Psal coâ—t patrâ—m Donati to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeded to whom She is the Rock which the proud Gates of Hell do not overcome And in another place speaking of Caecilianus he saith He might contemâ— the conspiring (r) Ep. 162. multitude of his Enemies because he knew himself to be united by Communicatory letters both to the Roman Church in which the Principality of the Sea Apostolique did alwayes flourish and to other Countâ—ies from whence the Gospel came first into Africa Ancient Tertullian saith If thou be neer Italy thou hast Rome whose (s) Praescr cap. 36. Authority is nâ—er at hand to us a happy Church into which the Apostles have poured all Doctrine together with their bloud Saint Basil in a letter to the Bishop of Rome saith In very deed that which was given (t) Epist ad Pont. Rom. by our Lord to thy Piety is worthy of that must excellent voyce which procâ—â—â—med thee Blessed to wit that thou mayst discern betwixt that which is counterfeit and that which is lawful and pure and without any diminution mayest preach the faith of our Ancestours Maximâ—nianus Bishop of Constantinople about twelve hundred years ago said All the bounds of the earth who have siâ—ccrely acknowledged our Lord and Catholiques through the whole world professing the true faith look upon the power of the Bishop of Rome as upon the Sun c. For the Creator of the world amongst all men of the world elected him he speaks of S. Peter to whom he granted the Chair of Dectour to be principally possessed by a perpetual right of Priviledge that whosoever is desirous to know any Divine and profound thing may have recourse to the Oracle and Doctrin of this Instruction John Patriarch of Constantinople more than eleven hundred years ago in an Epistle to Pope Hormisda writeth thus Because (u) Epist ad Hormis P. P. the beginning of salvation is to conserve the rule of right Faith and in no wise to swarve from the Tradition of our Fore Fathers because the words of our Lord cannot fail saying Thou art Peter and upon this Rock will I build my Church the proofs of deeds have made good those words because in the Sea Apostolical the Catholique Religion is alwayes conserved inviolable And again We promise hereafter not to recite in the sacred Mysteries the names of them who are excluded from the Communion of the Catholique Church that is to say who consent not fully with the Sea Apostolique Many other Authorities of the Ancient Fathers might be produced to this purpose but these may serve to shew that both the Latin and Greek Fathers held for a Note of being a Catholique or an Heretique To have been united or divided from the Sea of Rome And I have purposely alleadged only such Authorities of Fathers as speak of the priviledges of the Sea of Rome as of things permanent and depending
or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. But you proced and tell us that Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Answ But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47 But Protestants though as you suppose they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to rely in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all Reason Might not one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your owne but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in Reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Answ By like reason since you acknowledg that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of salvation Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appears from your own words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No less impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresie For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrin be such because it may be doubtful whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming divers Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determin But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that though we cannot perhaps say in particular Thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a Receit takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth loseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Answ I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actual dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potential Unity referres to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar. their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. and to Flacius de Sectis Controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeer and scorn D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proof the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the Answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authoritie the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not prettie that you bring Breerely as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to press you with the meer authority of Protestant Divines in any point me-thinks for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments Yet if the authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for
false Church may preserve the Scripture trure as now the old Testament is preserved by the Jewes either not being arriv'd to that height of impiety as to attempt the corruption of it or not able to effect it or not perceiving or not regarding the opposition of it to her corruptions And so we might receive from you lawful Ordination and true Scriptures though you were a false Church and receiving the Scriptures from you though not from you alone I hope you cannot hinder us neither need we aske your leave to believe and obey them And this though you be a false Church is enough to make us a true one As for a Succession of men that held with us in all points of Doctrin it is a thing we need not and you have as little as we So that if we acknowledge that your Church before Luther was a true Church it is not for any ends for any dependance that we have upon you but because we conceive that in a charitable construction you may pass for a true Church Such a Church and no better as you do somtimes acknowledge Protestants to be that is a Company of men wherein some ignorant souls may be saved So that in this ballancing of Religion against Religion and Church against Church it seems you have nothing of weight and moment to put into your scale nothing but smoak and wind vain shadows and phantastical pretences Yet if Protestants on the other side had nothing to put in their Scale but those negative commendations which you are pleas'd to afford them nothing but No unity nor means to procure it no farther extent when Luther arose than Luthers body no Universality of time or place no Visibility or being except only in your Church no Succession of persons or doctrin no leader but Luther in a quarel begun upon no ground but passion no Church no Ordination no Scriptures but such as they receiv'd from you if all this were true and this were all that could be pleaded for Protestants possibly with an allowance of three grains of partiality your Scale might seem to turne But then if it may appear that part of these objections are falsely made against them the rest vainly that whatsoever of truth is in these imputations is impertinent to this trial and whatsoever is pertinent is untrue and besides that plenty of good matter may be alleadged for Protestants which is here dissembled Then I hope our cause may be good notwithstanding these pretences 55. I say then that want of Universality of time and place The invisibility or not existence of the professors of Protestant Doctrin before Luther Luther's being alone when he first opposed your Church Our having our Church Ordination Scriptures personal and yet not doctrinal Succession from you are vain and impertinent allegations against the truth of our Doctrin and Church That the entire truth of Christ without any mixture of error should be professed or believed in all places at any time or in any place at all times is not a thing evident in reason neither have we any Revelation for it And therefore in relying so confidently on it you build your house upon the sand And what obligation we had either to be so peevish as to take nothing of yours or so foolish as to take all I do not understand For whereas you say that this is to be choosers and therefore Heretiques I tell you that though all Heretiques are choosers yet all choosers are not Heretiques otherwise they also which choose your Religion must be Heretiques As for our wanting Unity and Means of proving it Luther 's opposing your Church upon meere passion Our following private men rather than the Catholique Church the first and last are meere untruths for we want not Unity nor Means to procure it in things necessary Plain places of Scripture and such as need no interpreter are our means to obtain it Neither do we follow any private men but only the Scripture the word of God as our rule and reason which is also the gift of God given to direct us in all our actions in the use of this rule And then for Luther's opposing your Church upon meere passion it is a thing I will not deny because I know not his heart and for the same reason you should not have affirmed it Sure I am whether he opposed your Church upon reason or no he had reason enough to oppose it And therefore if he did it upon passion we will follow him only in his action and not in his passion in his opposition not in the manner of it and then I presume you will have no reason to condemne us unless you will say that a good action cannot be done with reason because some body before us hath done it upon passion You see then how imprudent you have been in the choice of your arguments to prove Protestants unwise in the choice of their Religion 56. It remains now that I should shew that many reasons of moment may be alleaged for the justification of Protestants which are dissembled by you and not put into the ballance Know then Sir that when I say The Religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferr'd before yours as on the one side I do not understand by your Religion the doctrin of Bellarmin or Baronius or any other private man amongst you nor the Doctrin of the Sorbon or of the Jesuits or of the Dominicans or of any other particular Company among you but that wherein you all agree or profess to agree the Doctrin of the Councel of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrin of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelberg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their faith and actions that is The BIBLE The BIBLE I say The BIBLE only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides It and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to eternal hapiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councels against Councels some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one age against a Consent of Fathers of another age the Church of one age against the Church of
must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Soveraigne in lawful things though an Heretique though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to flesh and blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the world prevail'd and enlarg'd it self in a very short time all the world over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens conscience by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the world supposititions writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Warres by Persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first preachers and Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the world that they should not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this world but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the world could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successour of the Apostles and Guide of faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the world And besides it is evident to any man that has but halfe an eye that most of those Doctrins which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in spirit and truth Whereas your Church and Doctrin is even loaded with an infinitie of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury Superstitions and Ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall judge the world 69. Following the Scriptures I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admitable supernatural works of God confirm'd to be the word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame horse cur'd in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your doctrin yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that God's providence permitting it and the wickedness of the world deserving it strange signes and wonders should be wrought to confirm false doctrin that they which love not the truth may be given over to strong delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the world 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all vices and the effectual practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continve all my life long in a course of sin and without the practice of any vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be lett into heaven at a postern gate even by an Act of Attrition at the hour of death if it be joyn'd with confession or by an act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the world love of God and the love of mankind In a word of all vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The summe whereof is in manner compriz'd in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5.6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the Fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that sayeth Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdome but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not lawes for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not That they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sonnes of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content barely to go to heaven and to be a door-keeper in the house of God especially if he will be content to taste of Purgatory in the way he may obtain it at an easier purchase Therefore the Religion of your Church is not so holy nor so good as the Doctrin of Christ delivered in Scripture and therefore not so likely to come from the Fountain of holiness and goodness 72. Lastly if I follow your Church for my Guide I shall do all one as if I should follow a Company of blind men in a judgement of colours or in the choice of a way For every unconsidering man is blind in that which he does not consider Now what is your Church but a company of unconsidering men who comfort themselves because they are a great company together but all of them either out of idleness refuse the trouble of a fevere tryall of their Religion as if heaven were not worth it or out of superstition fear the event of such a tryall that they may be scrupled and staggered and disquieted by it and therefore for the most part do it not at all Or if they do it they do it negligently and hypocritically and perfunctorily rather for the satisfaction of others than themselves but certainly without indifference without liberty of judgement without a resolution to doubt of it if upon
of the expression of this Atheism viz. not in words or opinion to deny God but which is worse in the carriage and course of our life to allow him his Attributes and yet not to fear him not to stand in awe of his power which he acknowledgeth to be infinite to distrust his Providence to sleight his Promises neglect his Threatnings which is in effect as much as in him lyeth to tear and ravish from him all his glorious Attributes by living as if God himself were less powerful less wise then himself improvident not deserving so much fear of his power or respect to his command as he would perform to a wretched mortal man that is a little richer or in some place of Authority above him 10. I need travel no further for a division to my own Text Here we may observe likewise First The cause of Atheism and by consequence all the abominable impieties that follow in the Psalm and that is Ignorance Indiscretion Inconsiderance expressed in the person of Nabal The Fool Secondly We have the expression of it not by word of mouth or writing but per motum cordis by the inclination of the heart or affections 11. In the prosecution of the former part which may very well take up and spend this Hour-glass I shall proceed thus First I will consider wherein this folly consists and that is not so much in an utter ignorance of God and his holy Word as a not making a good use of it when it is known a suffering it to lye dead to swim unprofitably in the brain without any fruit thereof in the reformation of ones life and conversation And there I will shew you The extream folly for a man to seek to increase his knowledge of his Master's will without a desire and resolution to increase proportionably in a serious active performance thereof Secondly I will propose to your consideration the extream unavoidable danger and increase of guilt that knowledge without practice brings with it To both which considerations I shall severally annex Applications to the Consciences of you my Hearers and so spend out my time 12. Now I take it for granted that I have hit right in declaring wherein the folly of Nabal in my Text consists namely in an unfruitful knowledg a knowledg that lies fallow is not exercised which if it were not allowed me I would only referr my self for proof unto some of David's Psalms and almost all his Sons Proverbs I should sin against the plenty of matter in my Text more worth our consideration if I should enlarge my self in this point Only one place of David shall suffice and that is in Psal 111.10 where he repeats that old divine Proverb made by God himself Psal 111.10 the Lord knows how long since and by him delivered to man as Job telleth us ch 28. v. 28. The Psalmists words are these The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom and a good understanding have all they that do thereafter 13. I do not now exclude Ignorance from making up some part of this Fool but because the other piece of extream desperate folly is rather the sin of these days namely a barren uneffectual Knowledge Therefore I shall rather insist upon it Yet by the way I shall not fail to discover to you the danger of the other too 14. It is a pretty Observation that the Author of the Narration of the English Seminary founded in Rome has concerning the Method and Order the Devil has used in assailing and disturbing the peace and quiet of the Church with Heresies and Schisms He began saith he with the first Article of our Creed concerning one God the Father Almighty Creatour of Heaven and Earth against which in the first 300. years he armed the Simonians Menandrians Basilidians Valentinians Marcionites Manichees and Gnosticks After the 300th year he opposed the second Article concerning the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ by his beloved Servants the Noetians Sabellians Paullians Photinians and Arrians After the four hundreth year he sought to undermine the fourth fifth sixth and seventh Articles of the Incarnation Passion Resurrection Ascension and the second coming to Judgment by the Heresies of Nestorius Theodorus Eutyches Dioscorus Cnapheus Sergius c. After the eight hundred and sixtieth he assailed the eighth Article concerning the Holy-Ghost by the Heresie and Schism of the Greek Church Lastly since the year one thousand till these times his business and craft has especially expressed it self in seeking to subvert the ninth and tenth concerning the Holy Catholique Church and forgiveness of sins by the aid and Ministery of the Pontificians Anabaptists Familists and the like And with the deceipts and snares of these his cunning Ministers hath he entangled the greatest part of the now Christian world 15. But our blessed and gracious God be praised for it we and some with us have escaped as a Bird out of the snare of the Fowler the Net was broken and we were delivered The whole Doctrine of Christian Faith is restored to the Primitive lustre and integrity Nay more which is a greater happiness then God ever created to those his chosen good servants which lived in the Infancy of the Church the profession of a pure unspotted Religion is so far from being dangerous or infamous that we have the Sword of the Civil Magistrate the power and inforcement of the Laws and Statutes to maintain this our precious Faith without stain and undefiled against all Heretical and Schismatical oppugners thereof 16. If ever we forget the goodness and mercy of God in this our deliverance then let our tongues cleave to the roof of our mouths Nay if in our Songs of joyfulness and melody we remember not our escape wherewith the Lord snatched us out of Egypt and our victorious passage through a Red-Sea of Bloud and Ruin Thou O Lord wilt not hear our prayers 27. It was a seasonable admonition that the Apostle Saint Paul gave to other Gentiles after such a glorious victory and deliverance as this of our's Be not high-minded but fear Rom. 11.20 Heresie is not the only Engine that Satan is furnished with to assault and infest the Church of Christ neither is it the most dangerous He has the cunning to destroy Foundations and make no use of Heresie in the work neither You would wonder how it should be possible for the Devil to make an Orthodox Christian one perfect and studyed in all the Points of the Creed and one that can for a need maintain the Truth thereof against all gain-sayers I say it would seem strange for the Devil to make such a one to destroy and utterly demolish the very Foundations of his Faith and yet not at all to alter his opinions neither Yet that it is not only a possible contrivance but too too ordinary and familiar in these times woful Experience hath made it evident 18. The Art and cunning whereby this great work of the Devil 's is brought
MAndetur Typis hic Liber cui Titulus The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil occurrit à bonis Moribus à Doctrinâ Disciplinâ in Ecclesiâ Anglicanâ assertis alienum RICH. BAILIE Vicecan Oxon. PErlegi hunc Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae adversum sed quamplurima quae Fidem Orthodoxam egregiè illustrant adversantia glossemata acutè perspicuè modestè dissipant Jo. PRIDEAUX S.T.P. Regius Oxon. EGo Samuel Fell Publicus Theol. Professor in Univ. Oxon. ordinarius Praelector D. Marg. Comitiss Richmondiae perlegi Librum cui Titulus est The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation In quo nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae aut bonis Moribus adversum sed multa nervosè modestè eventilata contra Adversarios nostrae Ecclesiae veritatis Catholicae quam felicitèr tuetur Dat. 14º Octob. 1637. SAM FELL Fiat secunda Editio juxta hoc Exemplar Ex. Aedib London Feb. 6. 1637. SAM BAKER PErlegi hunc Librum cui Tit. The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation item Novem Consciones nuperimè additas In quibus omnibus nihil reperio Doctrinae vel Disciplinae Ecclesiae Anglicanae contrarium quo minus cum summâ omnium utilitate Imprimatur Ex. Aed Lambeth 16. Octob. 1663. G. STRADLING S.T.P. Reverendis in Christo Pat. D. Gilb. Archiep. Cant. à Sac. Domest THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS A Safe way to Salvation OR An ANSWER to a Book Entituled Mercy and Truth or Charity maintain'd by Catholiques Which pretends to prove the Contrary To which is Added in this Third Impression The Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy AS ALSO IX SERMONS The First Preached before His Majesty King CHARLES the First the other Eight upon special and eminent Occasions BY William Chillingworth Master of Arts of the University of OXFORD Isaac Casaubon in Epist ad Card. Perron Regis JACOBI nomine scriptâ Rex arbitratur rerum absolutè necessariarum ad salutem non magnum esse numerum Quare existimat ejus Majestas nullam ad incundam concordiam breviorem viam fore quà m si diligentèr separentur necessaria à non necessariis ut de necessariis conveniat omnis opera insumatur in non necessariis libertati Christianae locus detur Simplicitèr necessaria Rex appellat quae vel expressè verbum Dei praecipit credenda faciendave vel ex verbo Dei necessariâ consequentiâ vetus Ecclesia elicuit Si ad decidendas hodiernas Controversias haec distinctio adhiberetur jus divinum à positivo seu Ecclesiastico candidè separaretur non videtur de iis quae sunt absolutè necessaria inter pios moderatos viros longa aut acris contentio futura Nam pauce illa sunt ut modò dicebamus ferè ex aequo omnibus probantur qui se Christianos dici postulant Atque istam distinctionem Sereniss Rex tanti putat esse momenti ad minuendas Controversias quae hodiè Ecclesiam Dei tantopere exercent ut omnium pacis studiosorum judicet officium esse diligentissimè hanc explicare docere urgere LONDON Printed by E. Cotes for J. Clark and are to be sold by Thomas Thornicroft at the sign of the Eagle and Child in St. Pauls Church-yard near the little North-door M.DC.LXIV TO THE Most HIGH and MIGHTY PRINCE CHALES By the Grace of God KING of Great-Britain France and Ireland Defendor of the Faith c. May it please your most Excellent Majesty I Present with all humility to Your most Sacred hands a Defence of that Cause which is and ought to be infinitely dearer to you than all the World Not doubting but upon this Dedication I shall be censured for a double boldness both for undertaking so great a Work so far beyond my weak abilities and again for presenting it to such a Patron whose judgement I ought to fear more than any Adversary But for the first it is a satisfaction to my self and may be to others that I was not drawn to it out of any vain opinion of myself whose personal defects are the only thing which I presume to know but undertook it in obedience in Him who said Tu conversus confirma fratres not to St. Peter only but to all men being encouraged also to it by the goodness of the Cause which is able to make a weak man strong To the belief hereof I was not led partially or by chance as many are by the prejudice and prepossession of their Country Education and such like inducements which if they lead to Truth in one place perhaps lead to Error in a hundred but having with the greatest equality and indifferency made enquiry and grounds on both Sides I was willing to impart to others that satisfaction which was given to my self For my inscribing to it Your Majesties Sacred Name I should labour much in my excuse of it from high presumption had it not some appearance of Title to your Majesties Patronage and protection as being a Defence of that Book which by special order from Your Majesty was written some years since chiefly for the general good but peradventure not without some aime at the recovery of One of Your meanest Subjects from dangerous deviation and so due unto Your Majesty as the fruit of Your own High Humility and most Royal Charity Besides it is in a manner nothing else but a pursuance of and a superstruction upon that blessed Doctrine wherewith I have adorned and armed the Frontispice of my Book which was so earnestly recommended to Your Royal Father of happy memory to all the lovers of Truth and Peace that is to all that were like Himself as the only hopeful means of healing the Breaches of Christendome whereof the Enemy of souls makes such pestilent advantage The lustre of this blessed Doctrine I have endeavoured to uncloud and unvail and to free it from those mists and fumes which have been raised to obscure it by one of that Order which envenomes even poison it self and makes the Roman Religion much more malignant and turbulent than otherwise it would be whose very Rule and Doctrine obliges them to make all men as much as lies in them subjects unto Kings and servants unto Christ no farther than it shall please the Pope So that whether Your Majesty be considered either as a Pious Son towards Your Royall Father King James or as a tender hearted and compassionate Son towards Your distressed Mother the Catholique Church or as a King of Your Subjects or as a Servant unto Christ this Work to which I can give no other commendation but that it was intended to do You service in all these capacities may pretend not unreasonably to Your Gracious acceptance Lastly being a Defence of that whole Church and Religion You profess it could not be so proper to any
sending to me and acquainting me with any Exceptions which you conceived might be justly taken to it or any part of it than which nothing could have been more welcome to me yet hitherto you have not been pleased to acquaint me with any one Nay more though you have been at sundry times and by several wayes entreated and sollicited nay pressed and importuned by me to joyn with me in a private discussion of the Controversie between us before the publication of my Answer because I was extremely unwilling to publish any thing which had not passed all manner of tryals as desiring not that I or my Side but that Truth might overcome on which Side soever it was though I have protested to you and sent it under my hand which protestation by Gods help I would have made good If you or any other would undertake your Cause would give me a fair meeting and choose out of your whole Book any one argument whereof you were most confident and by which you would be content the rest should be judged of and make it appear that I had not or could not answer it that I would desist from the work which I had undertaken and answer none at all though by all the Arts which possibly I could devise I have provoked you to such a trial in particular by assuring you that if you refused it the World should be informed of your tergiversation notwithstanding all this you have perpetually and obstinately declined it which to my understanding is a very evident sign that there is not any truth in your Cause nor which is impossible there should be strength in your Arguments especially considering what our Saviour hath told us Every one that doth evill hateth the light neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved but he that doth truth cometh to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God 5. In the mean while though you despaired of compassing your desire this honest way yet you have not omitted to tempt me by base and unworthy considerations to desert the Cause which I had undertaken letting me understand from you by an Acquaintance common to us both how that in case my Work should come to light my inconstancy in Religion so you miscal my constancy in following that way to heaven which for the present seems to me the most probable should be to my great shame painted to the life that my own Writings should be produced against my self that I should be urged to answer my own Motives against Protestantism and that such things should be published to the World touching my belief for my Painter I must expect should have great skill in Perspective of the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all supernaturall Verities as should endanger all my Benefices present or future that this warning was given me not out of fear of what I could say for that Catholiques if they might wish any ill would beg the Publication of my Book for respects obvious enough but out of a meer charitable desire of my good and reputation and that all this was said upon a supposition that I was answering or had a mind to answer Charity Maintain'd If not no harm was done To which courteous Premonition as I remember I desired the Gentleman who dealt between us to return this Answer or to this effect That I believed the Doctrine of the Trinity the Deity of our Saviour and all other supernatural Verities revealed in Scripture as truly and as heartily as your self or any man and therefore herein your Charity was very much mistaken but much more and more uncharitably in conceiving me a man that was to be wrought upon with these Terribiles visuformae those carnal and base fears which you presented to me which were very proper motives for the Devil and his instruments to tempt poor-spirited men out of the way of conscience and honesty but very incongruous either for Teachers of Truth to make use of or for Lovers of Truth in which Company I had been long ago matriculated to hearken to with any regard But if you were indeed desirous that I should not answer Charity Maintain'd one way there was and but one whereby you might obtain your desire and that was by letting me know when and where I might attend you and by a fair conference to be written down on both sides convincing mine understanding who was resolved not to be a Recusant if I were convicted that any one part of it any one Argument in it which was of moment and consequence and whereon the cause depends was indeed unanswerable This was the effect of my Answer which I am well assured was delivered but Reply from you I received none but this That you would have no conference with me but in Print and soon after finding me of proof against all these batteries and thereby I fear very much enraged you took up the resolution of the furious Goddess in the Poet madded with the unsuccessfulness of her malice Flectere si nequec superos Acheronta movebo 6. For certainly those indigne contumelies that masse of portentous and execrable calumnies wherewith in your Pamphlet of Directions to N. N. you have loaded not only my Person in particular but all the learned and moderate Divines of the Church of England and all Protestants in general nay all wise men of all Religions but your own could not proceed from any other fountain 7. To begin with the last You stick not in the beginning of your first Chapter to fasten the imputation of Atheism and Irreligion upon all wise and gallant men that are not of your own Religion In which uncharitable and unchristian judgment void of all colour or shadow of probability I know yet by experience that very many of the Bigots of your Faction are partakers with you God forbid I should think the like of you Yet if I should say that in your Religion there want not some temptations unto and some Principles of Irreligion and Atheism I am sure I could make my assertion much more probable than you have done or can make this horrible imputation 8. For to pass by First that which experience justifies That where and when your Religion hath most absolutely commanded there and then Atheism hath most abounded To say nothing Secondly of your notorious and confessed forging of so many false Miracles and so many lying Legends which is not unlikely to make suspicious men to question the truth of all Nor to object to you Thirdly the abundance of your weak and silly Ceremonies and ridiculous observances in your Religion which in all probability cannot but beget secret contempt and scorn of it in wise and considering men and consequently Atheism and Impiety if they have this perswasion setled in them which is too rife among you and which you account a piece of Wisdome and Gallantry that if they be not of your Religion they were
not be as indeed howsoever it should not be any disadvantage or disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. Your injuries then to me no way deserved by me but by differing in opinion from you wherein yet you surely differ from me as much as I from you are especially three For first upon hearsay and refusing to give me opportunity of begetting in you a better understanding of me you charge me with a great number of false and impious Doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The sum of them all cast up by your self in your first Chapter is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason is opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical to be the Infallible word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. Eliz. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any man's liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to salvation either by the Catholique Church of all Ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholique Church of this Age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace 29. Another great and manifest injury you have done me in charging me to have forsaken your Religion because it conduced not to my temporal ends and suted not with my desires and designs Which certainly is an horrible crime and whereof if you could convince me by just and strong Presumptions I should then acknowledge my self to deserve that Opinion which you would fain induce your Credents unto that I changed not your Religion for any other but for none at all But of this great fault my conscience acquits me and God who only knows the hearts of all men knows that I am innocent Neither doubt I but all they who know me and amongst them many Persons of place and quality will say they have reason in this matter to be my Compurgators And for you though you are very affirmative in your accusation yet you neither do nor can produce any proof or presumption for it but forgetting your self as it is God's will oft times that Slanderers should do have let fall some passages which being well weighed will make considering men apt to believe that you did not believe your self For how is it possible you should believe that I deserted your Religion for ends and against the light of my conscience out of a desire of preferment and yet out of scruple of conscience should refuse which also you impute to me to subscribe the 39. Articles that is refuse to enter at the only common door which herein England leads to preferment Again How incredible is it that you should believe that I forsook the profession of your Religion as not suting with my desires and designs which yet reconciles the enjoying of the pleasures and profits of sin here with the hope of happiness hereafter and proposes as great hope of great temporal advancements to the capable servants of it as any nay more than any Religion in the world and instead of this should choose Socinianism a Doctrine which howsoever erroneous in explicating the Mysteries of Religion and allowing greater liberty of opinion in speculative matters than any other Company of Christians doth or they should do yet certainly which you I am sure will pretend and maintain to explicate the Laws of Christ with more rigor and less indulgence and condescendence to the desires of flesh and blood than your Doctrine doth And besides such a Doctrine by which no man in his right minde can hope for any honour or preferment either in this Church or State or any other All which clearly demonstrates that this foul and false aspersion which you have cast upon me proceeds from no other fountain but a heart abounding with the gall and bitterness of uncharitableness and even blinded with malice towards me or else from a perverse zeal to your superstition which secretly suggests this perswasion to you That for the Catholique cause nothing is unlawful but that you may make use of such indirect and crooked Arts as these to blast my reputation and to possess mens minds with disaffection to my Person lest otherwise peradventure they might with some indifference hear reason from me God I hope which bringeth light out of darkness will turn your counsels to foolishness and give all good men grace to perceive how weak and ruinous that Religion must be which needs supportance from such tricks and devices So I call them because they deserve no better name For what are all these Personal matters which hitherto you have spoke of to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their Writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope Truth is nevertheless Truth nor Reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgement of these things will guard himself I hope from these impostures and regard not the person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to perswade him unless it be truth whereunto I perswade him 30. The third and last part of my Accusation was That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest which indeed were to the purpose if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premised unto it it is very easie for me out of your own mouth and words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one conclusion is there in the whole
Writer Michael de Montaigne was surely of a far different minde for he will hardly allow any Physitian competent but only for such diseases as himself had passed through And a far greater than Montaigne even he that said Tu conversus confirma fratres gives us sufficiently to understand that they which have themselves been in such a state as to need conversion are not thereby made incapable of but rather engaged and obliged unto and qualified for this charitable function 42. Neither am I guilty of that strange and preposterous zeal as you esteem it which you impute to me for having been so long careless in removing this scandal against Protestants and answering my own Motives and yet now shewing such fervor in writing against others For neither are they other Motives but the very same for the most part with those which abused me against which this Book which I now publish is in a maner wholly imployed And besides though you Jesuits take upon you to have such large and universal intelligence of all State-affairs and matters of importance yet I hope such a contemptible matter as an Answer of mine to a little piece of paper may very probably have been written and escaped your Observation The truth is I made an Answer to them three years since and better which perhaps might have been published but for two reasons One because the Motives were never publique until you made them so The other because I was loath to proclaim to all the world so much weakness as I shewed in suffering my self to be abused by such silly Sophisms All which proceed upon mistakes and false suppositions which unadvisedly I took for granted as when I have set down the Motives in order by subsequent Answers to them I shall quickly demonstrate and so make an end 43. The Motives then were these 1. Because perpetuall visible profession which could never be wanting to the Religion of Christ nor any part of it is apparently wanting to Protestant Religion so far as concerns the points in contestation 2. Because Luther and his Followers separating from the Church of Rome separated also from all Churches pure or impure true or false then being in the World upon which ground I conclude that either Gods promises did fail of performance if there were then no Church in the world which held all things necessary and nothing repugnant to Salvation or else that Luther and his Sectaries separating from all Churches then in the World and so from the true if there were any true were damnable Schismaticks 3. Because if any credit may be given to as creditable Records as any are extant the Doctrine of Catholiques hath been frequently confirmed and the opposite Doctrine of Protestants confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles 4. Because many points of Protestant doctrine are the damned opinions of Heretiques condemned by the Primitive Church 5. Because the Prophecies of the old Testament touching the conversion of Kings and Nations to the true Religion of Christ have been accomplished in and by the Catholique Roman Religion and the Professors of it and not by Protestant Religion and the Professors of it 6. Because the doctrine of the Church of Rome is conformable and the Doctrine of Protestants contrary to the Doctrine of the Fathers of the Primitive Church even by the confession of Protestants themselves I mean those Fathers who lived within the compasse of the first 600. years to whom Protestants themselves do very frequently and very confidently appeal 7. Because the first pretended Reformers had neither extraordinary Commission from God nor ordinary Mission from the Church to Preach Protestant Doctrine 8. Because Luther to preach against the Masse which contains the most material points now in Controversie was perswaded by reasons suggested to him by the Devil himself disputing with him So himself professeth in his Bock de Missa Privata That all men might take heed of following him who professeth himself to follow the Devill 9. Because the Protestant cause is now and hath been from the beginning maintained with grosse falsifications and Calumnies whereof their prime Controvâ—rsie-Writers are notoriously and in high degree guilty 10. Because by denying all humane authority either of Pope or Councels or Church to determine Controversies of Faith they have abolished all possible means of suppressing Heresie or restoring Unity to the Church These are the Motives now my Answers to them follow briefly and in order 44. To the first God hath neither decreed nor foretold that his true Doctrine should de facto be alwayes visibly professed without any mixture of falshood To the second God hath neither decreed not foretold that there shall be always a visible company of men free from all error in it self damnable Neither is it always of necessity Schismatical to separate from the external communion of a Church though wanting nothing necessary For if this Church supposed to want nothing necessary require me to profess against my conscience that I believe some errour though never so small and innocent which I do not believe and will not allow me her Communion but upon this condition In this case the Church for requiring this condition is Schismatical and not I for separating from the Church To the third If any credit may be given to Records far more creditable than these the Doctrine of Protestants that is the Bible hath been confirmed and the Doctrine of Papists which is in many points plainly opposite to it confounded with supernatural and divine Miracles which for number and glory outshine Popish pretended Miracles as much as the Sun doth an Ignis fatuus those I mean which were wrought by our Saviour Christ and his Apostles Now this Book by the confession of all sides confirmed by innumerous Miracles foretels me plainly that in after-ages great signs and wonders shall be wrought in confirmation of false doctrin and that I am not to believe any doctrin which seems to my understanding repugnant to the first though an Angel from Heaven should teach it which were certainly as great a Miracle as any that was ever wrought in attestation of any part of the doctrine of the Church of Rome But that true doctrine should in all ages have the testimony of Miracles that I am no where taught So that I have more reason to suspect and be afraid of pretended Miracles as signs of false doctrine than much to regard them as certain Arguments of the Truth Besides setting aside the Bible and the Tradition of it there is as good story for Miracles wrought by those who lived and dyed in opposition to the Doctrine of the Roman Church as by S. Cyprian Colmannus Columbanus Aidanus and others as there is for those that are pretended to be wrought by the members of that Church Lastly it seems to me no strange thing that God in his Justice should permit some true Miracles to be wrought to delude them who have forged so many as apparently the Professors of
will assure him that if he keep himself to the point of every diffficulty and not weary the Reader and overcharge his margent with unnecessary quotations of Authors in Greek and Latine and sometime also in Italian and French together with Proverbs Sentences of Poets and such Grammatical stuff nor affect to cite a multitude of our Catholique School-Divines to no purpose at all his Book will not exceed a competent size nor will any man in reason be offended with that length which is regulated by necessity Again before he come to set down his answer or propose his Arguments let him consider very well what may be replyed and whether his own objections may not be retorted against himself as the Reader will perceive to have hapned often to his disadvantage in my Reply against him But especially I expect and Truth it self exacts at his hand that he speak clearly and distinctly and not seek to walk in darkness so to delude and deceive his Reader now saying and then denying and alwayes speaking with such ambiguity as that his greatest care may seem to consist in a certain Art to find a shift as his occasions might chance either now or hereafter to require and as he might fall out to be urged by diversity of several Arguments And to the end it may appear that I deal plainly as I would have him also do I desire that he declare himself concerning these points 11. First whether our Saviour Christ have not alwayes had and be not ever to have a visible true Church on earth and whether the contrary Doctrine be not a damnable heresie 12. Secondly what visible Church there was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Church and agreeing with the pretended Church of Protestants 13. Thirdly Since he will be forced to grant That there can be assigned no visible true Church of Christ distinct from the Church of Rome and such Churches as agreed with her when Luther first appeared whether it doth not follow that she hath not erred Fundamentally because every such error destroyes the nature and beeing of the Church and so our Saviour Christ should have had no visible Church on earth 14. Fourthly if the Roman Church did not fall into any Fundamental error let him tell us how it can be damnable to live in her Communion or to maintain errors which are known and confessed not to be Fundamental or damnable 15. Fiftly if her Errors were not damnable nor did exclude salvation how can they be excused from Schism who forsook her Communion upon pretence of errors which were not damnable 16. Sixthly if D. Potter have a minde to say That her Errors are Damnable or Fundamental let him do us so much charity as to tell us in particular what those Fundamental errors be But he must still remember and my self must be excused for repeating it that if he say The Roman Church erred Fundamentally he will not be able to shew that Christ our Lord had any visible Church on earth when Luther appeared and let him tell us How Protestants had or can have any Church which was universal and extended herself to all ages if once he grant that the Roman Church ceased to be the true Church of Christ and consequently how they can hope for Salvation if they deny it to us 17. Seventhly whether any one Error maintained against any one Truth though never so small in it self yet sufficiently propounded as testified or revealed by Almighty God do not destroy the Nature and Unity of Faith or at least is not a grievous offence excluding Salvation 18. Eighthly if this be so how can Lutherans Calvinists Swinglians and all the rest of disagreeing Protestants hope for Salvation since it is manifest that some of them must needs err against some such truth as is testified by Almighty God either Fundamental or at least not Fundamental 19. Ninthly we constantly urge and require to have a particular Catalogue of such Points as he cals Fundamental A Catalogue I say in particular and not only some general definition or description wherein Protestants may perhaps agree though we see that they differ when they come to assign what Points in particular be Fundamental and yet upon such a particular Catalogue much depends as for example in particular Whether or no a man do not err in some Point Fundamental or necessary to Salvation and whether or no Lutherans Calvinists and the rest do disagree in Fundamentals which if they do the same heaven cannot receive them all 20. Tenthly and lastly I desire that in answering to these Points he would let us know distinctly what is the Doctrine of the Protestant English Church concerning them and what he utters only as his own private opinion 21. These are the Questions which for the present I find it fit and necessary for me to ask of D. Potter or any other who will defend his cause or impugne ours And it will be in vain to speak vainly and to tell me that a Fool may ask more questions in an hour than a Wise man can answer in a year with such idle Proverbs as that For I ask but such questions as for which he gives occasion in his Book and where he declares not himself but after so ambiguous and confused a manner as that Truth it self can scarce tell how to convince him so but that with ignorant and ill judging men he will seem to have somewhat left to say for himself though Papists as he cals them and Puritans should presse him contrary wayes at the same time and these questions concern things also of high importance as whereupon the knowledge of God's Church and true Religion and consequently Salvation of the soul depends And now because he shall not taxe me with being like those men in the Gospel whom our blessed Lord and Saviour charged with laying heavy burdens upon other mens shoulders who yet would not touch them with their finger I oblige my self to answer upon any demand of his both to all these Questions if he find that I have not done it already and to any other concerning matter of Faith that he shall ask And I will tell him very plainly what is Catholique Doctrin and what is not that is what is defined or what is not defined and rests but in discussion among Divines 22. And it will be here expected that he perform these things as a man who professeth learning should do not flying from questions which concern things as they are considered in their own nature to accidental or rare circumstances of ignorance incapacity want of means to be instructed erroneous conscience and the like which being very various and different cannot be well comprehended under any general Rule But in delivering general Doctrins we must consider things as they be ex natura rei or per se loquendo as Divines speak that is according to their natures if all circumstances concurr proportionable thereunto As for example some may for a time have invincible
should be the holy Scripture or whatsoever else must be indued with an Universal Infallibility in whatsoever it propoundeth for a divine Truth that is as revealed spoken or testified by Almighty God whether the matter of its nature be great or small For if it were subject to Error in any one thing we could not in any other yield it infallible assent because we might with good reason doubt whether it chanced not to err in that particular 8. Thus far all must agree to what we have said unless they have a minde to reduce Faith to Opinion And even out of these grounds alone without further proceeding it undeniably follows that of two men dissenting in matters of faith great or small few or many the one cannot be saved without repentance unless Ignorance accidentally may in some particular person plead excuse For in that case of contrary belief one must of necessity be held to oppose Gods Word or Revelation sufficiently represented to his understanding by an infallible Propounder which opposition to the Testimony of God is undoubtedly a damnable sin whether otherwise the thing so testified be in it self great or small And thus we have already made good what was promised in the argument of this Chapter that amongst men of different Religions one is only capable of being saved 9. Nevertheless to the end that men may know in particular what is the said infallible means upon which we are to relie in all things concerning Faith and accordingly may be able to judge in what safety or danger more or less they live and because D. Potter descendeth to divers particulars about Scriptures and the Church c. we will go forward and prove that although Scripture be in it self most sacred infallible and divine yet it alone cannot be to us a Rule or Judge fit and able to end all doubts and debates emergent in matters of Religion but that there must be some external visible publique living Judge to whom all sorts of persons both learned and unlearned may without danger of error have recourse and in whose judgement they may rest for the interpreting and propounding of Gods Word or Revelation And this living Judge we will most evidently prove to be no other but that Holy Catholique Apostolique and Visible Church which our Saviour purchased with the effusion of his most precious bloud 10. If once therefore it be granted that the Church is that means which God hath left for deciding all Controversies in Faith it manifestly will follow that she must be infallible in all her determinations whether the matters of themselves be great or small because as we said above it must be agreed on all sides that if that means which God hath left to determine Controversies were not infallible in all things proposed by it as truths revealed by Almighty God it could not settle in our minds a firm and infallible belief of any one 11. From this Universal Infallibility of God's Church it followeth that whosoever wittingly denyeth any one Point proposed by her as revealed by God is injurious to his divine Majesty as if he could either deceive or be deceived in what he testifieth The averring whereof were not a Fundamental error but would overthrow the very foundation of all Fundamental Points and therefore without repentance could not possibly stand with salvation 12. Out of these grounds we will shew that although the distinction of Points Fundamental and not Fundamental be good and useful as it is delivered and applyed by Catholique Divines to teach what principal Articles of faith Christians are obliged explicitely to believe yet that it is impertinent to the present purpose of excusing any man from grievous sin who knowingly disbelieves that is believes the contrary of that which God's Church proposeth as Divine Truth For it is one thing not to know explicitely something testified by God and another positively to oppose what we know he hath testified The former may often be excused from sin but never the latter which only is the case in Question 13. In the same manner shall be demonstrated that to alleadge the Creed as containing all Articles of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed is not pertinent to free from sin the voluntary denial of any other Point known to be defined by God's Church And this were sufficient to overthrow all that D. Potter alleadgeth concerning the Creed though yet by way of Supererogation we will prove that there are divers important matters of Faith which are not mentioned at all in the Creed 14. From the aforesaid main Principle that God hath alwayes had and alwayes will have on earth a Church Visible within whose Communion Salvation must be hoped and infallible whose definitions we ought to believe we will prove that Luther Calvin and all other who continue the division in Communion or Faith from that Visible Church which at and before Luther's appearance was spread over the world cannot be excused from Schism and Heresie although they opposed her Faith but in one only Point whereas it is manifest they dissent from her in many and weighty matters concerning as well belief as practice 15. To these reasons drawn from the vertue of Faith we will add one other taken from Charitas propria the Vertue of Charity as it obligeth us not to expose our soul to hazard of perdition when we can put our selves in a way much more secure as we will prove that of the Roman Catholiques to be 16. We are then to prove these points First that the infallible means to determine controversies in matters of Faith is the visible Church of Christ Secondly that the distinction of Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental maketh nothing to our present Question Thirdly that to say the Creed contains all Fundamental Points of Faith is neither pertinent nor true Fourthly that both Luther and all they who after him persist in division from the Communion and Faith of the Roman Church cannot be excused from Schism Fifthly nor from Heresie Sixthly and lastly that in regard of the precept of Charity towards one's self Protestants be in state of sin as long as they remain divided from the Roman Church And these six Points shall be several Arguments for so many ensuing Chapters 17. Only I will here observe that it seemeth very strange that Protestants should charge â—s so deeply with Want of Charity for only teaching that both they and we cannot be saved seeing themselves must affirm the like of whosoever opposeth any least Point delivered in Scripture which they hold to be the sole Rule of Faith Out of which ground they must be enforced to let all our former Inferences pass for Good For is it not a grievous sin to deny any one truth contained in Holy Writ Is there in such denial any distinction between Points Fundamental and not-Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie Is it not impertinent to alledge the Creed containing all Fundamental Points of Faith as if believing it alone we
were at liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture In a word According to Protestants Oppose not Scripture there is no Error against Faith Oppose it in any least Point the Error if Scripture be sufficiently proposed which proposition is also required before a man can be obliged to believe even Fundamental Points must be damnable What is this but to say with us Of Persons contrary in whatsoever Point of belief one party only can be saved And D. Potter must not take it ill if Catholiques believe they may be saved in that Religion for which they suffer And if by occasion of this doctrine men will still be charging us with Want of Charity and be resolved to take scandal where none is given we must comfort our selves with that grave and true saying of S. Gregory If scandal (k) S. Greg. Hom. 7. in Ezek. be taken from declaring a truth it is better to permit scandal than forsake the truth But the solid grounds of our Assertion and the sincerity of our intention in uttering what we think yields us confidence that all will hold for most reasonable the saying of Pope Gelasius to Anastasius the Emperor Far be it from the Roman Emperour that he should hold it for a wrong to have truth declared to him Let us therefore begin with that Point which is the first that can be controverted betwixt Protestants and us for as much as concerns the present Question is contained in the Argument of the next ensuing Chap. The ANSWER to the FIRST CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Former Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among men of different opinions and Communions one Side only can be saved AD 1. § Your first onset is very violent D. Potter is charged with malice and indiscretion for being uncharitable to you while he is accusing you of uncharitableness Verily a great fault and folly if the accusation be just if unjust a great Calumny Let us see then how you make good your charge The effect of your discourse if I mistake not is this D. Potter chargeth the Roman Church with many and great Errors judgeth reconciliation between her Doctrine and ours impossible and that for them who are convicted in Conscience of her Errors not to forsake her in them or to be reconciled unto her is damnable Therefore if Romane Catholiques be convicted in Conscience of the Errors of Protestants they may and must judge a reconciliation with them damnable and consequently to judge so is no more uncharitable in them than it is in the Doctor to judge as he doth All this I grant nor would any Protestant accuse you of want of Charity if you went no further if you judged the Religion of Protestants damnable to them only who profess it being convicted in conscience that it is erroneous For if a man judge some act of vertue to be a sin in him it is a sin indeed So you have taught us p. 19. So if you be convinced or rather to speak properly perswaded in conscience that our Religion is erroneous the profession of it though it self most true to you would be damnable This therefore I subscribe very willingly and withall that if you said no more D. Potter and my self should be not to Papists only but even to Protestants as uncharitable as you are For I shall always profess and glory in this uncharitableness of judging hypocrisie a damnable sin Let Hypocrites then and Dissemblers on both sides pass It is not towards them but good Christians not to Protestant Professors but Believers that we require your Charity What think you of those that believe so verily the truth of our Religion that they are resolved to die in it and if occasion were to die for it What Charity have you for them What think ye of those that in the daies of our Fathers laid down their lives for it Are you content that they shall be saved or do you hope they may be so Will you grant that notwithstanding their Errors there is good hope they might die with repentance and if they did so certainly they are saved If you will do so this Controversie is ended No man will hereafter charge you with want of Charity This is as much as either we give you or expect of you while you remain in your Religion But then you must leave abusing silly people with telling them as your fashion is that Protestants confess Papists may be saved but Papists confess not so much of Protestants therefore yours is the safer way and in Wisdom and Charity to our own souls we are bound to follow it For granting this you grant as much hope of salvation to Protestants as Protestants do to you If you will not but will still affirm as Charity Mistaken doth that Protestants not dissemblers but believers without a particular repentance of their Religion cannot be saved This I say is a want of Charity into the society whereof D. Potter cannot be drawn but with palpable and transparent Sophistry For I pray Sir what dependance is there between these Propositions We that hold Protestant Religion false should be damned if we should profess it Therefore they also shall be damned that hold it true Just as if you should conclude Because he that doubts is damned if he eat Therefore he that doth not doubt is damned also if he eat And therefore though your Religion to us and ours to you if professed against Conscience would be damnable yet may it well be uncharitable to define it shall be so to them that profess either this or that according to Conscience This recrimination therefore upon D. Potter wherewith you begin is a plain Fallacy And I fear your proceedings will be answerable to these beginnings 2. Ad § 2. In this Paragraph Protestants are thus far comforted that they are not sent to Hell without Company which the Poet tels us is the miserable comfort of miserable Men. Then we in England are requested not to be offended with the name of Protestants Which is a favour I shall easily grant if by it be understood those that Protest not against Imperial Edicts but against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome 3. Ad § 3 4 5 6. That you give us not over to reprobation That you pray and hope for our salvation if it be a Charity it 's such an one as is common to Turks and Jews and Pagans with us But that which follows is extraordinary neither do I know any man that requires more of you than there you pretend to For there you tell us That when any man esteemed a Protestant dies you do not instantly avouch that he is lodged in Hell Where the word esteemed is ambiguous For it may signifie esteemed truly or esteemed falsly He may be esteemed a Protestant that is so And he may be esteemed a Protestant that is not so And therefore I should have had just occasion to have laid
prohibited All which confirmeth your Majesties grave and learned Censure in your thinking the Geneva translation to be warst of all and that in the Marginal notes annexed to the Geneva translation some are very partial untrue seditious c. Lastly concerning the English translation the Puritans say Our translation of the Psalms comprized in our Book of Common-Prayer doth in addition substraction and alteration differ from the truth of the Hebrew in two hundred places at the least In so much as they do therefore profess to rest doubtful whether a man with a safe conscience may subscribe thereunto And M. Carlile saith of the English translators that they have depraved the sense obscured the truth and deceived the Ignorant that in many places they do detort the Scriptures from the right sense And that they shew themselves to love darkness more than light falshood more than truth And the Ministers of Lincoln-Diocess give their publique testimony terming the English Translation A Translation that taketh away from the Text that addeth to the Text and that sometime to the changing or obscuring of the meaning of the holy Ghost Not without cause therefore did your Majesty affirm that you could never see a Bible well Translated into English Thus farr the Author of the Protestants Apologie c. And I cannot forbear to mention in particular that famous corruption of Luther who in the Text where it is said Rom. 3. v. 28. We account a man to be justified by faith without the works of the Law in favour of Justification by faith alone translateth justified by faith ALONE As likewise the falsification of Zuinglius is no less notorious who in the Gospels of S. Matthew Marke and Luke and in S. Paul in place of This is my Body this is my Bloud translates This signifies my Body this signifies my Bloud And here let Protestants consider duely of these Points Salvation cannot be hoped for without true Faith Faith according to them relies upon Scripture alone Scripture must be delivered to most of them by the Translations Translations depend on the skill and honesty of men in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to err and no greater evidence of truth than that it is evident some of them embrace falshood by reason of their contrary Translations What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them rely upon a fallible and uncertain ground How many poor souls are lamentably seduced while from preaching Ministers they admire a multitude of Texts of divine Scripture but are indeed the false Translations and corruptions of erring men Let them therefore if they will be assured of true Scriptures flye to the alwayes visible Catholique Church against which the gates of hell can never so farr prevail as that she shall be permitted to deceive the Christian world with false Scriptures And Luther himself by unfortunate experience was at length forced to confess thus much saying If the Å¿ Li. cont Zuing. de verit corp Christ in Eucha world last longer it will be again necessary to receive the Decrees of Councels and to have recourse to them by reason of divers interpretations of Scripture which now raign On the contrary side the Translation approved by the Roman-Church is commended even by our Adversaries and D. Covell in particular saith that it was used in the Church one thousand t In his answer unto M. Joha Burges pag. 94. three hundred years ago and doubteth not to prefer u Ibid. that Translation before othâ—rs In so much that whereas the English-Translations be many and among themselves disagreeing he concludeth that of all those the approved Translation authorized by the Church of England is that which cometh nearest to the vulgar and is commonly called the Bishops Bible So that the truth of that Translation which we use must be the rule to judge of the goodness of their Bibles and therefore they are obliged to maintain our Translation if it were but for their own sake 17. But doth indeed the source of their manifold uncertainties stop here No The chiefest difficulty remains concerning the true meaning of Scripture for attaining whereof if Protestants had any certainty they could not disagree so hugely as they do Hence Mr. Hooker saith We are w In his Preface to his Books of Eccl. Politie Sect. 6.26 right sure of this that Nature Scripture and Experience have all taught the woâ—ld to seek for the ending of contentions by submitting it self unto some judicial and definiâ—ive sentence whereunto neither part that contendeth may under any pretence refuse to stand Doctor Fields words are remarkable to this purpose Seeing saith he the Controversies x In his Treatise of the Church in his Epistle dedicatory to the L. Archbishop of Religion in our timâ—s are grown in number so many and in nature to intricate that few have time and leisure fewer strength of understanding to examine them what remaineth for men desirous of satisfaction in things of such consequence but diligently to search out which among all the societies in the world is that blessed company of holy ones that houshold of Faith that Spouse of Christ and Church of the living God which is the Pillar and Ground of Truth that so they may imbrace her Communion follow her Directions and rest in her Judgement 18. And now that the true Interpretation of Scripture ought to be received from the Church it is also proved by what we have already demonstrated that she it is who must declare what Books be true Scripture wherein if she be assisted by the holy Ghost Why should we not believe her to be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of them Let Protestants therefore either bring some proof out of Scripture that the Church is guided by the holy Ghost in discerning true Scripture and not in delivering the true sense thereof Or else give us leave to apply against them the argument which S. Augustine opposed to the Manicheans in these words I would not y Con. Ep. Fund cap. 5. believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying Believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me Do not believe Manicheus Luther Calvin c. Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say Believe the Catholiques They warn me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Catholiques thou shalt not do well in forcing me to the faith of Manicheus because by the Preaching of Catholiques I believed the Gospel it self If thou say You did well to believe them Catholiques commending the Gospel buâ— you did not well to believe them discommending Manicheus Dost thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not And do not Protestants perfectly resemble these men to whom
the Jewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in case of moment as all Points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successively upon several occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently known to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide Controversies in Religion That sometime Churches had one Judge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or years as new Canonical Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of Faith or Judge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in God's Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibility either to write new Canonical Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent Heresies or Infallibility to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistance of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soul is h De test aniâ— cap. 5. before the letter and speech before Books and sense before style Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or substraction from the former power and infallibility of the Church would have brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost than gained by holy Scripture which ought to be farr from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies Infallibility setled in a living Judge is incomparably more useful and fit than if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility of the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milk of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted Fountain If Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibility went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in Points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of Infallibility in some Points and not in others He affirmeth that the Jewish Synagogue retained infallibility in herself notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly deprive the Church of Christ of Infallibility by reason of the New Testament Especially if we consider that in the Old Testament Laws Ceremonies Rites Punishments Judgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Jews than in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of Infallibility more than the Jewish Synagogue D. Potter i Pag. 24. against this argument drawn from the power and infallibility of the Synagogue objects That we might as well inserr that Christians must have one Soveraign Prince over all because the Jews had one chief Judge But the disparity is very clear The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ not so their civil Government of Christian Common-wealths or Kingdoms The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Jewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or k Heb. 13. family to an l Cant. 2. Army to a m 1 Cor. 10. Ephes 4. body to a n Mat. 12. kingdom c. all which require one Master one General one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fict Unum ovile o Joan. c. 10. joyned Unus Pastor One Sheepsold One Pastour But all distinct Kingdoms or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to Salvation that all have recourse to one Church but for temporal weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporal Prince Kingdom or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas Kingdoms have their several Laws different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Jews there was one Power and Judge to end debates and resolve difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24. This Discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus p Lib. 5. c. 4. in these words What if the Apostles had not lest Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without letters or lake and diligent keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receive the truth from God's Church seeing the Apostles have most fully deposited in her as in a rich store-house all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought we not to have recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receive what is certain and clear concerning the present question 25. Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in interpreting Scripture or they have not If not then the Scripâ—ure to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrin they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26. Lastly I ask D. Potter Whether â—his Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a fundamental Point of Faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a Fundamental Point For he will have against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it
we say is this that we have reason to believe that God de facto hath ordered the matter so that all the Gospel of Christ the whole Covenant between God and man is now written Whereas if he had pleased he might so have disposed it that part might have been written and part unwritten but then he would have taken order to whom we should have had recourse for that part of it which was not written which seeing he hath not done as the progresse shall demonstrate it is evident he hath left no part of it unwritten We know no man therefore that sayes It were any injury to the written Word to be joyned with the unwritten if there were any wherewith it might be joyned but that we deny The fidelity of a keeper may very well consist with the authority of the thing committed to his custody But we know no one society of Christians that is such a faithfull keeper as you pretend The Scripture it self was not kept so faithfully by you but that you suffered infinite variety of Readings to creep into it all which could not possibly be divine and yet in several parts of your Church all of them until the last Age were so esteemed The interpretations of obscure places of Scripture which without Question the Apostles taught the Primitive Christians are wholly lost there remains no certainty scarce of any one Those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were not written for want of writing are vanished out of the memory of men And many profitable things which the Apostles taught and writ not as that which S. Paul glanceth at in his second Epistle to the Thessal of the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist are wholly lost and extinguished So unfaithful or negligent hath been this Keeper of Divine Verities whose eyes like the Keepers of Israel you say have never slumbred nor slept Lastly we deny not but a Judge and a Law might well stand together but we deny that there is any such Judge of Gods appointment Had he intended any such Judge he would have named him lest otherwise as now it is our Judge of Controversies should be our greatest Controversie 11. Ad § 2 3 4 5 6. In your second Paragraph you sum up those Arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies Wherein I profess unto you before hand that you will fight without an Adversary For though Protestants being warranted by some of the Fathers have called Scripture the Judge of Controversie and you in saying here That Scripture alone cannot be Judge imply that it may be called in some sense a Judge though not alone Yet to speak properly as men should speak when they write of Controversies in Religion the Scripture is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule only and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by Every man is to judge for himself with the Judgement of Discretion and to choose either his Religion first and then his Church as we say or as you his Church first and then his Religion But by the consent of both sides every man is to judge and choose and the Rule whereby he is to guide his choice if he be a natural man is Reason if he be already a Christian Scripture which we say is the Rule to judge Controversies by Yet not all simply but all the Controversies of Christians of those that are already agreed upon This first Principle that the Scripture is the Word of God But that there is any Man or any Company of men appointed to be Judge for all man that we deny and that I believe you will never prove The very truth is we say no more in this matter than evidence of Truth hath made you confess in plain terms in the beginning of this Chapter viz. That Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith for as much as a writing can be a Rule So that all your Reasons whereby you labour to dethrone the Scripture from this Office of Judging we might let pass as impertinent to the Conclusion which we maintain and you have already granted yet out of courtesie we will consider them 12. Your first is this A Judge must be a person fit to end Controversies but the Scripture is not a person nor fit to end Controversies no more than the Law would be without the Judges therefore though it may be a Rule it cannot be a Judge Which conclusion I have already granted Only my request is that you will permit Scripture to have the properties of a Rule that is to be fit to direct every one that will make the best use of it to that end for which it was ordained And that is as much as we need desire For as if I were to go a journey and had a guide which could not err I needed not to know my way so on the other side if I know my way or have a plain rule to know it by I shall need no guide Grant therefore Scripture to be such a Rule and it will quickly take away all necessity of having an infallible guide But without a living Judge it will be no fitter you say to end Controversies than the Law alone to end suits I answer if the Law were plain and perfect and men honest and desirous to understand aright and obey it he that says it were not fit to end Controversies must either want understanding himself or think the world wants it Now the Scripture we pretend in things necessary is plain and perfect and men we say are obliged under pain of Damnation to seek the true sense of it and not to wrest it to their preconceived Fancies Such a law therefore to such men cannot but be very fit to end all Controversies necessary to be ended For others that are not so they will end when the world ends and that is time enough 13. Your next encounter is with them who acknowledging the Scripture a Rule only and not a Judge make the holy Ghost speaking in Scriture the Judge of Controversies Which you disprove by saying That the holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us than the Scripture in which he speaks But by this reason neither the Pope nor a Councel can be a Judge neither For first denying the Scriptures the writings of the holy Ghost to be Judges you will not I hope offer to pretend that their Decrees the writings of men are more capable of this function the same exceptions at least if not more and greater lying against them as do against Scripture And then what you object against the holy Ghost speaking in Scripture to exclude him from this office The same I return upon them and their Decrees to debar them from it that they speaking unto us only in their Decrees are no more intelligible than the Decrees in which they speak And therefore if the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture may not be a Judge
his malice had caused And besides it were to say that Infants dying without Baptism might be saved God supplying the want of Baptism which to them is unavoidable But beyond all this it were to put into my mouth a full and satisfying Answer to your Argument which I am now returning so that in answering my Objection you should answer your own For then I should tell you that it were altogether as abhorrent from the goodness of God and as repugnant to it to suffer an ignorant Lay-man's soul to perish meerly for being misled by an undiscernable false Translation which yet was commended to him by the Church which being of necessity to credit some in this matter he had reason to relie upon either above all other or as much as any other as it is to damn a penitent sinner for a secret defect in that desired Absolution which his Ghostly Father perhaps was an Atheist and could not give him or was a villain and would not This answer therefore which alone would serve to comfort your penitent in his perplexities and to assure him that he cannot fail of Salvation if he will not for fear of inconvenience you must forbear And seeing you must I hope you will come down from the Pulpit and preach no more against others for making mens Salvation depend upon fallible and uncertain grounds lest by judging others you make your selves and your own Church inexcusable who are strongly guilty of this fault above all the men and Churches of the World whereof I have already given you two very pregnant demonstrations drawn from your presumptuous tying God and Salvation to your Sacraments And the efficacy of them to your Priest's Qualifications and Intentions 69. Your making the Salvation of Infants depend on Baptism a Casual thing and in the power of man to conferre or not conferre would yield me a Third of the same nature And your suspending the same on the Baptizer's Intention a Fourth And lastly your making the Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist depend upon the casualties of the Consecrator's true Priesthood and Intention and yet commanding men to believe it for certain that he is present and to adore the Sacrament which according to your Doctrine for ought they can possibly know may be nothing else but a piece of Bread so exposing them to the danger of Idolatry and consequently of damnation doth offer me a Fifth demonstration of the same Conclusion if I thought fit to insist upon them But I have no mind to draw any more out of this Fountain neither do I think it charity to cloy the Reader with uniformity when the Subject affords variety 70. Sixthly therefore I return it thus The faith of Papists relies alone upon their Churche's infallibility That there is any Church infallible and that Theirs is it they pretend not to believe but only upon prudential Motives Dependance upon prudential Motives they confess to be obnoxious to a possibility of erring What then remaineth but Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 71. Seventhly The Faith of Papists relies upon the Church alone The Doctrine of the Church is delivered to most of them by their Parish-Priest or Ghostly Father or at least by a company of Priests who for the most part sure are men and not Angels in whom nothing is more certain than a most certain possibility to err What then remaineth but that Truth Faith Salvation and All must in them relie upon a fallible and uncertain ground 72. Eighthly thus It is apparent and undeniable that many Thousands there are who believe your Religion upon no better grounds than a man may have for the belief almost of any Religion As some believe it because their Forefathers did so and they were good People Some because they were Christened and brought up in it Some because many Learned and Religious men are of it Some because it is the Religion of their Countrey where all other Religions are persecuted and proscribed Some because Protestants cannot shew a perpetual succession of Professors of all their Doctrines Some because the service of your Church is more stately and pompous and magnificent Some because they find comfort in it Some because your Religion is farther spread and hath more Professors of it than the Religion of Protestants Some because your Priests compass Sea and Land to gain Proselytes to it Lastly an infinite number by chance and they know not why but only because they are sure they are in the right This which I say is a most certain experimented truth and if you will deal ingenuously you will not deny it And without question he that builds his faith upon our English Translation goes upon a more prudent ground than any of these can with reason be pretended to be What then can you alledge but that with you father than with us Truth and Faith and Salvation and All relie upon fallible and uncertain grounds 73. Ninthly Your Rhemish and Doway Translations are delivered to your Proselytes such I mean that are dispenced with for the reading of them for the direction of their Faith and Lives And the same may be said of your Translations of the Bible into other National languages in respect of those that are licenced to read them This I presume you will confess And moreover that these Translations came not by inspiration but were the productions of humane Industry and that not Angels but men were the Authors of them Men I say meer men subject to the same passions and to the same possibility of erring with our Translators And then how does it not unavoidably follow that in them which depend upon these Translations for their direction Faith and Truth and Salvation and All relies upon fallible and uncertain grounds 74. Tenthly and lastly to lay the ax to the root of the tree the Helena which you so fight for your vulgar Translation though some of you believe or pretend to believe it to be in every part and particle of it the pure and uncorupted Word of God yet others among you and those as good and zealous Catholiques as you are not so confident hereof 75. First for all those who have made Translations of the whole Bible or any part of it different many times in sense from the Vulgar as Lyranus Cajetan Pagnine Arias Erasmus Valla Steuchus and others it is apparent and even palpable that they never dreamt of any absolute perfection and authentical infallibility of the Vulgar Translation For if they had Why did they in many places reject it and differ from it 76. Vega was present at the Councel of Trent when that Decree was made which made the Vulgar Edition then not extant any where in the world authentical and not to be rejected upon any pretence whatsoever At the forming this Decree Vega I say was present understood the mind of the Councel as well as any man and professes that he was instructed in it
the Holy Ghost be irresistible and you are not yet so moved to go about this work then I confess you are excused But then I would know Whether those Popes which so long deferred the calling of a Councel for the Reformation of your Church at length pretended to be effected by the Councel of Trent whether they may excuse themselves for that they were not moved by the Holy Ghost to do it I would know likewise as this motion is irresistible when it comes so whether it be so simply necessary to the moving of your Church to any such publique Action that it cannot possibly move without it That is Whether the Pope now could not if he would seat himself in Cathedra and fall to writing Expositions upon the Bible for the direction of Christians to the true sense of it If you say He cannot you will make your self ridiculous If he can then I would know Whether he should be infallibly directed in these Expositions or no If he should then what need he to stay for irresisible motion Why does he not go about this noble work presently If he should not How shall we know that the calling of the Councel of Trent was not upon his own voluntary motion or upon humane importunity and suggestion and not upon the motion of the Holy Ghost And consequently How shall we know whether he were assistant to it or no seeing He assists none but what He himself moves to And whether He did move the Pope to call this Councel is a secret thing which we cannot possibly know nor perhaps the Pope himself 96. If you say your meaning is only That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infallibly assisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question Why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or Why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Books be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghost's assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all Errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot do this without taking away their freewill in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their free-will in believing and in professing their belief 97. To the place of S. Austin I answer That not the Authority of the present Church much less of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone moved S. Austin to believe the Gospel but the perpetual Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your self have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is proved and which it self needs no proof and to which you have referred this very Saying of Saint Austin Ego verò Evangelio non crederem nisi c. Chap. 2. § 14. And in the next place which you cite out of his Book De Util. Cred. c. 14. he shews That his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospel therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to dis-believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Universal and Original Tradition lies against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may do well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names instead of Manichaeus unless you can shew the thing agrees to them as well as him 98. If you say that S. Austin speaks here of the authority of the present Church abstracted from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99. I answer First That it is a vain presumption of yours that the Catholique Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austin speak here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it and its both Personal and Doctrinal succession from the Apostles his Argument will be like a Buskin that will serve any leg It will serve to keep an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholique as well as a Catholique from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the title of Catholiques and The Church as much as the Papists now do If then you should have come to an ancient Goth or Vandal whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should have moved him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying Believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me Do not believe the Homo-ousians Chuse what thou pleasest If thou shalt say Believe the Arrians they warn me not to give any credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say Do not believe the Arrians thou shalt not do well to force me to the faith of the Homo-ousians because by the preaching of the Arrians I believed the Gospel it self If you say You did well to believe them commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending the Homo-ousians Dost thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethink your selves What you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 100. Whereas you ask Whether Protestants do not perfectly resemble those men to whom S. Austin spake when they will have men to believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture but not to believe her condemning Luther I demand again Whether you be well in your wits to say that Protestants would have men believe the Roman Church delivering Scripture whereas they accuse her to deliver many Books for Scripture which are not so and do not bid men to receive any Book which
reason If you do why do you condemn it in others If you do not I pray you tell me what direction you follow or whether you follow none at all If none at all this is like drawing Lots or throwing the Dice for the choice of a Religion If any other I beseech you tell me what it is Perhaps you will say the Churches Authority and that will be to dance finely in a round thus To believe the Churches infallible Authority because the Scriptures avouch it and to believe that Scriptures say and mean so because they are so expounded by the Church Is not this for a Father to beget his Son and the Son to beget his Father For a foundation to support the house and the house to support the foundation Would not Campian have cryed out at it Ecce quos gyros quos Maeandros And to what end was this going about when you might as well at first have concluded the Church infallible because she sayes so as thus to put in Scripture for a meer stale and to say the Church is infallible because the Scripture sayes so and the Scripture means so because the Church sayes so which is infallible Is it not most evident therefore to every intelligent man that you are enforced of necessity to do that your self which so tragically you declaim against in others The Church you say is infallible I am very doubtful of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirms it as in the 59. of Esay My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confess I find there these words but I am still doubtful whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ and if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begg'd but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proof otherwise why brought you this Text to prove it Nor is it of such a strange quality above all other Propositions as to be able to prove it self What then remains but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But reasons cannot convince me unless I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to rely on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurdity and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire me to make use of it 119. But Universal Tradition you say and so do I too is of it self credible and that hath in all ages taught the Churche's Infallibility with full consent If it have I am ready to believe it But that it hath I hope you would not have me take upon your word for that were to build my self upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appear for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrin as Gualterius in his Chronologie undertakes to do but with so ill success that I heard an able Man of your Religion profess that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places have indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500. years after Christ that does say in plain termes The Church of Rome is infallible What shall we believe your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to go into the Circle which made us giddy before To prove the Church Infallible because Tradition saies so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church saies so which is infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shews nothing to the blind or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot prove any thing to him that either hath not or useth not his reason to Judge of them 120. Thus you have excluded your self from all proof of your Churches Infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you flie lastly to Reason it self for succour may not it justly say to you as Iephte said to his Bretheren Ye have cast me out and banished me and do you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you alledge for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not If not why do you propose them If I may why do you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choice of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to have been the chiefest end why Reason was given them 121. Ad § 22. An Heretique he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a divine revelation he is convinced in conscience by any means whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe Propounders of Faith A most strange and illogical deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrin is divine Revelation and yet though he be a true Propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proof and consequently not be a safe Propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men divine Revelations and do they not sometimes convince men in conscience by evident proof from Scripture that the things they speak are divine Revelations And whosoever being thus convinced should oppose this divine Revelation should he not be an Heretique according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your self well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the means of Proposal what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the discourse of the Devil himself yet if I be I will not say convinced but perswaded though falsly that it is a divine Revelation and shall deny to believe it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretique For he that believes though falsly any thing to be a divine Revelation and yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrin is the formality of an Heretique
doubt of it among Christians than there is of the Nativity Passion Resurrection or Ascension of Christ You were best now rubb your forehead hard and conclude upon us that because this would have been so useful to have been done therefore it is done Or if you be as I know you are too ingenuous to say so then must you acknowledge that the ground of your Argument which is the very ground of all these absurdities is most absurd and that it is our duty to be humbly thankful for those sufficient nay abundant means of Salvation which God hath of his own goodness granted us and not conclude he hath done that which he hath not done because forsooth in our vain judgments it seems convenient he should have done so 137. But you demand What repugnance there is betwixt infallibility in the Church and existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Out of which words I can frame no other Argument for you than this There is no Repugnance between the Scripture's existence and the Churche's infallibility therefore the Church is infallible Which consequence will then be good when you can shew that nothing can be untrue but that only which is impossible that whatsoever may be done that also is done Which if it were true would conclude both you and me to be infallible as well as either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scripture's existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides Certainly if your cause were good so great a Wit as yours is would devise better Arguments to maintain it We can shew no Scripture affirming Infallibility to have gone out of the Church therefore it is Infallible Somewhat like his discourse that said It could not be proved out of Scripture that the King of Sweden was dead therefore he is still living Me-thinks in all reason you that challenge priviledges and exemption from the condition of Men which is to be subject to errour You that by vertue of this priviledge usurp authority over mens consciences should produce your Letters Patents from the King of Heaven and shew some express warrant for this Authority you take upon you otherwise you know the rule is Ubi contrarium non manifestè probatur praesumitur pro libertate 139. But D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the Truth the Sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to salvation Still your discourse is so far from hitting the White that it roves quite besides the Butt You conclude that the infallibility of the Church may well agree with the Truth the Sanctity the Sufficiency of Scripture But what is this but to abuse your Reader with the proof of that which no man denies The Question is not Whether an infallible Church might agree with Scripture but whether there be an Infallible Church Jam dic Posthume de tribus Capellis Besides you must know there is a wide difference between being infallible in Fundamentals and being an infallible Guide even in Fundamentals D. Potter says that the Church is the former that is There shall be some men in the world while the world lasts which err not in Fundamentals for otherwise there should be no Church For to say the Church while it is the Church may err in Fundamentals implies contradiction and is all one as to say The Church while it is the Church may not be the Church So that to say that the Church is infallible in Fundamentals signifies no more but this There shall be a Church in the world for ever But we utterly deny the Church to be the latter for to say so were to oblige our selves to find some certain Society of men of whom we might be certain that they neither do nor can err in Fundamentals nor in declaring what is Fundamental what is not Fundamental and consequently to make any Church an infallible Guide in Fundamentals would be to make it infallible in all things which she proposes and requires to be believed This therefore we deny both to your and all other Churches of any one denomination as the Greek the Roman the Abyssine that is indeed we deny it simply to any Church For no Church can possibly be fit to be a Guide but only a Church of some certain denomination For otherwise no man can possibly know which is the true Church but by a pre-examination of the Doctrine controverted and that were not to be guided by the Church to the true doctrin but by the true doctrin to the Church Hereafter therefore when you hear Protestants say The Church is Infallible in Fundamentals you must not conceive them as if they meant as you do that some Society of Christians which may be known by adhering to some one Head for example the Pope or the Bishop of Constantinople is infallible in these things but only thus That true Religion shall never be so far driven out of the world but that it shall have always some where or other some that believe and profess it in all things necessary to salvation 140. But You would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagines that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of infallibility in some points and not in others And I also would gladly know Why you do thus frame to your self vain imaginations and then father them upon others We yield unto you That there shall be a Church which never erreth in some points because as we conceive God hath promised so much but not there shall be such a Church which doth or can err in no points because we find not that God hath promised such a Church and therefore we may not promise such a one to our selves But for the Churches being deprived by the Scripture of Infallibility in some points and not in others that is a wild notion of your own which we have nothing to do with 141. But he affirmeth
first you content not your selves with a moral certainty of the things you believe nor with such a degree of assurance of them as is sufficient to produce obedience to the condition of the new Covenant which is all that we require God's Spirit if he please may work more a certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence But neither God doth nor man may require of us as our duty to give a greater assent to the conclusion than the premisses deserve to build an Infallible Faith upon Motives that are only highly credible and not infallible as it were a great and heavy building upon a foundation that hath not strength proportionable But though God require not of us such unreasonable things You do and tell men They cannot be saved unless they believe your Proposals with an infallible Faith To which end they must believe also your Propounder your Church to be simply Infallible Now how is it possible for them to give a rational assent to the Churches infallibility unless they have some infallible means to know that she is infallible Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility of this means but by some other and so on for ever unless they can dig so deep as to come at length to the Rock that is to settle all upon something evident of it self which is not so much as pretended But the last resolution of all is into Motives which indeed upon examination will scarce appear probable but are not so much as avouched to be any more than very credible For example if I ask you Why you do believe Transubstantiation What can you answer but because it is a Revelation of the Prime Verity I demand again How can you assure your self or me of that being ready to embrace it if it may appear to be so And what can you say but that you know it to be so because the Church says so which is infallible If I ask What mean you by your Church You can tell me nothing but the company of Christians which adhere to the Pope I demand then further Why should I believe this company to be the infallible Propounder of Divine Revelation And then you tell me that there are many Motives to induce a man to this belief But are these Motives lastly infallible No say you but very credible Well let them pass for such because now we have not leisure to examine them Yet methinks seeing the Motives to believe the Churches infallibility are only very credible it should also be but as credible that your Church is Infallible and as credible and no more perhaps somewhat less that her proposals particularly Transubstantiation are Divine Revelations And me-thinks you should require only a Moral and modest assent to them and not a Divine as you call it and infallible Faith But then of these Motives to the Churches Infallibility I hope you will give us leave to consider and judge whether they be indeed Motives and sufficient or whether they be not Motives at all or not sufficient or whether these Motives or inducements to your Church be not impeached and opposed with Compulsives and enforcements from it or lastly Whether these Motives which You use be not indeed only Motives to Christianity and not to Popery give me leave for distinction-sake to call your Religion so If we may not judge of these things How can my judgment be moved with that which comes not within its cognizance If I may then at least I am to be a Judg of all these Controversies 1. Whether every one of these Motives be indeed a Motive to any Church 2. If to some whether to Your 3. If to Yours whether sufficient or insufficient 4. Whether other Societies have not as many and as great Motives to draw me to them 5. Whether I have not greater reason to believe you do err than that you cannot And now Sir I pray let me trouble You with a few more Questions Am I a sufficient Judge of these Controversies or no If of these why shall I stay here why not of others Why not of all Nay doth not the true examining of these few contain and lay upon me the examination of all What other Motives to your Church have you but your Notes of it Bellarmine gives some 14. or 15. And one of these fifteen contains in it the examination of all Controversies and not only so but of all uncontroverted Doctrines For how shall I or can I know the Church of Rome's conformity with the Ancient Church unless I know first what the Ancient Church did hold and then what the Church of Rome doth hold and lastly whether they be conformable or if in my judgment they seem not conformable I am then to think the Church of Rome not to be the Church for want of the Note which she pretends is proper and perpetual to it So that for ought I can see Judges we are and must be of all sides every one for himself and God for us all 155. Ad § 26. I answer This Assertion that Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith if it be taken properly is neither a Fundamental nor Unfundamental point of Faith nor no point of Faith at all but a plain falshood It is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge them by and that not an absolutely perfect Rule but as perfect as a written Rule can be which must always need something else which is either evidently true or evidently credible to give attestation to it and that in this case is Universal Tradition So that Universal Tradition is the Rule to judge all Controversies by But then because nothing besides Scripture comes to us with as full a stream of Tradition as Scripture Scripture alone and no unwritten Doctrin nor no Infallibility of any Church having attestation from Tradition truly Universal for this reason we conceive as the Apostles persons while they were living were the only Judges of Controversies so their Writings now they are dead are the only Rule for us to judge them by There being nothing unwritten which can go in upon half so fair cards for the Title of Apostolike Tradition as these things which by the confession of both Sides are not so I mean the Doctrine of the Millenaries and of the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants 156. Yet when we say The Scripture is the only Rule to judge all Controversies by me-thinks you should easily conceive that we would be understood of all those that are possible to be judged by Scripture and of those that arise among such as believe the Scripture For if I had a Controversie with an Atheist whether there were a God or no I would not say that the Scripture were a Rule to judge this by seeing that doubting whether there be a God or no he must needs doubt whether the Scripture be the Word of God or if he does not he grants the Question and is not the man we speak of
So likewise if I had a Controversie about the Truth of Christ with a Jew it would be vainly done of me should I press him with the Authority of the New Testament which he believes not until out of some principles common to us both I had perswaded him that it is the Word of God The New Testament therefore while he remains a Jew would not be a fit Rule to decide this Controversie in as much as that which is doubted of it self is not fit to determine other doubts So likewise if there were any that believed Christian Religion and yet believed not the Bible to be the Word of God though they believed the matter of it to be true which is no impossible supposition for I may believe a Book S. Austin's to contain nothing but the Truth of God and yet not to have been inspired by God himself against such men therefore there were no disputing out of the Bible because nothing in question can be a proof to it self When therefore we say Scripture is a sufficient means to determine all Controversies we say not this either to Atheists Jews Turks or such Christians if there be any such as believe not Scripture to be the Word of God But among such men only as are already agreed upon this that the Scripture is the Word of God we say All Controversies that arise about Faith are either not at all decidable and consequently not necessary to be believed one way or other or they may be determined by Scripture In a word That all things necessary to be believed are evidently contained in Scripture and what is not there evidently contained cannot be necessary to be believed And our reason hereof is convincing because nothing can challenge our belief but what hath descended to us from Christ by Original and Universal Tradition Now nothing but Scripture hath thus descended to us Therefore nothing but Scripture can challenge our belief Now then to come up closer to you and to answer to your Question not as you put it but as you should have put it I say That this Position Scripture alone is the Rule whereby they which believe it to be God's Word are to judge all Controversies in Faith is no fundamental point Though not for your Reasons For your first and strongest reason you see is plainly voided and cut off by my stating of the Question as I have done and supposing in it that the parties at variance are agreed about this That the Scripture is the Word of God and consequently that this is none of their Controversies To your second That Controversies cannot be ended without some living Authority We have said already that Necessary Controversies may be and are decided And if they be not ended this is not through defect of the Rule but through the default of Men. And for these that cannot thus be ended it is not necessary they should be ended For if God did require the ending of them he would have provided some certain means for the ending of them And to your Third I say that Your pretence of using these means is but hypocritical for you use them with prejudice and with a setled resolution not to believe any thing which these means happily may suggest into you if it any way cross your pre-conceived perswasion of your Churche's Infallibility You give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of them nor suffer your selves to be led by them to the Truth to which they would lead you would you but be as willing to believe this Consequence Our Church doth oppose Scripture therefore it doth err therefore it is not infallible as you are resolute to believe this The Church is infallible therefore it doth not err and therefore it doth not oppose Scripture though it seem to do so never so plainly 157. You pray but it is not that God would bring you to the true Religion but that he would confirm you in your own Youconferr places but it is that you may confirm or colour over with plausible disguises your erroneous doctrin not that you may judge of them and forsake them if there be reason for it You consult the Originals but you regard them not when they make against your Doctrin or Translation 158. You add not only the Authority but the Infallibility not of God's Church but of the Roman a very corrupt and degenerous part of it whereof D. Potter never confessed that it cannot err damnably And which being a company made up of particular men can afford you no help but the industry learning and wit of private men and that these helps may not help you out of your errour tell you that you must make use of none of all these to discover any error in the Church but only to maintain her impossibility of erring And lastly D. Potter assures himself that your Doctrine and Practices are damnable enough in themselves Only he hopes and spes est rei inceriae nomen he hopes I say that the Truths which you retain especially the necessity of repentance and faith in Christ will be as an Antidote to you against the errors which you maintain and that your superstruction may burn yet they amongst you qui sequuntur Absalonem in simplicitate cordis may be saved yet so as by fire Yet his thinking so is no reason for you or me to think so unless you suppose him infallible and if you do Why do you write against him 159. Notwithstanding though not for these reasons yet for others I conceive this Doctrine not Fundamental Because if a man should believe Christian Religion wholely and entirely and live according to it such a man though he should not know or not believe the Scripture to be a Rule of Faith no nor to be the Word of God my opinion is he may be saved and my reason is because he performs the entire condition of the new Covenant which is that we believe the matter of the Gospel and not that it is contained in these or these Books So that the Books of Scripture are not so much the Objects of our faith as the instruments of conveying it to our understanding and not so much of the being of the Christian Doctrin as requisite to the wel-being of it Irenaeus tells us as M. K. acknowledgeth of some barbarous Nations that believed the Doctrine of Christ and yet believed not the Scripture to be the Word of God for they never heard of it and Faith comes by hearing But these barbarous people might be saved Therefore men might be saved without believing the Scripture to be the Word of God much more without believing it to be a Rule and a perfect Rule of Faith Neither doubt I but if the Books of Scripture had been proposed to them by the other parts of the Church where they had been before received and had been doubted of or even rejected by those barbarous Nations but still by the bare belief and practice of Christianity
points of Faith and to guard us from all pernitious Error 81. If yet you be not satisfied but will still pretend that all these words by you cited seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally Infallible without which Unity of Faith could not be conserved against every wind of Doctrin I answer That to you which will not understand that there can be any means to conserve the Unity of Faith but only that which conserves your Authority over the Faithful it is no marvel that these words seem to prove that the Church nay that your Church is universally infallible But we that have no such end no such desires but are willing to leave all men to their liberty provided they will not improve it to a Tyranny over others we find it no difficulty to discern between dedit and promisit he gave at his Ascension and he promised to the worlds end Besides though you whom it concernes may haply flatter your selves that you have not only Pastors and Doctors but Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists and those distinct from the former still in your Church yet we that are disinteressed persons cannot but smile at these strange imaginations Lastly though you are apt to think your selves such necessary instruments for all good purposes and that nothing can be well done unless you do it that no unity or constancy in Religion can be maintained but inevitably Christendom must fall to ruin and confusion unless you support it yet we that are indifferent and impartial and well content that God should give us his own favours by means of his own appointment not of our choosing can easily collect out of these very words that not the Infallibility of your or of any Church but the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists c. which Christ gave upon his Ascension were designed by him for the compassing all these excellent purposes by their preaching while they lived and by their writings for ever And if they faile hereof the Reason is not any insufficiency or invalidity in the means but the voluntary perversness of the subjects they have to deal with who if they would be themselves and be content that others should be in the choice of their Religion the servants of God and not of men if they would allow that the way to heaven is no narrower now then Christ left it his yoak no heavier then he made it that the belief of no more difficulties is required now to Salvation than was in the Primitive Church that no error is in it self destructive and exclusive from Salvation now which was not then if instead of being zealous Papists earnest Calvinists rigid Lutherans they would become themselves and be content that others should be plain and honest Christians if all men would believe the Scripture and freeing themselves from prejudice and passion would sincerely endeavour to finde the true sense of it and live according to it and require no more of others but to do so nor denying their Communion to any that do so would so order their publique service of God that all which do so may without scruple or hypocrisie or protestation against any part of it joyn with them in it who doth not see that seeing as we suppose here and shall prove hereafter all necessary truths are plainly and evidently set down Scripture there would of necessity be among all men in all things necessary Unity of Opinion And notwithstanding any other differences that are or could he Unity of Communion and Charity and mutual toleration By which means all Schism and Heresie would be banished the world and those wretched contentions which now read and tear in pieces not the coat but the members and bowels of Christ which mutual pride and Tyrannie and cursing and killing and damning would fain make immortal should speedily receive a most blessed catastrophe But of this hereafter when we shall come to the Question of Schism wherein I perswade my self that I shall plainly shew that the most vehement accusers are the greatest offenders and that they are indeed at this time the greatest Schismatiques who make the way to heaven narrower the yoak of Christ heavier the differences of Faith greater the conditions of Ecclesiasticall Communion harder and stricter then they were made at the beginning by Christ and his Apostles they who talk of Unity but ayme at Tyraunie and will have peace with none but with their slaves and vassals In the mean while though I have shewed how Unity of Faith and Unity of Charity too may be preserved without your Churches Infallibility yet seeing you modestly conclude from hence not that your Church is but only seems to be universally infallible meaning to your self of which you are a better Judge than I Therefore I willingly grant your Conclusion and proceed 83. Whereas you say That D. Potter limits those promises and priviledges to Fundamental points The truth is with some of them he meddles not at all neither doth his adversary give him occasion Not with those out of the Epistle to Timothy and to the Ephesians To the rest he gives other answer besides this 83. But the words of Scripture by you alleadged are Universal and mention no such restraint to Fundamentals as D. Potter applies to them I answer That of the five Texts which you alleadge four are indefinite and only one universal and that you confess is to be restrained and are offended with D. Potter for going about to prove it And Whereas you say they mention no restraint intimating that therefore they are not to be restrained I tell you This is no good consequence for it may appear out of the matter and circumstances that they are to be understood in a restrained sense notwithstanding no restraint be mentioned That place quoted by S. Paul and applyed by him to our Saviour He hath put all things under his feet mentions no exception yet S. Paul tels us not only that it is true or certain but it is manifest that He is excepted which did put all things under him 84. But your interpretation is better than D. Potters because it is literal I answer His is Literal as well as yours and you are mistaken if you think a restrained sense may not be a literal sense for to Restrained Literal is not opposed but unlimited or absolute and to Literal is not oppos'd Restrained but Figurative 85. Wheras you say D. Potters Bretheren rejecting his limitation restrain the mentioned Texts to the Apostles implying hereby a contrariety between them and him I answer So doth D. Potter restrain all of them which he speaks of in the pages by you quoted to the Apostles in the direct and primary sense of the words Though he tels you there the words in a more restrained sense are true being understood of the Church Universal 86. As for your pretence That to find the meaning of those places you confer divers Texts you consult Originals you examine Translations and use all
the means by Protestants appointed I have told you before that all this is vain and hypocritical if as your manner and your doctrin is you give not your selves liberty of judgment in the use of these means if you make not your selves Judges of but only Advocates for the Doctrin of your Church refusing to see what these means shew you if it any way make against the Doctrin of your Church though it be as clear as the light at noon Remove Prejudice eaven the Ballance and hold it eaven make it indifferent to you which way you go to heaven so you go the true which Religion be true so you be of it then use the means and pray for Gods assistance and as sure as God is true you shall be lead into all necessary Truth 87. Whereas you say you neither do nor have any possible means to agree as long as you are left to your selves The first is very true That while you differ you do not agree But for the second That you have no possible means of agreement as long as you are left to your selves i. e. to your own reasons and judgment this sure is very false neither do you offer any proof of it unless you intended this that you do not agree for a proof that you cannot which sure is no good consequence not halfe so good as this which I oppose against it D. Potter and I by the use of these means by you mentioned do agree concerning the sense of these places therefore there is a possible means of agreement and therefore you also if you would use the same means with the same minds might agree so far as it is necessary and it is not necessary that you should agree farther Or if there be no possible means to agree about the sense of these Texts whilst we are left to our selves then sure it is impossible that we should agree in your sense of them which was That the Church is universally infallible For if it were possible for us to agree in this sense of them then it were possible for us to agree And why then said you of the self same Texts but in the page next before These words seem clearly enough to prove that the Church is Universally infallible A strange forgetfulness that the same man almost in the same breath should say of the same words They seem cleerly enough to prove such a Conclusion true and yet that three indifferent men all presum'd to be lovers of Truth and industrious searchers of it should have no possible means while they follow their own reason to agree in the Truth of this Conclusion 88. Whereas you say that It were great impiety to imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no certain infallible means to decide both this and all o'her differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion I desire you to take heed you commit not an impiety in making more impieties than Gods Commandements make Certainly God is no way oblig'd either by his Promise or his Love to give us all things that we may imagine would be convenient for us as formerly I have proved at large It is sufficient that he denyes us nothing necessary to Salvation Deus non deficit in necessariis nee redundat in superfluis So D. Stapleton But that the ending of all Controversies or having a certain means of ending them is necessary to Salvation that you have often said and suppos'd but never proved though it be the main pillar of your whole discourse So little care you take how slight your Foundations are so your Building make a fair shew And as little care how you commit those faults your self which you condemn in others For you here charge them with great impiety who imagine that God the lover of Souls hath left no infallible means to determine all differences arising about the interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion And yet afterwards being demanded by D. Potter Why the Questions between the Jesuits and Dominicans remain undetermined You return him this cross Interrogatory Who hath assured you that the Point wherein these learned men differ is a revealed Truth or capable of definition or is not rather by plain Scripture indeterminable or by any Rule of Faith So then when you say It were great impiety to imagine that God hath not left infallible means to decide all differences I may answer It seems you do not believe your self For in this Controversie which is of as high consequence as any can be you seem to be doubtful whether there be any means to determine it On the other side when you ask D. Potter Who assured him that there is any means to determine this Controversie I answer for him that you have in calling it a great impiety to imagine that there is not some infallible means to decide this and all other differences arising about the Interpretation of Scripture or upon any other occasion For what trick you can devise to shew that this difference between the Dominicans and Jesuits which includes a difference about the sense of many texts of Scripture and many other matters of moment was not included under this and all other differences I cannot imagine Yet if you can find out any thus much at least we shall gain by it that general speeches are not always to be understood generally but sometimes with exceptions and limitations 89. But if there be any infallible means to decide all differences I beseech you name them You say it is to consult and hear Gods Visible Church with submissive acknowledgment of her Infallibility But suppose the difference be as here it is whether your Church be infallible what shall decide that If you would say as you should do Scripture and Reason then you foresee that you should be forced to grant that these are fit means to decide this Controversie and therefore may be as fit to decide others Therefore to avoid this you run into a most ridiculous absurdity and tell us that this difference also Whether the Church be infallible as well as others must be agreed by a submissive acknowledgment of the Churches Infallibility As if you should have said My Bretheren I perceive there is a great Contention amongst you whether the Roman Church be infallible If you will follow my advice I will shew you a ready means to end it you must first agree that the Roman Church is infallible and then your contention whether the Roman Church be infallible will quickly be at an end Verily a most excellent advice and most compendious way of ending all Controversies even without troubling the Church to determine them For why may not you say in all other differences as you have done in this Agree that the Pope is supream head of the Church That the substance of the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament is turned into the Body and Blood of Christ That the Communion is to be given to
Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to be invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect alwaies to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches Infallibility is fit to prove it self and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confess that the Churches infallibility is not fit to decide this difference Whether the Church be infallible then you must confess it is not fit to decide all Unless you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches Infallibility cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it self then having professed before that there is no possible means besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will give me leave to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is infallible For certainly light it self is not more clear than the evidence of this Syllogism If there be no other means to make men agree upon your Churches Infallibility but only this and this be no means then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible But there is as you have granted no other possible means to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive ackdowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no means Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible 90. Lastly to the place of S. Austin wherein we are advis'd to follow the way of Catholique Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austin spake of and the way which you commend being divers wayes and in many things clean contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vain equivocation Shew us any way and do not say but prove it to have come from Christ and his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither do we expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable than the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholique Discipline which Christians in S. Austins time held abominable as the picturing of God and which you must and some of you do confess to have come into the Church seven hundred yeers after Christ if you will bring in things as you have done the halfe Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christs Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will do such things as these and yet would have us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise men to grant CHAP. IV. To say that the Creed contains all Points necessarily to be believed is neither pertinent to the Quâ—stion in hand nor in it self true I SAY neither pertinent nor true Not pertinent Because our Question is nor What Points are necessary to be explicitely believed but what Points may be lawfully disbelieved or rejected after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Truths You say the Creed contains all Points necessary to be believed Be it so But doth it likewise contain all Points not to be disbelieved Certainly it doth not For how many Truths are there in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not obliged distinctly and particularly to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture And we having already shewed that whatsoever is proposed by God's Church as a Point of Faith is infallibly a truth revealed by God it followeth that whosoever denyeth any such Point opposeth God's sacred testimony whether that Point be contained in the Creed or no. In vain then was your care imployed to prove that all Points of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed are contained in the Creed Neither was that the Catalogue which Charity Mistaken demanded His demand was and it was most reasonable that you would once give us a List of all Fundamentals the denyal whereof destroyes Salvation whereas the denyal of other Points not Fundamental may stand with Salvation although both these kinds of Points be equally proposed as revealed by God For if they be not equally proposed the difference will arise from diversity of the Proposal and not of the Matter fendamental or not fundamental This Catalogue only can shew how farre Protestants may disagree without breach of Unity in Faith and upon this may other matters depend according to the ground of Protestants But you will never adventure to publish such a Catalogue I say more You can not assigne any one Point so great oâ— fundamental that the denyal thereof will make a man an Heretique if it be not sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth Nor can you assigne any one Point so small that it can without heresie be rejected if once it be sufficiently represented as revealed by God 2. Nay this your instance in the Creed is not only impertinent but directly against you For all Points in the Creed are not of their own nature Fundamental as I shewed (a) Cap. 3. n. 3. before And yet it is damnable to deny any one Point contained in the Creed So that it is cleer that to make an error damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it self fundamental 3. Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it self unless first you presuppose that the Authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her Declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contained or not contained in the Creed This is clear Because we must receive the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which We call the Apostles Creed and yet the Arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed contains all Fundamental Points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the (b) Pag. 216. Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may err in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all Fundamental Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles
truly Catholique by reason of pretended corruptions not Fundamental For your self avouch and endeavour to prove that the true Catholique Church may err in such Points Moreover I hope you will not so much as go about to prove that when Luther rose there was any other true visible Church disagreeeing from the Roman and agreeing with Protestants in their particular Doctrins and you cannot deny but that England in those days-agreed with Rome and other Nations with England And therefore either Christ had no visible Church upon Earth or else you must grant that it was the Church of Rome A truth so manifest that those Protestants who affirm the Roman Church to have lost the nature and being of a true Church do by inevitable consequence grant that for divers ages Christ had no visible Church on earth from which error because D. Potter disclaimeth he must of necessity maintain that the Roman Church is free from Fundamental and damnable error and that she is not cut off from the Body of Christ and the hope of Salvation And if saith he any Zelols amongst us have proceeded (h) Ibid. to heavier censures their zeal may be excused but their Charity and wisdom cannot be justified 48. And to touch particulars which perhaps some may object No man is ignorant that the Grecians even the Schismatical Grecians do in most Points agree with Roman Catholiques and disagree from the Protestant Reformation They teach Transubstantiation which Point D. Potter also (i) Pag. 225. confesseth Invocation of Saints and Angels Veneration of Reliques and Images Auricular Confession enjoyned Satisfaction Confirmation with Chrism Extream Unction All the seven Sacraments Prayer Sacrifice Alms for the dead Monachism That Priests may not marry after their Ordination In which Points that the Grecians agree with the Roman Church appeareth by a Treatise published by the Protestant Divines of Wittemberg intituled Acta Theologorum Wittembergensium Jeremiae Patriarchae Constantinop de Augustana consessione c. Wittembergae anno 1584. by the Protestant (k) De statu Eccles Pag. 253. Crispinus and by Sir Edwin Sands in the Relation of the State of Religion of the West And I wonder with what colour of truth to say no worse D. Potter could affirm that the Doctrins debated between the Protestants (l) Pag. 22â— and Rome are only the partial and particular fancies of the Roman Church unless happily the opinion of Transubstantiation may be excepted wherein the latter Grecians seem to agree with the Romanists Beside the Protestant Authors already cited Petrus Arcudius a Grecian and a learned Catholique Writer hath published a large Volume the Argument and Title whereof is Of the agreement of the Roman and Greek Church in the seven Sacraments As for the Heresie of the Grecians that the Holy-Ghost proceeds not from the Son I suppose that Protestants disavow them in that error as we do 49. D. Potter will not I think so much wrong his reputation as to tell us that the Waldenses Wiecliffe Huss or the like were Protestants because in some things they disagreed from Catholiques For he well knows that the example of such men is subject to these manifest exceptions They were not of all Agesâ— nor in all Countries but confined to certain places and were interrupted in Time against the notion and nature of the word Catholique They had no Ecclesiastical Hierarchy nor Succession of Bishops Priests and Pastors They differed among themselves and from Protestants also They agreed in divers things with us against Protestants They held Doctrins manifestly abusurd and damnable heresies 50. The Waldenses began not before the year 1218. so far were they from Universality of all Ages For their Doctrin first they denyed all Judgments which extended to the drawing of bloud and the Sabbath for which cause they were called In-sabbatists Secondly they taught that Lay-men and women might consecrate the Sacrament and preach no doubt but by this means to make their Master Waldo a meer lay-man capable of such functions Thirdly that Clergy-men ought to have no possessions or proprieties Fourthly that there should be no division of Parishes not Churches for a walled Church they reputed as a Barn Fifthly that men ought not to take an Oath in any case Sixthly that those persons sinned mortally who accompanyed without hope of issue Seventhly they held all things done above the girdle by kissing touching words compression of the breasts c. to be done in Charity and not against Continency Eightly that neither Priest nor civil Magistrate being guilty of mortal sin did enjoy their dignity or were to be obeyed Ninthly they condemned Princes and Judges Tenthly they assinned singing in the Church to be an hellish clamor Eleventhly they taught that men might dissemble their Religion and so accordingly they went to Catholique Churches dissembling their Faith and made Offertoâ—ies Confessions and Communions after a dissembling manner Waldo was so unlearned that saith (m) Act. Mon. â—… Pag. 628. Fox he gave rewards to certain learned men to translate the holy Scripture for him and being thus holpen did as the same Fox there reporteth conferr the form of Religion in his time to the insallible Word of God A goodly example for such as must needs have the Scripture in English to be read by every simple body with such fruit of godly Doctrine as we have seen in the foresaid gross heresies of Waldo The followers of Waldo were like their Master so unlearned that some of them saith (n) Ibid. Fox expounded the words Joan. 1. Sui eum non receperunt Swine did not receive hâ—m And to conclude they agreed in divers things with Catholiques against Protestants as may be seen in (o) Tract 2. cap. 2. sect sâ—â—…d 3. Bâ—erely 51. Neither can it be pretended that these are slanders forged by Catholiques For besides that the same things are testified by Protâ—stant writers as Illyricus Cowper and others our Authors cannot be suspected of partiality in disfavour of Protestants unless you will say perhaps that they were Prophets and some hundred years ago did both foresee that there were to be Protestants in the world and that such Protestants were to be like the Waldenses Besides from whence but from our Histories are Protestants come to know that there were any such men as the Waldenses and that in some Points they agreed with the Protestants and disagreed from them in others And upon what ground can they believe our Author for that part wherein the Waldenses were like to Protestants and imagin they lyed the rest 52. Neither could Wickliffe continue a Church never interrupted from the time of the Waldenses after whom he lived more than one hundred and fifty years to wit the year 1371. He agreed with Catholiques about the worshipping of Reliques and Images and about the Intercession of our blessed Lady the ever Immaculate Mother of God he went so far as to say It seems to me (p) In serm de Assump Mariae
of Schism it is certainly consequent that all who persist in this Division must be so likewise Which is not so certain as you pretend For they which alter without necessary cause the present government of any State Civil or Ecclesiastical do commit a great fault whereof notwithstanding they may be innocent who continue this alteration and to the utmost of their power oppose a change though to the former State when continuance of time hath once setled the present Thus have I known some of your own Church condemn the Low-countrey men who first revolted from the King of Spain of the sin of Rebellion yet absolve them from it who now being of your Religion there are yet faithful maintainers of the common liberty against the pretences of the King of Spain 5. Fourthly That all those which a Christian is to esteem neighbours do concur to make one company which is the Church Which is false for a Christian is to esteem those his neighbours who are not members of the true Church 6. Fifthly That all the Members of the Visible Church are by charity united into one Mystical body Which is manifestly untrue for many of them have no Charity 7. Sixthly That the Catholique Church signifies one company of faithful people which is repugnant to your own grounds For you require not true Faith but only the Profession of it to make men members of the visible Church 8. Seventhly That every Heretique is a Schismatique Which you must acknowledge false in those who though they deny or doubt of some Point professed by your Church and so are Heretiques yet continue still in the Communion of the Church 9. Eighthly That all the Members of the Catholique Church must of necessity be united in external Communion Which though it were much to be desired it were so yet certainly cannot be perpetually true For a man unjustly excommmunicated is not in the Churches Communion yet he is still a Member of the Church and divers time it hath happened as in the case of Chrysostom and Epiphanius that particular men and particular Churches have upon an overvalued difference either renounced Communion mutually or one of them separated from the other and yet both have continued Members of the Catholique Church These things are in those seven Sections either said or supposed by you untruly without all shew or pretence of proof The rest is impertinent common place wherein Protestants and the cause in hand are absolutely unconcern'd And therefore I pass to the eighth Section 10. Ad § 8. Wherein you obtrude upon us a double Fallacy One in supposing and taking for granted that whatsoever is affirmed by three Fathers must be true whereas your selves make no scruple of condemning many things of falshood which yet are maintained by more than thrice three Fathers Another in pretending their words to be spoken absolutely which by them are limited and restrained to some particular cases For whereas you say S. Austin c. 62. l. 2. cont Parm. inferrs out of the former premises That there is no necessity to divide Unity to let pass your want of diligence in quoting the 62. Chapter of that Book which hath but 23. in it to pass by also that these words which are indeed in the 11. Chapter are not inferred out of any such premises as you pretend this I say is evident that he says not absolutely that there never is or can be any necessity to divide Unity which only were for your purpose but only in such a special case as he there sets down That is When good men tolerate bad men which can do them no spiritual hurt to the intent they may not be separated from these who are spiritually good Then saith he there is no necessity to divide Unity Which very words do clearly give us to understand that it may fall out as it doth in our case that we cannot keep Unity with bad men without spiritual hurt i.e. without partaking with them in their impieties and that then there is a necessity to divide Unity from them I mean to break off conjunction with them in their impieties Which that it was S. Austin's mind it is most evident out of the 21. c. of the same Book where to Parmenian demanding How can a man remain pure being joyned with those that are corrupted he answers Very true this is not possible if he be joyned with them that is if he commit any evil with them or favour them which do commit it But if he do neither of these he is not joyned with them And presently after These two things retained will keep such men pure and uncorrupted that is neither doing ill nor approving it And therefore seeing you impose upon all men of your Communion a necessity of doing or at least approving many things unlawful certainly there lies upon us an unavoidable necessity of dividing Unity either with you or with God and whether of these is rather to be done be ye Judges 11. Irenaeus also says not simply which only would do you service there cannot possibly be any so important Reformation as to justifie a separation from them who will not reform But only they cannot make any corruption so great as is the pernitiousness of a Schism Now They here is a relative and hath an antecedent expressed in Irenaeus which if you had been pleased to take notice of you would easily have seen that what Iraeneus says falls heavy upon the Church of Rome but toucheth Protestants nothing at all For the men he speaks of are such as Propter modicas quaslibet causas for trifling or small causes divide the body of Christ such as speak of peace and make war such as strain at gnats and swallow Camels And these saith he can make no reformation of any such importance as to countervail the danger of a division Now seeing the causes of our separation from the Church of Rome are as we pretend and are ready to justifie because we will not be partakers with her in Superstition Idolatry Impiety and most cruel Tyranny both upon the bodies and souls of men Who can say that the causes of our separation may be justly esteemed Modicae quaelibet causae On the other side seeing the Bishop of Rome who was contemporary to Irenaeus did as much as in him lay cut off from the Churches unity many great Churches for not conforming to him in an indifferent matter upon a difference Non de Catholico dogmate sed de Ritu vel Ritus potiùs tempore Not about any Catholique doctrine but only a Ceremony or rather about the time of observing it so Petavius values it which was just all one as if the Church of France should excommunicate those of their own Religion in England for not keeping Christmas upon the same day with them And seeing he was reprehended sharply and bitterly for it by most of the Bishops of the world as Eusebius testifies Euseb hist l. 5. c. 24. Perron Replic 3.
that those amongst you who were invincibly ignorant of the truth might by Gods great mercy have their errors pardoned and their souls saved And this is all he says and this you confess to be all he says in divers places of your Book which is no more than you your self do and must affirm of Protestants and yet I believe you will not suffer us to inferr from hence that you grant Protestants to have for the substance the true preaching of the Word and due administration of the Sacraments and want nothing fundamental or necessary to salvation And if we should draw this consequence from your concession certainly we should do you injury in regard many things may in themselves and in ordinary course be necessary to salvation to those that have means to attain them as your Church generally hath which yet by accident to these which were by some impregnable impediment debarred of these means may by Gods mercy be made unnecessary 27. Lastly whereas you say that Protestants must either grant that your Church then was the visible Church or name some other disagreeing from yours and agreeing with Protestants in their particular doctrin or acknowledge there was no visible Church It is all one as if to use S. Paul's similitude the head should say to the foot Either you must grant that I am the whole body or name some other member that is so or confess that there is no body To which the foot may answer I acknowledge there is a body and yet that no member beside you is this body nor yet that you are it but only a part of it And in like manner say we We acknowledge a Church there was corrupted indeed universally but yet such a one as we hope by Gods gracious acceptance was still a Church We pretend not to name any one Society that was this Church and yet we see no reason that can inforce us to confess that yours was the Church but only a part of it and that one of the worst then extant in the World In vain therefore have you troubled your self in proving that we cannot pretend that either the Greeks Waldenses Wickliffites Hussites Muscovites Armenians Georgians Abyssines were then the visible Church For all this discourse proceeds upon a false and vain supposition and begs another point in Question between us which is that some Church of one denomination and one Communion as the Roman the Greek c. must be always exclusively to all other Communions the whole visible Church And though perhaps some weak Protestant having this false principle setled in him that there was to be always some Visible Church of one denomination pure from all error in doctrin might be wrought upon prevailed with by it to forsake the Church of Protestants yet why it should induce him to go to yours rather than the Greek Church or any other which pretends to perpetual succession as well as yours that I do not understand unless it be for the reason which Aeneus Sylvius gave why more held the Pope above a Council than a Council above the Pope which was because Popes did give Bishopricks and Archbishopricks but Councils gave none and therefore suing in Forma Pauperis were not like to have their cause very well maintained For put the case I should grant of meer favour that there must be always some Church of one Denomination and Communion free from all errours in doctrin and that Protestants had not always such a Church it would follow indeed from thence that I must not be a Protestant But that I must be a Papist certainly it would follow by no better consequence than this If you will leave England you must of necessity go to Rome And yet with this wretched Fallacy have I been sometimes abused my self and known many other poor souls seduced not only from their own Church and Religion but unto yours I beseech God to open the eyes of all that love the truth that they may not always be held captive under such miserable delusions 28. We see then how unsuccessful you have been in making good your accusation with reasons drawn from the nature of the thing and which may be urged in common against all Protestants Let us come now to the Arguments of the other kind which you build upon D. Potter's own words out of which you promise unanswerable reasons to convince Protestants of Schism 29. But let the understanding Reader take with him but three or four short Remembrances and I dare say he shall find them upon examination not only answerable but already answered The Memorandums I would commend to him are these 30. 1. That not every separation but only a causeless separation from the external Communion of any Church is the Sin of Schism 31. 2. That Imposing upon men under pain of Excommunication a necessity of professing known errours and practising known corruptions is a sufficient and necessary cause of separation and that this is the cause which Protestants alleage to justifie their separation from the Church of Rome 32. 3. That to leave the Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church at least as D. Potter understands the words is not the same thing That being done by ceasing to be a member of it by ceasing to have those requisites which constitute a man a member of it as faith and Obedience This by refusing to communicate with any Church in her Liturgies and publike worship of God This little Armour if it be rightly placed I am perswaded will repel all those Batteries which you threaten shall be so furious 33. Ad § 13 14 15. The first is a sentence of S. Austine against Donatus applyed to Luther thus If the Church perished what Church brought forth Donatus you say Luther If she could not perish what madness moved the sect of Donatus to separate upon pretence to avoyd the Communion of bad men Whereunto one fair answer to let pass many others is obvious out of the second observation That this sentence though it were Gospel as it is not is impertinently applyed to Luther and Lutherans whose pretence of separation be it true or be it false was not as that of the Donatists only to avoid the Communion of bad men but to free themselves from a necessity which but by separating was unavoidable of joyning with bad men in their impieties And your not substituting Luther instead of Donatus in the later part of the Dilemma as well as in the former would make a suspicious man conjecture that you your self took notice of this exception of disparity between Donatus and Luther 34. Ad § 16. Your second onset drives only at those Protestants who hold the true Church was invisible for many ages Which Doctrin if by the true Church be understood the pure Church as you do understand it is a certain truth and it is easier for you to declaim as you do than to dispute against it But these men you say must
is no good justification because it may be pretended by any Schismatique Very true any Schismatique that can speak may say the same words as any Rebel that makes Conscience the cloak of his impious disobedience may say with Saint Peter and Saint John We must obey God rather than men But then the question is whether any Schismatique may say so truly And to this question you say just nothing but conclude because this defence may be abused by some it must be used by none As if you should have said S. Peter and S. John did ill to make such an answer as they made because impious Hypocrites might make use of the same to palliate their Disobedience and Rebellion against the lawful commands of lawful Authority 81. But seeing their pretended Reformation consisted in forsaking the Churches corruptions their Reformation of themselves and their division from you falls out to be one and the same thing Just as if two men having been a long while companions in drunkenness one of them should turn sober this Reformation of himself and desertion of his companion in this ill custom would be one and the same thing and yet there is no necessity that he should leave his love to him at all or his society in other things So Protestants forsaking their own former corruptions which were common to them with you could not choose but withal forsake you in the practice of these corruptions yet this they might and would have done without breach of Charity towards you and without a renunciation of your company in any act of piety and devotion confessedly lawful And therefore though both these were by accident joyned together yet this hinders not but that the end they aimed at was not a separation from you but a reformation of themselves 82. Neither doth their disagreement in the particulars of the Reformation which yet when you measure it without partiality you will find to be farr short of infinite nor their symbolizing in the general of forsaking your corruptions prove any thing to the contrary or any way advantage your design or make for your purpose For it is not any sign at all much less an evident sign that they had no setled design but only to forsake the Church of Rome for nothing but malice can deny that their intent at least was to reduce Religion to that original purity from which it was fallen The declination from which some conceiving to have begun though secretly in the Apostles times the mystery of iniquity being then in work and after their departure to have shewed it self more openly Others again believing that the Church continued pure for some Ages after the Apostles and then declined And consequently some aiming at an exact conformity with the Apostolique times Others thinking they should do God and Men good service could they reduce the Church to the condition of the fourth and fifth Ages Some taking their direction in this work of Reformation only from Scripture others from the writings of Fathers and the Decrees of Councels of the first five Ages certainly it is no great marvail that there was as you say disagreement between them in the particulars of their Reformation nay morally speaking it was impossible it should be otherwise Yet let me tell you the difference between them especially in comparison of your Church and Religion is not the difference between good and bad but between good and better And they did best that followed Scripture interpreted by Catholique written-Tradition which Rule the reformers of the Church of England proposed to themselves to follow 83. Ad § 30 31 32. To this effect D. Potter p. 81 82. of his Book speaks thus If a Monastery should reformat it self and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not In this case could it be charged with Schism from others or with Apostacy from its rule and order So in a Society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from it could they be therefore said to separate from the Society He presumes they could not and from hence concludes that neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schism that is separating from the Church and making themselves no members of it if all they did was as indeed it was to reform themselves Which Cases I believe any understanding man will plainly see to have in them an exact parity of Reason and that therefore the Argument drawn from them is pressing and unanswerable And it may well be suspected that you were partly of this mind otherwise you would not have so presum'd upon the simplicity of your Reader as pretending to answer it to put another of your own making in place of it and then to answer that 84. This you do § 31 32. of this Chapter in these words I was very glad to find you in a Monastery c. Where I beseech the Reader to observe these things to detect the cunning of your tergiversation First That you have no reason to say That you found D. Potter in a Monastery and as little That you find him inventing wayes how to forsake his vocation and to maintain the lawfulness of Schism from the Church and Apostacy from a Religious Order Certainly the innocent case put by the Doctor of a Monastery reforming it self hath not deserved such grievous accusations Unless Reformation with you be all one with Apostacy and to forsake sin and disorder be to forsake ones Vocation And surely if it be so your vocations are not very lawlful your Religious Orders not very religious Secondly that you quite pervert and change D. Potters cases and instead of the case of a whole Monastery reforming it self when other Monasteries of their Order would not and of some men freeing themselves from the common disease of their Society when others would not you substitute two others which you think you can better deal with of some particular Monks upon pretence of the neglect of lesser monastical observances going out of their Monastery which Monastery yet did confessedly observe their substantial Vows and all Principal Statutes And of a diseased Reason quitting the company of those that were infected with the same disease though in their company there was no danger from his disease it being impossible that should be mortal and out of it no hope of escaping others like that for which he forsook the first infected Company I appeal now to any indifferent judge whether these cases be the same or neer the same with D. Potters Whether this be fair and ingenuous dealing in stead of his two Instances which plainly shewed it possible in other Societies and consequently in that of the Church to leave the faults of a Society and not leave being of it to foist in two others clean cross to the Doctors purpose of men under colour of faults abandoning the Society wherein they lived I know not what others may think of this dealing but
I acknowledg'd above that they forsook the external Communion of the Visible Church or that they left that part of the Visible Church in her corruptions which would not be reformed These things if you desire I shall be willing to grant and that by a Synecdoche of the whole for the part he might be said to forsake the Visible Church that is a part of it and the greater part But that properly speaking he forsook the whole Visible Church I hope you will excuse me if I grant not this until you bring better proof of it than your former similitude And my reason is this because he and his Followers were a part of this Church and ceased not to be so by the Reformation Now he and his followers certainly forsook not themselves Therefore not every part of the Church Therefore not the whole Church But then if you speak of D. Potter's cases according as he put them and answer not your own Arguments when you make shew of answering his me-thinks it should not be so unreasonable as you make it for the persons he speaks of to deny that they left the Communities whereof they were Members For example that the Monks of Saint Benets Order make one Body wherof their several Monasteries are several members I presume it will be easily granted Suppose now that all these Monasteries being quite out of Order some 20. or 30. of them should reform themselves the rest persisting still in their irregular courses were it such a monstrous impudence as you make it for these Monasteries which we suppose reformed to deny that they forsook their Order or the Community whereof they were parts In my Opinion it is no such matter Let the world judge Again whereas the Doctor saies that in a Society of men Vniversally infected with some disease they that should free them selves from the common disease could not therefore be said to separate from the Society It is very strange to me that you should say he speaks very strangely Truly Sir I am extreamly deceived if his words be not plain English and plain sense and contain such a manifest Truth as cannot be denied with modesty nor gone about to be proved without vanity For whatsoever is proved must be proved by sometâ—ing more evident Now what can be more evident than this That if some whole Family were taken with Agues if the Father of this Family should free himself from his that he should not therefore deservedly be thought to abandon and disert his Family But say you if they dot no separate themselves from the Society of the wicked persons how do they free themselves from the common disease Do they at the same time remain in the company and yet depart from those infected creatures Me thinks a Writer of Controversies should not be ignorant how this may be done without any such difficulty But if you do not know I 'le tell you There is no necessity they should leave the company of these infected persons at all much less that they should at once depart from it and remain with it which I confess were very difficult But if they will free themselves from their disease let them stay were they are and take physick Or if you would be better informed how this strange thing may be done learn from your self They may free their own persons from the common disease yet so that they remain still in the company infected eating and drinking with them c. Which are your own words within four or five lines after this plainly shewing that your mistaking D. Potter's meaning and your wondring at his words as at some strange monster's was all this while affected and that you are conscious to your self of perverting his Argument that you may seem to say something when indeed you say nothing Whereas therefore you add We must then say that they separate themselves from the persons though it be by occasion of the disease I assure you good Sir you must not do so at any hand for then you alter and spoil D. Potter's case quite and fight not with his reason but your own shadow For the Instanceof a man freeing himself from the disease of his company and not leaving his company is very fit to prove by the parity of reason that it is very possible a man may leave the corruptions of a Church and not leave the Church that is not cease to be a member of it But yours of a man leaving his company by occasion of their disease hath no analogy at all with this business 95. But Luther and his followers did not continue in the company of those from whose diseases they pretend to free themselves Very true neither was it said they did so There is no necessity that that which is compared to another thing should agree with it in all things it is sufficient if it agree in that wherein it is compared A man freeing himself from the common disease of a society and yet continuing a part of it is here compared to Luther and his followers freeing themselves from the corruptions of the visible Church and continuing a part of the Church As for accompanying the other parts of it in all things it was neither necessary nor without destroying our supposition of their forsaking the corruptions of the Church possible Not necessary for they may be parts of the Church which do not joyn with other parts of it in all observances Nor possible for had he accompanied them in all things he had not freed himself from the common corruptions 96. But they indeavoured to force the society whereof they were parts to be healed and reformed as they were and if it refused they did when they had power drive them away even their superiours both Spiritual and Temporal as is notorious The proofs hereof are wanting and therefore I might deferr my answer untill they were produced yet take this before hand If they did so then herein in my opinion they did amiss for I have learnt from the ancient Fathers of the Church that nothing is more against Religion than to force Religion and of S. Paul The weapons of the Christian warfare are not carnal And great reason For humane violence may make men counterfeit but cannot make them believe and is therefore fit for nothing but to breed form without and Atheism within Besides if this means of bringing men to embrace any Religion were generally used as if it may be justly used in any place by those that have power and think they have truth certainly they cannot with reason deny but that it may be used in every place by those that have power as well as they and think they have truth as well as they what could follow but the maintenance perhaps of truth but perhaps only of the profession of it in one place and the oppression of it in a hundred What will follow from it but the preservation peradventure of unity but peradventure only of uniformity in
particular States and Churches but the immortalizing the greater more lamentable divisions of Christendom and the world And therefore what can follow from it but perhaps in the judgement of carnal policy the temporal benefit and tranquillity of temporal States and Kingdoms but the infinite prejudice if not the desolation of the Kingdom of Christ And therefore it well becomes them who have have their portions in this life who serve no higher State than that of England or Spain or France nor this neither any further than they may serve themselves by it who think of no other happiness but the preservation of their own fortunes and tranquillity in this world who think of no other means to preserve States but human power and Machivilian policy and believe no other Creed but this Regi aut Civitati imperium habenti nihil injustum quod utile Such men as these it may become to maintain by worldly power and violence their State-instrument Religion For if all be vain and false as in their judgment it is the present whatsoever is better than any because it is already setled an alteration of it may draw with it change of States and the change of State the subversion of their fortune But they that are indeed servants and lovers of Christ of Truth of the Church and of Mankind ought with all courage to oppose themselves against it as a common enemy of all these They that know there is a King of Kings and Lord of Lords by whose will and pleasure Kings and Kingdoms stand and fall they know that to no King or State any thing can be profitable which is unjust and that nothing can be more evidently unjust than to force weak men by the profession of a Religion which they believe not to lose their own eternal happiness out of a vain and needless fear lest they may possibly disturb their temporal quietness There being no danger to any State from any mans opinion unless it be such an opinion by which disobedience to authority or impiety is taught or licenc'd which sort I confess may justly be punished as well as other faults or unless this sanguinary doctrin be joyn'd with it That it is lawful for him by human violence to enforce others to it Therefore if Protestants did offer violence to other mens consciences and compel them to embrace their Reformation I excuse them not much less if they did so to the sacred Persons of Kings and those that were in authority over them who ought to be so secur'd from violence that even their unjust und tyrannous violence though it may be avoided according to that of our Saviour When they persecute you in one City flie into another yet may it not be resisted by opposing violence against it Protestants therefore that were guilty of this crime are not to be excused and blessed had they been had they chosen rather to be Martyrs than Murderers to die for their religion rather than to fight for it But of all the men in the world you are most unfit to accuse them hereof against whom the souls of the Martyrs from under the Altar cry much lowder than against all their other Persecutors together Who for these many ages together have daily sacrificed Hecatombs of innocent Christians under the name of Heretiques to blind zeal and furious superstition Who teach plainly that you may propagate your Religion whensoever you have power by deposing of Kings and invasion of Kingdoms and think when you kill the adversaries of it you do God good service But for their departing corporally from them whom mentally they had forsaken For their forsaking the external Communion and company of the unreformed part of the Church in their superstitions and impieties thus much of your accusation we embrace and glory in it And say though some Protestants might offend in the maner or degree of their separation yet certainly their separation it self was not Schismatical but innocent and not only so but just and necessary And as for your obtruding upon D. Potter that he should say There neither was nor could be just cause to do so no more than to depart from Christ himself I have shewed divers times already that you deal very injuriously with him confounding together Departing from the Church and Departing from some general opinions and practises which did not constitute but vitiate not make the Church but marr it For though he saies that which is most true that there can be no just cause to depart from the Church that is to cease being a member of the Church no more than to depart from Christ himself in as much as these are not divers but the same thing yet he nowhere denies but there might be just and necessary cause to depart from some opinions and practices of your Church nay of the Catholique Church And therefore you do vainly to inferr that Luther and his followers for so doing were Schismatiques 97. Ad § 35. I answer in a word that neither are Optatus his sayings rules of Faith and therefore not fit to determine Controversies of Faith And then that Majorinus might well be a Schismatique for departing from Caecilianus and the Chayr of Cyprian and Peter without cause and yet Luther and his followers who departed from the Communion of the Bishop of Rome and the Bishop of their own Diocess be none because they had just and necessary cause of their departure For otherwise they must have continued in the profession of known Errors and the practice of manifest Corruptions 98. Ad § 36 In the next Section you tel us that Christ our Lord gave S. Peter and his successors authority over his whole Militant Church And for proof hereof you first referre us to Brerely citing exactly the places of such chief Protestants as have confessed the antiquity of this point Where first you fall into the Fallacy which is called Ignoratio Elenchi or mistaking the Question for being to prove this point true you only prove it ancient Which to what purpose is it when both the parties litigant are agreed that many errors were held by many of the ancient Doctors much more ancient than any of those who are pretended to be confessed by Protestants to have held with you in this matter and when those whom you have to do with and whom it is vain to dispute against but out of Principles received by them are all peremptory that though novelty be a certain note of falshood yet no Antiquity less than Apostolical is a certain note of truth Yet this I say not as if I did acknowledge what you pretend that Protestants did confess the Fathers against them in this point For the point here issuable is not Whether S. Peter were head of the Church Nor whether the Bishop of Rome had any priority in the Church Nor whether he had authority over it given him by the Church But whether by Divine right and by Christs appointment he were Head
that commits any sin must not think himself a true believer Besides seeing faith worketh by Charity and Charity is the effect of faith certainly if the cause were perfect the effect would be perfect and consequently as you make no degrees in Faith so there would be none in Charity and so no man could possibly make any progress in it but all crue believers should be equal in Charity as in faith you make them equal and from thence it would follow unavoidably that whosoever finds in himself any true faith must presently perswade himself that he is perfect in Charity and whosoever on the other side discovers in his charity any imperfection must not believe that he hath any true faith These you see are strange and portentous consequences and yet the deduction of them from your doctrin is clear and apparent which shews this doctrin of yours which you would fain have true that there might be some necessity of your Churches infallibility to be indeed plainly repugnant not only to Truth but even to all Religion and Piety and fit for nothing but to make men negligent of making any progress in Faith or Charity And therefore I must entreat and adjure you either to discover unto me which I take God to witness I cannot perceive some fallacy in my reasons against it or never hereafter to open your mouth in defence of it 5 As for that one single reason which you produce to confirm it it will appear upon examination to be resolved finally into a groundless Assertion of your own contrary to all Truth and experience and that is That no degree of faith less than a most certain and infallible knowledge can be able sufficiently to overbear our will and encounter with humane probabilities being backt with the strength of Flesh and Blood For who sees not that many millions in the world forgo many times their present ease and pleasure undergo great and toilsom labours encounter great difficulties adventure upon great dangers and all this not upon any certain expectation but upon a probable hope of some future gain and commodity and that not infinite and eternal but finite and temporal Who sees not that many men abstain from many things they exceedingly desire not upon any certain assurance but a probable fear of danger that may come after What man ever was there so madly in love with a present penny but that he would willingly spend it upon any little hope that by doing so he might gain an hundred thousand pound And I would fain know what gay probabilities you could devise to disswade him from this Resolution And if you can devise none what reason then or sense is there but that a probable hope of infinite and eternal happiness provided for all those that obey Christ Jesus much more a firm faith though not so certain in some sort as sense or science may be able to sway our will to obedience and encounter with all those temptations which Flesh and Blood can suggest to avert us from it Men may talk their pleasure of an absolute and most infallible certainty but did they generall believe that obedience to Christ were the only way to present and eternal felicity but as firmly and undoubtedly as that there is such a City as Constantinople nay but as much as Caesar's Commentaries or the History of Salust I believe the lives of most men both Papists and Protestants would be better than they are Thus therefore out of your own words I argue against you He that requires to true faith an absolute and infallible certainty for this only Reason because any less degree could not be able to overbear our will c. imports that if a less degree of faith were able to do this then a less degree of faith may be true and divine and saving Faith But experience shews and reason confirms that a firm faith though not so certain as sense or science may be able to encounter and overcome our will and affections And therefore it follows from your own reason that faith which is not a most certain and infallible knowledge may be true and divine and saving faith 6 All these Reasons I have imployed to shew that such a most certain and infallible faith as here you talk of is not so necessary but that without such a high degree of it it is possible to please God And therefore the Doctrins delivered by you § 26 are most presumptuous and uncharitable viz. That such a most certain and infallible faith is necessary to salvation Necessitate Finis or Medii so necessary that after a man is come to the use of reason no man ever was or can be saved without it Wherein you boldly intrude into the judgment-feat of God and damn men for breaking Laws not of God's but your own making But withall you clearly contradict yourself not only where you affirm That your faith depends finally upon the Tradition of Age to Age of Father to Son which cannot be a fit ground but only for a Moral Assurance nor only where you pretend that not alone Hearing and Seeing but also Histories Letters Relations of many which certainly are things not certain and infallible are yet foundations good enough to support your faith Which Doctrin if it were good and allowable Protestants might then hope that their Histories and Letters and Relations might also pass for means sufficient of a sufficient Certainty that they should not be excluded from Salvation for want of such a Certainty But indeed the pressure of the present difficulty compell'd you to speak here what I believe you will not justifie with a pretty tergiversation to shew D. Potter your means of moral certainty whereas the Objection was that you had no means or possibility of infallible certainty for which you are plainly at as great a loss and as far to seek as any of your Adversaries And therefore it concerns you highly not to damn others for want of it lest you involve your selves in the same condemnation according to those terrible words of S. Paul Thou art inexcusable O Man whosoever thou art that judgest For wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest dost the same things c. In this therefore you plainly contradict your self And lastly most plainly in saying as you do here you contradict and retract your pretence of Charity to Protestants in the beginning of your Book For there you make profession that you have no assurance but that Protestants dying Protestants may possibly die with contrition and be saved And here you are very peremptory that they cannot but want a means absolutely necessary to salvation and wanting that cannot but be damned The third Condition you require to faith is that our assent to divine Truths should not only be unknown and unevident by any humane discourse but that absolutely also it should be obscure in it self and ordinarily speaking be void even of supernatural evidence Which words
And indeed how can she be Judge of them if she cannot decide them And how can she decide them if it be a question Whether she be judge of them That which is question'd it self cannot with any sense be pretended to be fit to decide other questions and much less this question Whether it have Authority to judge and decide all questions 2. If she were Judge it would not follow that she were infallible for we have many Judges in our Courts of Judicature yet none infallible Nay you cannot with any modesty deny that every man in the world ought to judge for himself what Religion is truest and yet you will not say that every man is infallible 3. If the Church were supposed infallible yet it would not follow at all much less manifestly that to oppose her Declaration is to oppose God unless you suppose also that as she is infallible so by her opposers she is known or believed to be so Lastly If all this were true as it is all most false yet were it to little purpose seeing you have omitted to prove that the Visible Church is the Roman 14 Ad § 16. Instead of a fourth Argument this is presented to us That if Luther were an Heretique then they that agreed with him must be so And that Luther was a formal Heretique you endeavour to prove by this most formal Syllogism To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But Luther 's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Whereunto I Answer first to the first part that it is no way impossible that Luther had he been the inventor and first broacher of a false Doctrin as he was not might have been a formal Heretique and yet that those who follow him may be only so materially and improperly and indeed no Heretiques Your own men out of St. Austin distinguish between Haeretici Haereticorum sequaces And you your self though you pronounce the leaders among the Arrians formal Heretiques yet confess that Salvian was at least doubtful whether those Arrians who in simplicity followed their Teachers might not be excused by ignorance And about this suspension of his you also seem suspended for you neither approve nor condemn it Secondly to the second part I say that had you not presumed upon our ignorance in Logick as well as Metaphysicks and School-Divinity you would never have obtruded upon us this rope of sand for a formal Syllogism It is even Consen-German to this To deny the Resurrection is properly an Heresie But Luther's Reformation was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie Or to this To say the Visible Church is not Universal is properly an Heresie But the preaching of the Gospel at the beginning was not Universal Therefore it cannot be excused from formal Heresie For as he whose Reformation is but particular may yet not deny the Resurrection so many he also not deny the Churches Universality And as the Apostles who preached the Gospel in the beginning did believe the Church Universal though their preaching at the beginning was not so So Luther also might and did believe the Church Universal though his Reformation were but particular I say he did believe it Universal even in your own sense that is Universal de jure though not de facto And as for Universality in fact he believed the Church much more Universal than his Reformation For he did conceive as appears by your own Allegations out of him that not only the Part reformed was the true Church but also that they were Part of it who needed Reformation Neither did he ever pretend to make a new Church but to reform the old one Thirdly and lastly to the first proposition of this unsyllogistical syllogism I answer That to say the true Church is not always de facto universal is so far from being an Heresie that it is a certain truth known to all those that know the world and what Religions possess far the greater part of it Donatus therefore was not to blame for saying that the Church might possibly be confin'd to Africk but for saying without ground that then it was so And S. Augustin as he was in the right in thinking that the Church was then extended farther than Africk so was he in the wrong if he thought that of necessity it alwayes must be so but most palpably mistaken in conceiving that it was then spread over the whole earth and known to all nations which if passion did not trouble you and make you forget how lately almost half the world was discovered and in what estate it was then found you would very easily see and confess 15 Ad § 17. In the next Section you pretend that you have no desire to prosecute the similitude of Protestants with the Donatists and yet you do it with as much spight and malice as could well be devised but in vain For Lucilla might do ill in promoting the Sect of the Donatists and yet the mother and the daughter whom you glance at might do well in ministring influence as you phrase it to Protestants in England Unless you will conclude because one woman did one thing ill therefore no woman can do any thing well or because it was ill done to promote one Sect therefore it must be ill done to maintain any 16 The Donatists might do ill in calling the Chair of Rome the Chair of Pestilence and the Roman Church an Harlot and yet the state of the Church being altered Protestants might do well to do so and therefore though S. Austin might perhaps have reason to persecute the Donatists for detracting from the Church and calling her harlot when she was not so yet you may have none to threaten D. Potter that you would persecute him as the Application of this place intimates you would if it were in your power plainly shewing that you are a curst Cow though your horns be short seeing the Roman Church is not now what it was in S. Austin's time And hereof the conclusion of your own book affords us a very pregnant testimony where you tell us out of Saint Austin that one grand impediment which among many kept the seduced followers of the faction of Donatus from the Churches Communion was a calumny raised against the Catholiques That they did set some strange thing upon their Altar To how many saith S. Austin did the reports of ill tongues shut up the way to enter who said that we put I know not what upon the Altar Out of detestation of the calumny and just indignation against it he would not so much as name the impiety wherewith they were charged and therefore by a Rhetorical figure calls it I know not what But compare with him Optatus writing of the same matter and you shall plainly perceive that this I know not what pretended to be set upon the Altar was indeed a Picture which the Donatists knowing how detestable a thing it
a man may perswade himself he doth believe what he doth not believe then may you think you believe the Church of Rome and yet not believe it But if no man can err concerning what he believes then you must give me leave to assure my self that I do believe and consequently that any man may believe the foresaid truths upon the foresaid motives without any dependance upon any succession that hath believed it always And as from your definition of Faith so from your definition of Heresie this phancy may be refuted For questionless no man can be an Heretique but he that holds an Heresie and an Heresie you say is a Voluntary error therefore no man can be necessitated to be an Heretique whether he will or no by want of such a thing that is not in his power to have But that there should have been a perpetual Succession of Believers in all points Orthodox is not a thing which is in our own power therefore our being or not being Heretiques depends not on it Besides What is more certain than that he may make a straight line who hath a Rule to make it by though never man in the world had made any before and why then may not he that believes the Scripture to be the word of God and the Rule of faith regulate his faith by it and consequently believe aright without much regarding what other men will do or have done It is true indeed there is a necessity that if God will have his word believed he by his Providence must take order that either by succession of men or by some other means natural or supernatural it be preserv'd and delivered and sufficiently notified to be his word but that this should be done by a Succession of men that holds no error against it certainly there is no more necessity than that it should be done by a Succession of men that commit no sin against it For if men may preserve the Records of a Law and yet transgress it certainly they may also preserve directions for their faith and yet not follow them I doubt not but Lawyers at the Bar do find by frequent experience that many men preserve and produce evidences which being examined of times make against themselves This they do ignorantly it being in their power to suppress or perhaps to alter them And why then should any man conceive it strange that an erroncous and corrupted Church should preserve and deliver the Scriptures uncorrupted when indeed for many reasons which I have formerly alledged it was impossible for them to corrupt them Seeing therefore this is all the necessity that is pretended of a perpetual Succession of men otthodox in all points certainly there is no necessity at all of any such neither can the want of it prove any man or any Church Heretical 39 When therefore you have produced some proof of this which was your Major in your former Syllogism That want of Succession is a certain mark of Heresie you shall then receive a full answer to your Minor We shall then consider whether your indelibe Character be any reality or whether it be a creature of your own making a fancy of your own imagination And if it be a thing and not only a word whether our Bishops and Priests have it not as well as yours and whether some mens perswasion that there is no such thing can hinder them from having it or prove that they have it not if there be any such thing Any more than a mans perswasion that he has not taken Physick or Poyson will make him not to have taken it if he has or hinder the operation of it And whether Tertullian in the place quoted by you speak of a Priest made a Layman by just deposition or degradation and not by a voluntary desertion of his Order And whether in the same place he set not some mark upon Heretiques that will agree to your Church Whether all the Authority of our Bishops in England before the Reformation was conferr'd on them by the Pope And if it were whether it were the Pope's right or an usurpation If it were his right Whether by Divine Law or Ecclesiastical And if by Ecclesiastical only Whether he might possibly so abuse his power as to deserve to lose it Whether de facto he had done so Whether supposing he had deserved to lose it those that deprived him of it had power to make it from him Or if not Whether they had power to suspend him from the use of it until good caution were put in and good assurance given that if he had it again he would not abuse it as he had formerly done Whether in case they had done unlawfully that took his power from him it may not things being now setled and the present Government established be as unlawful to go about to restore it Whether it be not a Fallacy to conclude Because we believe the Pope hath no power in England now when the King and State and Church hath deprived him upon just grounds of it therefore we cannot believe that he had any before his deprivation Whether without Schism a man may not withdraw obedience from an usurp'd Authority commanding unlawful things Whether the Roman Church might not give authority to Bishops and Priests to oppose her errors as well as a King gives Authority to a Judge to judge against him if his cause be bad as well as Trajan gave his sword to his Praefect with this Commission that If he governed well he should use it for him if ill against him Whether the Roman Church gave not Authority to her Bishops and Priests to preach against her corruptions in manners And if so Why not against her errors in doctrin if she had any Whether she gave them not authority to preach the whole Gospel of Christ and consequently against her doctrin if it should contradict any part of the Gospel of Christ Whether it be not acknowledged lawful in the Church of Rome for any Lay-man or woman that has ability to perswade others by word or by writing from errour and unto truth And why this liberty may not be practised against their Religion if it be false as well as for it if it be true Whether any man need any other commission or vocation than that of a Christian to do a work of charity And whether it be not one of the greatest works of charity if it be done after a peaceable manner and without any unnecessary disturbance of order to perswade men out a false unto a true way of eternal happiness Especially the Apostle having assur'd us that he whosoever he is who converteth a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins Whether the first Reformed Bishops died all at once so that there were not enough to ordain Others in the places that were vacant Whether the Bishops of England may not consecrate a Metropolitan of England as
in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joint Tradition of all the Apostolique Churches with one mouth and one voice teaching the same doctrin Or if for brevity sake they produced the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one of them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an age remov'd from him and the last of them all little more then an age from them Yet after all this they urg'd it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater then any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should err in one faith it should be should have erred into one faith And this was the condition of this argument as the Fathers urg'd it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholiques nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canon and your own Translation who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruption and for the mysterie of iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholique to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her ancient and original Traditions but also with her post-nate introduc'd Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the old Heretiques that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urg'd the old Heretiques certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41 But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly if you say so either you want Logick which is a certain sign of an ill disputer or are not pleas'd to use it which is a worse For speech is a certain sign of a living man yet want of speech is no sure argument that he is dead for he may be dumb and yet living still and we may have other evident tokens that he is so as eating drinking breathing moving So though the constant and universal delivery of any doctrin by the Apostolique Churches ever since the Apostles be a very great argument of the truth of it yet there is no certainty but that truth even Divine truth may through mens wickedness be contracted from its universality and interrupted in its perpetuity and so lose this argument and yet not want others to justifie and support it self For it may be one of those principles which God hath written in all mens hearts or a conclusion evidently arising from them It may be either contain'd in Scripture in express terms or deducible from it by apparâ—â—â— consequence If therefore you intend to prove want of a perpetual Succession of Professors a certain note of Heresie you must not content your self to shew that having it is one sign of truth but you must shew it to be the only sign of it and inseparable from it But this if you be well advis'd you will never undertake First because it is an impossible attempt and then because if you do it you will marr all for by proving this an inseparable sign of Catholique doctrin you will prove your own which apparently wants it in many points not to be Catholique For whereas you say this Succession requires two things agreement with the Apostles doctrin and an uninterrupted conveyance of it down to them that challenge it It will be prov'd against you that you fail in both points and that some things wherein you agree with the Apostles have not been held alwayes as your condemning the Doctrine of the Chiliasts and holding the Eucharist not necessary for Infants and that in many other things you agree not with them nor with the Church for many ages after For example In mutilation of the Communion in having your Service in such a language as the Assistants generally understand not your offering to Saints your picturing of God your worshipping of Pictures 42 Ad § 24. As for Universality of place the want whereof you object to Protestants as a mark of Heresie You have not set down clearly and univocally what you mean by it Whether universality of fact or of right and if of fact Whether absolute or comparative and if comparative Whether of the Church in comparison of any other Religion or only of heretical Christians or if in comparison of these whether in comparison of all other Sects conjoyn'd or in comparison only of any One of them Nor have you proved it by any good argument in any sense to be a certain mark of heresie For those places of S. Austin do not deserve the name And truly in my judgment you have done advisedly in proving it no better For as for Universality of right or a right to Universality all Religions claim it but only the true has it and which has it cannot be determin'd unless it be first determin'd which is the true An absolute Universality and diffusion through all the world if you should pretend to all the world would laugh at you If you should contend for latitude with any one Religion Mahumetism would carry the victory from you If you should oppose yourselves against all other Christians besides you it is certain you would be cast in this suit also If lastly being hard driven you
adhere For you abuse the world and them if you pretend that they hold the first of your two principles That these particular Books are the word of God for so I think you mean either to be in it selfe evidently certain or of it self and being devested of the motives of credibility evidently credible For they are not so fond as to conceive nor so vain as to pretend that all men do assent to it which they would if it were evidently certain nor so ridiculous as to imagine that if an Indian that never heard of Christ or Scripture should by chance find a Bible in his owne Language and were able to read it that upon the reading it he would certainly without a miracle believe it to be the word of God which he could not chuse if it were evidently credible What then do they affirm of it Certainly no more than this that whatsoever man that is not of a perverse minde shall weigh with serious and mature deliberation those great moments of reason which may incline him to believe the Divine authority of Scripture and compare them with the leight objections that in prudence can be made against it he shall not chuse but finde sufficient nay abundant inducements to yeeld unto it firm faith and sincere obedience Let that learned man Hugo Grotius speak for all the rest in his Book of the truth of Christian Religion which Book whosoever attentively peruses shall find that a man may have great reason to be a Christian without dependance upon your Church for any part of it and that your Religion is no foundation of but rather a scandal and an objection against Christianity He then in the last Chapter of his second Book hath these excellent words If any be not satisfied with these arguments above-said but desires more forcible reasons for confirmation of the excellency of Christian Religion let such know that as there are variety of things which be true so are there divers wayes of proving or manifesting the truth Thus is there one way in Mathematicks another in Physicks a third in Ethicks and lastly another kind when a matter of fact is in question wherein verily we must rest content with such testimonies as are free from all suspicion of untruth otherwise down goes all the frame and use of history and a great part of the Art of Physick together with all dutifulness that ought to be between parents and children for matters of practice can no way else be known but by such testimonies Now it is the pleasure of Almighty God that those things which he would have us to believe so that the very belief thereof may be imputed to us for obedience should not so evidently appear as those things which are apprehended by sense and plain demonstration but only be so farre forth revealed as may beget faith and a perswasion thereof in the hearts and minds of such as are not obstinate That so the Gospel may be as a touch-stone for triall of mens judgements whether they be sound or unsound For seeing these arguments whereof we have spoken have induced so many honest godly and wise men to approve of this Religion it is thereby plain enough that the fault of other mens infidelity is not for want of sufficient testimony but because they would not have that to be had and embraced for truth which is contrary to their wilful desires it being a hard matter for them to relinquish their honors and set at naught other commodities which thing they know they ought to do if they admit of Christ's doctrin and obey what he hath commanded And this is the rather to be noted of them for that many other historical narrations are approved by them to be true which notwithstanding are only manifest by authority and not by any such strong proofs and perswasions or tokens as do declare the history of Christ to be true 52. And now you see I hope that Protestants neither do need nor protend to any such evidence in the doctrin they believe as cannot well consist both with the essence and the obedience of faith Let us come now to the last Nullity which you impute to the faith of Protestants and that is want of Prudence Touching which point as I have already demonstrated that wisdome is not essential to faith but that a man may truly believe truth though upon insufficient motives So I doubt not but I shall make good that if prudence were necessary to faith we have better title to it than you and that if a wiser then Solomon were here he should have better reason to believe the Religion of Protestants than Papists the Bible rather than the Councel of Trent But let us hear what you can say 53. Ad § 31. You demand then first of all What wisdome was it to forsake a Church confessedly very ancient and besides which there could be demonstrated no other Visible Church of Christ upon earth I answer Against God and truth there lies no Prescription and therefore certainly it might be great wisdome to forsake ancient errors for more ancient Truths One God is rather to be follow'd then innumerable worlds of men And therefore it might be great wisdome either for the whole Visible Church nay for all the men in the world having wandred from the way of Truth to return unto it or for a part of it nay for one man to do so although all the world besides were madly resolute to do the contrary It might be great wisdome to forsake the errors though of the only Visible Church much more of the Roman which in conceiving her self the whole Visible Church does somwhat like the Frog in the Fable which thought the ditch he liv'd in to be all the world 54. You demand again What wisdome was it to forsake a Church acknowledg'd to want nothing necessary to Salvation indued with Succession of Bishops c. usque ad Election or Choice I answer Yet might it be great wisdome to forsake a Church not acknowledged to want nothing necessary to salvation but accused and convicted of Many damnable errors certainly damnable to them who were convicted of them had they still persisted in them after their conviction though perhaps pardonable which is all that is acknowledg'd to such as ignorantly continued in them A Church vainly arrogating without possibility of proof a perpetual Succession of Bishops holding alwaies the same doctrin and with a ridiculous impudence pretending perpetual possession of all the world whereas the world knowes that a little before Luther's arising your Church was confined to a part of a part of it Lastly a Church vainly glorying in the dependance of other Churches upon her which yet she supports no more than those crouching Anticks which seem in great buildings to labour under the weight they bear do indeed support the Fabrick For a corrupted and salfe Church may give authority to preach the truth and consequently against her own falshoods and corruptions Besides a
ours by your own confession is safe whereas we hold that in yours there is no hope of salvation Therefore you may and ought to imbrace ours This is our Argument◠And if the Dominicans and Jesuits did say one to another as we say you then one of them might with good consequence press the other to believe his opinion You have still the hard fortune to be beaten with your own weapon 12. It remaineth then that both in regard of Faith and Charity Protestants are obliged to unite themselves with the Church of Rome And I may adde also in regard of the Theological Vertue of Hope without which none can hope to be saved and which you want either by excess of Confidence or defect 〈◊〉 Despaire not unlike to your Faith which I shewed to be either deficient in Certainty or excessive in Evidence as likewise according to the rigid Calvinists it is either so strong that once had it can never be lost or so more than weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten For the true Theological Hope of Christians is a Hope which keeps a mean between Presumption and Desperation which moves us to work our salvation with fear and trembling which conducts us to make sure our salvation by good works as holy Scripture adviseth But contrarily Protestants do either exclude Hope by Despair with the Doctrin That our Saviour died not for all and that such want grace sufficient to salvation or else by vain Presumption grounded upon a fantastical perswasion that they are Predestinate which Faith must exclude all fear and trembling Neither can they make their Calling certain by good works who do certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified even by Faith alone and by that Faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified Which point some Protestants do expresly affirm to be the soul of the Church the principal Origin of salvation of all other points of Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest as already I have noted Chap. 3. n. 19. And if some Protestants do now relent from the rigour of the foresaid doctrin we must affirm that at least some of them want the Theological Vertue of Hope yea that none of them can have true Hope while they hope to be saved in the Communion of those who defend such doctrins as do directly overthrow all true Christian Hope And for as much as concerns Faith we must also inferr that they want Unity therein and consequently have none at all by their disagreement about the soul of the Church the principal Origin of salvation of all other points of Doctrin the chiefest and weightiest And if you want true Faith you must by consequence want Hope or if you hold that this point is not to be so indivisible on either side but that it hath latitude sufficient to imbrace all parties without prejudice to their salvation notwithstanding that your Brethren hold it to be the soul of the Church c. I must repeat what I have said heretofore that even by this Example it is cleer you cannot agree what points be fundamental And so to whatsoever answer you fly I press you in the same manner and say that you have no Certainty whether you agree in fundamental points or Unity and substance of Faith which cannot stand with difference in fundamentals And so upon the whole matter I leave it to be considered whether Want of Charity can be justly charged on us because we affirm that they cannot without repentance be saved who want of all other the most necessary means to salvation which are the three Theological Vertues FAITH HOPE and CHARITY 13. And now I end this first part having as I conceive complyed with my first design in that measure which Time Commodity scarcity of Books and my own small Abilities could afford which was to shew that Amongst men of different Religions one side only can be saved For since there must be some infallible Means to decide all Controversies concerning Religion and to propound truth revealed by Almighty God and this means can be no other but the Visible Church of Christ which at the time of Luther's appearance was only the Church of Rome and such as agreed with her We must conclude that whosoever opposeth himself to her definitions or forsaketh her Communion doth resist God himself whose Spouse she is and whose divine truth she propounds and therefore becomes guilty of Schism and Heresie which since Luther his Associates and Protestants have done and still continue to do it is not Want of Charity but abundance of evident cause that forceth us to declare this necessary Truth PROTESTANCY UNREPENTED DESTROIES SALVATION The ANSWER to the SEVENTH CHAPTER That Protestants are not bound by the Charity which they owe to themselves to re-unite themselves to the Roman-Church THE first four Paragraphs of this Chapter are wholly spent in an unnecessary introduction unto a truth which I presume never was nor will be by any man in his right wits either denyed or question'd and that is That every man in Wisdom and Charity to himself is to take the safest way to his eternal Salvation 2. The sift and sixt are nothing in a manner but references to discourses already answered by me and confuted in their proper places 3. The seventh eighth ninth tenth and eleventh have no other foundation but this false pretence That we confess the Roman Church free from damnable error 4. In the twelfth there is something that has some probability to perswade some Protestants to forsake some of their opinions or others to leave their communion but to prove Protestants in general to be in the state of sin while they remain separate from the Roman Church there is not one word or syllable and besides whatsoever argument there is in it for any purpose it may be as forcibly return'd upon Papists as it is urg'd against Protestants in as much as all Papists either hold the doctrin of Predetermination and absolute Election or communicate with those that do hold it Now from this doctrin what is more prone and obvious than for every natural man without Gods especial preventing grace to make this practical collection Either I am elected or not elected If I be no impiety possible can ever damne me If not no possible industry can ever save me Now whether this disjunctive perswasion be not as likely as any doctrin of any Protestants to extinguish Christian hope and filiall fear and to lead some men to dispaire others to presumption all to a wretchless and impious life I desire you ingeniously to inform mee and if you deny it assure your self you shall be contradicted and confuted by men of your own Religion and your own Society and taught at length this charitable Doctrin that though mens opinions may be charg'd with the absurd consequencs which naturally flow from them yet the men themselves are not I mean if they perceive not the consequence of these
knowing Papist can promise himself any security or comfort from them We confess saith he the Church of Rome to be in some sense a true Church and her errors to some men not damnable we believe her Religion safe that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some such as believe what they profess But we believe it not safe but very dangerous if not certainly damnable to such as profess it when they believe or if their hearts were upright and not perversly obstinate might believe the contrary Observe I pray you these restraining terms which formerly you have dissembled A true Church in some sense not damnable to some men a safe way that is by Gods great mercy not damnable to some And then seeing you have pretended these Confessions to be absolute which are thus plainly limited how can you avoid the imputation of an egregious Sophister You quarrel with the Doctor in the end of your Preface for using in his Book such ambiguous terms as these in some sort in some sense in some degree and desire him if he make any reply either to forbear them or to tell you roundly in what sort in what sense in what degree he understands these and the like mincing phrases But the truth is he hath not left them so ambiguous and undetermin'd as you pretend but told you plainly in what sense your Church may pass for a true Church viz. in regard we may hope that she retains those truths which are simply absolutely and indispensably necessary to Salvation which may suffice to bring those good souls to heaven who wanted means of discovering their errors this is the charitable construction in which you may pass for a Church And to what men your Religion may be safe and your errors not damnable viz. to such whom Ignorance may excuse and therefore he hath more cause to complain of you for quoting his words without those qualifications than you to find fault with him for using of them 30. That your Discourse in the 12 § presseth you as forcibly as Protestants I have shewed above I add here 1. Whereas you say that faith according to your rigid Calvinists is either so strong that once had it can never he lost or so more than weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotten That these are words without sense Never any Calvinist affirmed that faith was so weak and so much nothing that it can never be gotâ—en but it seems you wanted matter to make up your Antithesis and therefore were resolved to speak empty words rather than lose your figure Crimina rasis Librat in antithetis doctas posuisse Figuras Laudatur 2. That there is no Calvinist that will deny the Truth of this Proposition Christ died for all nor to subscribe to that sense of it which your Dominicans put upon it neither can you with coherence to the received Doctrin of your own Society deny that they as well as the Calvinists take away the distinction of sufficient and effectual grace and indeed hold none to be sufficient but only that which is effectual 3. Whereas you say They cannot make their calling certain by good works who do certainly believe that before any good works they are justified and justified by faith alone and by that faith whereby they certainly believe they are justified I answ There is no Protestant but believes that Faith Repentance and universal Obedience are necessary to the obtaining of Gods favour and eternal happiness This being granted the rest is but a speculative Controversie a Question about words which would quickly vanish but that men affect not to understand one another As if a company of Physitians were in consultation and should all agree that three medicines and no more were necessary for the recovery of the Patients health this were sufficient for his direction towards the recovery of his health though concerning the proper and specifical effects of these three medicines there should be amongst them as many differences as men So likewise being generally at accord that these three things Faith Hope and Charity are necessary to salvation so that whosoever wants any of them cannot obtain it and he which hath them all cannot fail of it is it not very evident that they are sufficiently agreed for mens directions to eternal Salvation And seeing Charity is a full comprehension of all good workes they requiring Charity as a necessary qualification in him that will be saved what sense is there in saying they cannot make their calling certain by good works They know what salvation is as well as you and have as much reason to desire it They believe it as heartily as you that there is no good work but shall have its proper reward and that there is no possibility of obtaining the eternal reward without good works and why then may not this Doctrin be a sufficient incitement and provocation unto good works 31. You say that they certainly believe that before any good works they are justified But this is a calumny There is no Protestant but requires to Justification Remission of sins and to Remission of sins they all require Repentance and Repentance I presume may not be denyed the name of a good work being indeed if it be rightly understood and according to the sense of the word in Scripture an effectual conversion from all sin to all holiness But though it be taken for meer Sorrow for sins past and a bare Purpose of amendment yet even this is a good work and therefore Protestants requiring this to Remission of sins and Remission of sins to Justification cannot with candor be pretended to believe that they are justified before any good work 32. You say They believe themselves justified by faith alone and that by that faith whereby they believe themselves justified Some peradventure do so but withal they believe that that faith which is alone and unaccompanied with sincere and universal obedience is to be esteem'd not faith but presumption and is at no hand sufficient to justification that though Charity be not imputed unto justification yet is it required as a necessary disposition in the person to be justified and that though in regard of the imperfection of it no man can be justified by it yet that on the other side no man can be justified without it So that upon the whole matter a man may truly and safely say that the Doctrin of these Protestants taken altogether is not a Doctrin of Liberty not a Doctrin that turns hope into presumtion and carnal security though it may justly be feared that many licentious persons taking it by halfes have made this wicked use of it For my part I do heartily wish that by publique Authority it were so ordered that no man should ever preach or print this Doctrin that Faith alone justifies unless he joyns this together with it that Universal Obedience is necessary to salvation And besides that those Chapters of Saint Paul which intreat of
and so 't is Courtesie It vaunteth not it self and so 't is Modesty It is not puffed up and so 't is Humility It is not easily provok'd and so 't is Lenity It thinketh no evil and so 't is Simplicity It rejoyceth in the Truth and so 't is Verity It beareth all things and so 't is Fortitude It believeth all things and so 't is Faith It hopeth all things and so 't is Confidence It endureth all things and so 't is Patience It never faileth and so 't is Perseverance 36. You see two glorious and divine Vertues namely Faith and Charity though not naturally express'd yet pretty well counterfeited by the Moralist And to make up the Analogy compleat we have the third Royal vertue which is Hope reasonably well shadow'd out in that which they call Intenâ—io Finis which is nothing else but a fore-tasting of the happiness which they propose to themselves as a sufficient reward for all their severe and melancholick endeavours 37. What shall we say my beloved Friends Shall the Heathenish Moralist meerly out of the strength of natural Reason conclude that the knowledg of what is good and fit to be done without a practise of it upon our affections and outward actions to be nothing worth nay ridiculous and contemptible And shall we who have the Oracles of God nay the whole perfect will of God fully set down in the holy Scriptures in every page almost whereof we find this urg'd and press'd upon us That to know our Masters will without performing it is fruitless unto us nay will intend the heat and add vertue and power to the lake of fire and brimstone reserved for such empty unfruitful Christians and shall we I say content our selves any longer with bare hearing and knowing of the Word and no more God forbid Rather let us utterly avoid this holy Temple of God Let us rather cast his Word behind our backs and be as ignorant of his holy Will as ever our fore-fathers were Let us contrive any course to cut off all commerce and entercourse all communion and acquaintance with our God rather then when we profess to know him and willingly to allow him all those glorious Titles and Attributes by which he hath made himself known unto us in his Word in our hearts to deny him in our lives and practises to dishonour him and use him despightfully 38. It were no hard matter I think to perswade any but resolved hardned minds that Fruit is necessary before any admission into heaven only by proposing to your considerations the form and process of that Judgment to which you every man in his own person must submit The Authors word may be taken for the truth of what I shall tell you for the story we receive from his mouth that shall be Judg of all and therefore is likely to know what course and order himself will observe 39. In the General Resurrection when sentence of absolution or condemnation shall be pass'd upon every one according to his deserts Knowledg is on no side mentioned but one because he hath cloathed the naked and fed the hungry and done such like works of Charity he is taken and the rest that have not done so much are refused Will it avail any one then to say Lord we confess we have not done these works but we have spent many an hour in hearing and talking of thy Word nay we have maintain'd to the utmost of our power and to our own great prejudice many Opinions and Tenents Alas we little thought that any spotted imperfect work of ours was requisite we were resolved that for working thou hadst done enough for us to get us to heaven Will any such excuses as these serve the turn Far be it from us to think so 40. If you will turn to Matth. 7.22 you shall find stronger and better excuses then these to no purpose Mat. 7.22 Many shall say unto me saith Christ Lord have not we prophesied in thy Name These were something more then hearers they had spent their time in preaching and converting souls unto Christ which is a work if directed to a right end of the most precious and admirable value that it is possible for a creature to perform And yet whiles they did not practise themselves what they taught others they became Cast-aways Others there were that had cast out Devils and done many miracles And yet so lov'd the unclean spirits that themselves were possess'd withal that they could not endure to part company then and now were never likely 41. But have not I all this while mistaken my Auditory Were not these Instructions fitter for the Universities Had it not been more fit and seasonable for me to have instructed and catechis'd mine hearers rather than to give them cautions and warnings lest they should abuse their knowledg No surely Instructions to make use of knowledg in our practise and conversation and not to content our selves with meer knowing and hearing and talking of the mysteries of our Salvation cannot in the most ignorant Congregation be unseasonable Even the Heathen which were utter strangers from the knowledge of Gods wayes did notwithstanding render themselves inexcusable for deteining some part of the Truth as it were naturally ingrafted in them in unrighteousness So that there is no man in the world but knows much more then he practises every man hides some part at least of his Talent in a Napkin wherefore let every man even the most ignorant that hears me this day search the most inward secret corners of his heart for this treasure of knowledg and let him take it forth and put it into the Usurers hands and trade thriftily with it that he may return his Lord his own with encrease Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing Verily I say unto you he shall make him Ruler over all his Household 42. And thus I have gone through one member of my First General namely the consideration wherein the Imprudence of the Fool in my Text doth consist In the prosecution whereof I have discovered unto you how severally Satan plants his Engins for the subversion of the Church In the Primitive times when Religion was more stirring and active and Charity in Fashion He assay'd to corrupt mens understandings with Heresies and there by the way was observ'd his order and method how distinctly beginning in those first times with the first Article he hath orderly succeeded to corrupt the next following and now in these last dayes hee 's got to even the last end of the Creed But since by the mercy and goodness of God we are delivered and stand firm in the Faith once delivered to the Saints he hath raised another Engine against us that stand and that is To work that our Orthodox Opinions do us no good which he performs by snatching the Word out of our Hearts and making it unfruitful in our Lives Now those that are thus enveagl'd and
you may be the better able to go along with me in what remains of this Text briefly to discover unto you how farr I have already in another Auditory proceeded in it 2. First therefore I conceived by attending to the course and series of the Psalm and by comparing this place with many others in Holy Scripture in different language expressing the same sense That this Fool in my Text was not a man utterly ignorant and devoid of the knowledg of God and his Word For he is suppos'd by the Psalmist to be a man living within the pale of the Church and outwardly professing the true Religion and Worship of God And thereupon Secondly That his Atheism was no He athenish Philosopâ—ical Atheism no problematical maintaining an opinion That there is no God For even among the very Heathens we read not of above three or four of any account which have proceeded to this excelling degree and height of Impiety 3. But this Person whether Doeg the Edomite or whosoever he were is such a one as though in his Profession and even serious thoughts he do not question a Deity but would be a mortal Enemy to any one who should dare to deprive and rob Almighty God of any of his Glorious Attributes Notwithstanding in his Heart that is in the phrase of the Scripture in the propension and inclination of his Affections and by consequence in the course and practise of his life he denies and renounces God He accounts the spending a little time in thinking and meditating on the Providence or Mercy or Severity of God to be an employment very ungainful and disadvantageous to him a business likely to trouble and spoil many of his ungodly projects and to hinder him in his fortunes And for this reason he will put God farr away from him He will not suffer him to be as the Psalmist saith Psal 10.4 Psal 10.4 in all his crafty purposes 4. I yet willingly confess that this Saying in the Heart There is no God may reasonably be interpreted to be a secret whispering-suggestion an inward perswasion by fits which a wretched worldling may have that since he has thrived so well by his carelesness in observing Gods Word and obstinate opposing himself to his will it may be possible there is indeed no God at all or if there be that he will not vouchsafe to descend so low as to take notice what is done here on earth or to observe how each particular person behaves himself in this life Now because I will not set up one of these Expositions against the other I will hereafter as occasion shall offer it self make use of them both 5. Having therefore conceived the sense of the Text to be such as I have now told you In the words I observed two General Parts First the cause of Atheism and by consequence all the abominations following through the whole Psalm intimated in the person Nabal i. e. The Fool which is Folly i. e. Ignorance or rather Incogitancy Inconsideration Secondly The effect of this Folly which is Atheism and that seated not in the Brain but in the Heart or Affections I have already gone through the former part namely the cause of Atheism which is Folly in the prosecution whereof I endeavoured to discover wherein this Folly doth consist And that is not so much in an utter ignorance of God and his Holy Word as a not making a good use of it when it is known a suffering it to ly dead to swim unprofitably in the Brain without any fruit thereof in the reformation of a mans life and conversation And there I showed first what extream folly it was for a man to seek to encrease the knowledg of his Masters will without a resolution to encrease proportionably in a serious active performance thereof And secondly the extream unavoidable danger and encrease of guilt which knowledg without practise brings with it To both which Considerations I severally annexed Applications to the Consciences of them that heard me and should have proceeded to 6. The Second General Part which is the effect and fruit of the folly or inconsideration of Nabal the Fool in my Text which is Atheism practical not of the Understanding but the Will and Affections But the time being spent in the prosecution of the former General Part I was forced to reserve this Second General to be the employment of another Hour 7. Only thus much I then made promise of which debt I purpose now to discharge to you namely To demonstrate by infallible deductions out of Gods Word that many who profess Religion and a perfect knowledg of Gods Word yet whiles they allow him only the Brain and not what he almost only requires the Heart and Affections may prove in Gods account very Atheists Or to bring it nearer home I promised to shew how that many the ordinary courses and most incontrouled practises of men of this age do utterly contradict and formally destroy the very Foundations and Principles of that glorious Religion which they profess Of these c. 8. At the first sight indeed a man would think that of all the places in Holy Scripture and of all the ages which have been since the world began That this Text and these times should suit worst together For first if a man would strive with all the carnestness and even spite he could in all the abominable odious colours to describe the worst of all humane creatures even the Idolatrous self-devouring Indians What more horrible expression could he imagin to himself then to call them Fools and such Fools who say in their Heart There is no God Again if we shall enquire and ask the former Ages if ever the world was so stored and even oppressed with knowledg They will tell us That the Light was never a burden nor Knowledg a vice before now Never till now did all sorts and conditions of men pretend to be able to state the most intricate profound questions of our Religion Never till now was Moses his wish fulfilled I would to God that all the people of the Lord were Prophets though in a sense which would scarce have pleased him 9. These things considered were it not fit think you that I should renounce my Text or travel to find out a Nation whom it may concern and who have need to hear Atheists condemned I would to God my Beloved Brethren that whatsoever I shall speak against that fearful sin of Atheism may prove vain unprofitable words words which may return empty having found none to fasten upon I would to God that I might strive now as one that beateth the air so that you even you who know so much were innocent But David found this a Doctrin fit to be pressed in his days which were none of the worst neither Yea he hath a second time in Psal 51. almost in terminis terminantibus repeated whatsoever he here speaks of the Atheist We find not such an example through
I say our Saviour took to perform an admirable miracle even upon the man himself and that he brought about by as unlikely a course only with inviting himself to his house By which unexpected affability and courtesie of our Saviour this so notorious and famous Publican and sinner was so surpriz'd with joy and comfort that presently he gives over all thought and consideration of his trade as a thing of no moment and being to receive Christ into his house and knowing how ill agreeing companions Christ and Mammon would prove in the same lodging he resolves to sweep it and make it clean for the entertaining of him he empties it of that dross and dung wherewith before it was defiled half of his estate goes away at a clap upon the poor and the remainder in all likelihood is in great danger to be consum'd by that noble and generous offer which he makes in the words of my Text Whomsoever I have defrauded by forged cavillation I restore c. 4. In which words I shall observe unto you these two General Parts Division First a Discovery and it may be confession of his beloved bosome sin the sin of his trade in these words If I have defrauded any man or whomsoever I have defrauded Secondly Satisfaction tendered in the words following I restore unto him four fold In the former General we may take notice of two particulars 1. Zacchaeus his willingness and readiness of his own accord to discover and confess his sin when he said Whomsoever I have defrauded And 2. the nature and heinousness of the crime discovered which is called a defrauding by forged cavillation or as some Translations read with false accusation In the second General likewise which is the satisfaction tendered by Zacchaeus there offer themselves two particulars more namely 1. So much of the satisfaction as was necessary to be performed by virtue of an indispensable Precept and that is Restitution in these words I restore unto him 2. That which was voluntary and extraordinary namely the measure and excess of this Restitution which he professeth should be four fold Of these two parts therefore with their several particulars in the same order as they have been proposed briefly and with all the plainness and perspicuity I can imagine And 1. Of the former General and therein of the first Particular namely Zacchaeus his readiness to confess his Sin in these words If I c. 5. I said even now only General I. It may be this was a confession of his crime but now I will be more resolute Partic. 1. and tell you peremptorily this was a confession for without all question Zacchaeus as the case stood now with him was in no humour of Justifying himself he had no mind to boast his integrity in his office Or if he had he might be sure that common fame if that were all yet that alone might be a sufficient argument at least too great a presumption against him to confute him But to put it out of question Our Saviour himself by applying the 10. verse of this Chapter to him acknowledgeth him for a sinful undone man one that had so far lost himself in the wandring mazes of this wicked world that unless Christ himself had taken the pains to search and enquire after him and having found him by the power and might of his Grace to rescue and recover him from the errour of his ways by restoring him his eyes whereby he might take notice towards what a dangerous precipice he was hastening there had been no possibility but at last he must have needs fallen headlong into the gulf of destruction 6. Now it being I suppose evident that Zacchaeus was guilty and that in a high degree and openly and scandalously guilty of the crime here discover'd there is no doubt to be made but that he who was so willing to unlock and disperse his ill gotten treasures would not begin to divert his covetousness upon his sins he would not hoard them up but would place his glory even in his shame and whereas he had been the servant and slave of sins he would wear his shackles and fetters as signs of the glorious victory which through Christ he had won and emblemes of that blessed change which he found in himself being rescued from the basest slavery that possibly can be imagined into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God 7. But it may be you will say Suppose Zacchaeus did freely and voluntarily confess his sin to Christ who had authority to forgive him his sins though he had never discovered them what collection shall be made from hence Zacchaeus might be as bold as he would with himself but as for us his example shall be no rule to us we thank God this is Popery in these daies and since we have freed our selves from this burden we will not be brought into bondage to any man we will confess our sins I warrant you only to God who is only able to forgive us them as for the Minister it may be we will sometimes be beholding to him to speak some comfortable words now and then to us when we are troubled in conscience and we have not been taught to go any further 8. I confess I find no great inclination in my self especially being in the Pulpit to undertake a controversie even where it may seem to offer it self much less to press and strein a Text for it for I desire to have no adversaries in my Preaching but only the Devil and Sin Only having now mentioned Confession and considering how much the Doctrine of our holy Mother the Church hath been traduc'd not only by the malice and detraction of our professed enemies of the Church of Rome but also by the suspicious ignorance and partiality of her own children who out of a liking of the zeal or rather fury of some former Protestant Writers have laid this for a ground of stating Controversies of our Religion That that is to be acknowledged for the Doctrine of these Reformed Churches which is most opposite and contradicting to the Church of Rome So that as the case goes now Controversies of Religion are turn'd into private quarrels and it is not so much the Truth that is sought after as the salving and curing the reputation of particular men 9. These things therefore considered truly for my part I dare not take upon me so much to gratifie the Papists as to think my self oblig'd to maintain many incommodious speeches of some of our Divines in this point Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercentur Atridae They will never be unfurnish'd of matter to write Books to the worlds end if this shall be the method of stating Controversies Oh what an impregnable cause should we have against the Church of Rome if we our selves did not help to weaken and betray it by mixing therewith the interests and conceits of particular men 10. Give me therefore leave I pray you to give you
the state of the Question and the Doctrine of our Church in the words of one who both now is and for ever will worthily be accounted The glory of this Kingdome Bishop Usher's Ans to the Jesuit Cap. of Confession p. 84. Be it known saith he to our adversaries of Rome I add also to our adversaries even of Great Britain who sell their private fancies for the Doctrine of our Church that no kind of Confession either publick or private is disallow'd by our Church that is any way requisite for the due execution of that ancient Power of the Keys which Christ bestowed upon his Church The thing which we reject is that new pick-lock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon mens consciences as a matter necessary to salvation by the Canons of the late Conventicle of Trent in the 14. Session 11. And this truth being so evident in Scripture and in the writings of the ancient best times of the Primitive Church the safest interpreters of Scripture I make no question but there will not be found one person amongst you who when he shall be in a calm unpartial disposition that will offer to deny For I beseech you give your selves leave unpartially to examine your own thoughts Can any man be so unreasonable as once to imagine with himself that when our Saviour after his Resurrection having received as himself saith all power in heaven and earth having led captivity captive came then to bestow gifts upon men when he I say in so solemn a manner having first breath'd upon his Disciples thereby conveying and insinuating the Holy Ghost into their hearts renewed unto them or rather confirm'd and seal'd unto them that glorious Commission which before he had given to Peter sustaining as it were the person of the whole Church whereby he delegated to them an authority of binding and loosing sins upon earth with a promise that the proceedings in the Court of Heaven should be directed and regulated by theirs on Earth Can any man I say think so unworthily of our Saviour as to esteem these words of his for no better than complement for nothing but Court-holy-water 12. Yet so impudent have our adversaries of Rome been in their dealings with us that they have dared to lay to our charge as if we had so mean a conceit of our Saviour's gift of the Keys taking advantage indeed from the unwary expressions of some particular Divines who out of too forward a zeal against the Church of Rome have bended the staffe too much the contrary way and in stead of taking away that intolerable burden of a Sacramental necessary universal Confession have seem'd to void and frustrate all use and exercise of the Keys 13. Now that I may apply something of that which hath now been spoken to your hearts and consciences Matters standing as you see they do since Christ for your benefit and comfort hath given such authority to his Ministers upon your unfeigned repentance and contrition to absolve and release you from your sins why should I doubt or be unwilling to exhort and perswade you to make your advantage of thi◠gracious promise of our Saviours why should I envy you the participation of so heavenly a Blessing Truly if I should deal thus with you I should prove my self a malicious unchristian-like malignant Preacher I should wickedly and unjustly against my own conscience seek to defraud you of those glorious Blessings which our Saviour hath intended for you 14. Therefore in obedience to his gracious will and as I am warranted and even enjoyned by my holy Mother the Church of England expresly in the Book of Common-Prayer in the Rubrick of Visiting the Sick which Doctrine this Church hath likewise embraced so far I beseech you that by your practise and use you will not suffer that Commission which Christ hath given to his Ministers to be a vain form of words without any sense under them not to be an antiquated exspired Commission of no use nor validity in these daies But whensoever you find your selves charg'd and oppressed especially with such Crimes as they call Peccata vastantia conscientiam such as do lay waste and depopulate the conscience that you would have recourse to your spiritual Physician and freely disclose the nature and malignancy of your disease that he may be able as the cause shall require to proportion a remedy either to search it with corrosives or comfort and temper it with oyl And come not to him only with such a mind as you would go to a learned man experienc'd in the Scriptures as one that can speak comfortable quieting words to you but as to one that hath authority delegated to him from God himself to absolve and acquit you of your sins If you shall do this Assure your souls that the understanding of man is not able to conceive that transport and excess of joy and comfort which shall accrew to that mans heart that is perswaded that he hath been made partaker of this Blessing orderly and legally according as out Saviour Christ hath prescribed 15. You see I have dealt honestly and freely with you it may be more freely than I shall be thanked for But I should have sinn'd against my own soul if I had done otherwise I should have conspir'd with our adversaries of Rome against our own Church in affording them such an advantage to blaspheme our most holy and undefiled Religion It becomes you now though you will not be perswaded to like of the practise of what out of an honest heart I have exhorted you to yet for your own sakes not to make any uncharitable construction of what hath been spoken And here I will acquit you of this unwelcome subject and from Zacchaeus his confession of his Sin I proceed to my second particular namely the nature and hainousness of the crime confess'd which is here call'd a defrauding another by forged cavillation 16. The crime here confessed is called in Greek Sycophancy Partic. II. for the words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the understanding of which word in this place we shall not need so much to be beholden to the Classical Greek Authors as to the Septuagint who are the best Interpreters of the Idiom of the Greek language in the Evangelical writings Two Reasons of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are given the one by Ister in Atticis the other by Philomnestus de Smynthiis Rhodiis both recorded by Athenaeus in that treasury of ancient learning his Deipnosophists in the third Book which because they are of no great use for the interpretation of S. Luke I willingly omit 17. Now there are four several words in the Hebrew which the Seventy Interpreters have rendred in the old Testament by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the verbal thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One whereof signifies to abalienate or wrest any thing from another by fraud and sophistry opposed to another word in the same language which imports