your self See how you now differ from your selfe Before the ground of Believing was the authority of the Church now the authority of God revealing the cause of their belief Before you concluded Faith consisted in submitting the understanding and adhering to the Church and in believing every thing because she proposeth it now it is the authority of God revealing which causes their faith to be Divine As for the term thus the formal object is such under which and in respect whereunto any thing proceedeth if then Gods Revelation cometh not to us under the Proposal of the Church or as proposed by the Church then the cause is lost if it doth then grant me my term and affirm with me that the Pontificians hold so If not they are better then you And what means else their implicite faith unlesse we are to believe every thing as the Church believeth it and because the Church proposeth it as you said and if we be to beleive every thing as the Church believe it then is the Church the formal object of their faith since they are also bound not to doubt but simply to obey as Bellarmine tells us in his fourth Book of the Roman Bishop 5. chap. The other term you find fault with is excesse of faith You taxe it as improperly spoken But surely it will passe without any Grain of Salt or of allowance if we consider that Faith may be compared as to a particular object and so there is not an Excesse of Faith as to that but then it may be compared as to many objects and so though we do not more believe one thing then we should if we should indeed believe it yet may we believe more then we should If we believe those things which are not at all to be believed And thus if we should believe whatsoever the Church of Rome proposeth we might be destroyed for excesse of Faith The Church of Rome is peccant in excesse of Faith by believing more points then it should believe and this is the reason why our Divinity is in negatives as to differences with them because their Divinity in differences to us is in additions SIR If you will excuse me for being so long I shall now conclude with the whole conclusion of Saint Austin whereof you gave me but part Against Reason no Sober Man will go against Scriptures no Christian then Christians should go by Scriptures against the Church no Peace-maker The Roman Catholick's first Treatise How in these times in which there be so many Religious the true Religion may certainly be found out The Preface THE Romane Catholicks have often foretold that by permitting freely to all sorts of people whatsoever the reading of the Scriptures in their Mother Tongue multitudes of New Sects and Heresies would not fail to grow up in numberless Number and as for the Peoples Manners they would daily grow worse and worse How true this is let the world judge That then which now mainly imports is to distinguish the true Religion from so many false ones This is my Aim To effect this I did write a short Paper shewing the Catholick Church so to teach the infallible way to Salvation which is to be obtained onely in the true faith that we cannot have as things stand any other Assurance to ground our faith upon securely I did never deny that when by the Infallible Authority of the Church we are secured that the Scriptures be the word of God we cannot believe such things as are clearly contained in the Scripture for so I should deny that I could not believe that to be infallibly true which upon an Infallible ground I believed to be Gods own word But I did and still do maintain that no man can have Infallible ground to believe the Scriptures now but he who first believeth that which the Church teacheth to be infallibly true Whence it will follow that his faith must needs now at the first be grounded upon the Revelation of Gods truth made by God to us by his Church and not by his written word The Papers I did write to this Effect have been answered by some truly Learned Scholar so that I hope so worthy a Man will not reject such a Reply as may seem to be as clear a Demonstration as any wise Man can hope for in this Matter And such a Demonstration I hope by Gods grace to make whilst I endevour to make good the Title prefixed to this Paper which Title I now add to shew that my chief drift is to guide a Soul redeemed by Christs blood to that happy eternity to which we cannot attain unless in all doubtful Controversies of faith we follow the Catholick Church as an Infallible Judge in all those Controversies we being obliged under pain of damnation not to dis-believe this Judge And whilst I demonstrate this I do demonstrate my former Position That the Infallible Authority of the Catholick Church is the Ground of our faith And also going on with this Demonstration I will leave nothing of Concernment unanswered in the Reply made and thus I will conclude contradictorily to the said Reply which a little after the beginning denyeth The Authority of the Catholick Church to be the Ground of faith and that whereby we are infallibly ascertained of the minde of God I answer not the Reply just in the Order that my Answer was returned for so I should be over-long I use this way of a little Treatise to prove my Title for thus all will be more clear and less tedious In the Conclusion I shew all the parts of the Reply to have been fully answered in this Discourse The Proof of the Title St. Anselme hath a very fit Similitude to express how much a Contentious Spirit in disputing doth blind the understanding from seeing the Manifest Truth He sayeth that a little before Sun-rising two men in the fields did fall into a hot debate concerning that place of the Heavens in which the Sun was that day to rise the one pointing out one part of the Heavens the other another They passed so far in their Contention that falling together by the Ears they both pulled out one anothers Eyes and so when the Sun by and by after did rise neither of them both could see a thing so clear as was the place of the Sun rising To our purpose Because Zeal in Religion is accounted laudable and also because prejudice caused by Education in such or such a Religion is a thing exceedingly swaying us to our own side we are commonly apt to grow into so hot a debate in disputations about Religion that I may freely say This Passion hindreth many thousands from seeing that clear Sun-shine of Truth which men of mean Capacity would clearly behold if setting all passion and prejudice aside they did with a Calm and humble Mind beg of God to give them this grace of seeking Truth with all sincerity for then he who should seek should find This is proved manifestly
you charge me in differing from my selfe because before I taught the ground of Believing to be the Authority of the Church and now I say it is the Authority of God Revealing My Reply is exceeding easie The Ground of our Faith is God Revealing and God Revealing by his Church as he first causeth our first Belief when he tells us by his Church such and such Books are Infallibly his Word God Revealing is alwaies the formal object of Faith but sometimes God Revealeth his minde by Scriptures and sometimes by the Church as he did for two Thousand yeares and more before the Scriptures were written The Prophets before they did write did say This saith the Lord to wit this he said by their Mouths So say I This and this saith our Lord by the Mouth of his Church as I have shewed Numb 22. Saint Athanasius to speak and I have shewed Numb 28. The General Councel of Chalcedon to have said Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo Pope of Rome And thus Gods Revelation cometh to us by the Church She and onely She teacheth us these and these Scriptures to be Gods Word We must first believe her before we can come to have Infallible Ground to believe Scriptures as I have fully shewed After we have believed Scripture we cannot by Scripture onely know the undoubted sense of many necessary places in Scripture as hath been shewed Again all things necessary to be believed be not set down in Scripture as hath also been shewed fully The Revelation of God coming to us in all these cases by the Church you by your own words in this place must grant her Authority to be our ordinary cause of Faith At the end of these your Answers you would fain seem to have spoken properly in accusing us of Excesse of Faith But your distinction doth no way salve the Impropriety of the Speech for there is still a difference in more believing Objects and believing more Objects but granting that it may be improperly spoken yet even in that Sense it is not truly said because there can be no Excesse of Faith in believing what God saith for believing upon an Infallible Authority all that we believe we cannot believe more then we should if we believe no more things then be grounded upon that Infallible Authority as we do not And consequently we do no more then believe such things as have for their Warrant This faith the Lord. Having now answered your Paper from the beginning to the end I am most willing to take your own close out of Saint Austin Against Reason no sober Man will go against Scriptures no Christian against the Church no Peace-maker adding his other words Tr. 32. in Joan. Let us believe my Brethren so much as a Man loveth the Church just so much he hath of the Holy Ghost SIR I Cannot answer it to God nor to his Church with us if I let you seem to your self or to others of your perswasion that you have the Victory untill you have overcome your Error therefore you will excuse me if I still follow you To your Preface then If the Roman Catholiques have often foretold that by permitting freely to all sorts of people the reading of the Scriptures in their Mother-tongue multitudes of new Sects and Heresies would not fail to grow up in numberlesse number and as for the peoples Manners they would grow worse and worse as you say in the beginning then are your Roman Catholiques in this false Prophets because they seem by you to make that the cause of Heresies and bad Manners This is plainly fallacia non causa or the fallacy of accident And secondly it is contrary to that of our Saviour Christ Saint Mark the 12.24 Do you not therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures and the power of God By our Saviour the knowledge of the Scriptures is not the cause of erring but the not knowing of the Scriptures is the cause of erring You do therefore erre not knowing the Scriptures which are able to make us wise unto Salvation as Saint Paul to Timothy 2 Tim. 3.15 And thirdly You confesse in this Paper that when we are by the Church assured that the Scripture is the Word of God we may Ground our Faith in it for those things which are plainly delivered And fourthly How cometh it to passe then that some of those in whom Infallibility as you think is vested have been Hereticks and lewd the former of which indeed you do much deny but is exemplified in Liberius's subscribing against Athanasius as you may see fully proved by our Reinolds against your Hart. And surely was that also an action of bad Manners Therefore if your Church were the true Church yet doth it not you see teach the way of Salvation infallibly and therefore can we not by it infallibly discerne the true Religion from the false Indeed the Catholick Church hath taught the infallible way of Salvation but that was the Scripture as I proved by many Testimonies and this was a teaching the infallible way by consequence because it did teach the Scripture which is the infallible way yet hath it not in particular points taught the infallible way infallibly Neither are we by the Church infallibly resolved that the Scripture is the Word of God although the authority of the true Church be a motive herein yet is it not that wherein ultimately we ground our Faith of the Scriptures as I have shewed Whereas then you say that we cannot have as things stand any other assurance to ground our Faith upon securely namely then the Church you do still but fortiter supponere for we cannot ground our assurance securely upon the Church And secondly Whereas you say that as things stand we have no other assurance c. you do not well consider what you say or I do not understand what you mean for hereby you do intimate that the Church is not the ground of our Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but that which is indeed the ground of our Faith must be so absolutely and universally as farre as is necessary the Church security is but the best of the kinde amongst those which are humane but we must have a Divine indefectible ground for our Divine Faith in which there cannot be falsity Neither thirdly Is the Church the first ground because by it we believe the Scripture to be the Word of God because if we did by it believe the Scripture then we are not first to believe it by the Scripture And if whatsoever credence we do give to it we do give by authority of the Scripture then are we first to believe the Scripture and then that is the first ground Fourthly In that you say you did never deny that when we are by the Infallible authority of the Church assured of the Scripture to be the Word of God we may believe such things as are clearly contained in Scripture c. you say that which concludes against the practice of
here is one place where the Father useth the words not in the Roman sence which may be made use of to another pupose about your opinion of merit and also if you will not mean it here of deserving this makes some diminution of respect to the book and some advantage more I shall make of this chapter in its place Many lines in your fourteenth page you have afterwards wherein we have nothing but vaunts or repetitions I will not trouble you with the latter nor my self with the former But towards the end of that page you would order the matter so as to hold your own and yet to give Scripture its due respects And you seem to bring it to this determination that when there is an acknowledgement made that the Scriptures are in themselves the Word of God it doth not derogate from Scripture to hold that yet they are not known to us by an infallible ground that they are the Word of God but by the testimony of the Church which in shorter terms is expressed by others of your Church that the authoritie of the Scripture doth depend upon the Church But this will not serve the covering is too short For first this distinction is too narrow to extend to the difference betwixt us in particular points of faith Therefore if you will yield that points of Religion are to be examined and ended infallibly by Scripture when we know it to be the Word of God then we will onely stick to this Question But if you will still maintain the infallibilitie of the Church in all her definitions then your composition will not be sufficient although it could satisfie as to that particular But secondly It will not satisfie because you do not sufficiently provide for the honour of the Scriptures authoritie and therefore you derogate from Scripture in this although you did take away no honour from Scripture as in regard of its truth Do you lay it to heart that the many questions betwixt us is about the authoritie of the Scripture the formal Reason of credibilitie is the authoritie That which makes me to believe it to be the Truth of God as being his Word is the Authoritie For if the credibilitie doth rise from the truth of it in it self you destroy your own cause for that you confesse the Scripture to be the infallible Word of God then betwixt us simply about the Truth of the Scripture there is no contest And doe not you affirm that the authoritie of the Church is the Ground of Faith because you think that the Church by its authoritie is worthy to be believed since it is infallible But why then do you not grant this authority to the Scripture since you confess it to be infallible If the reason of believing the Church be the infallibility of it according to you why is not the infallibility of the Scripture the reason of believing it since it is confessed infallible And if you say you do believe it to be so by the authority of the Church then the formal reason of believing it is not the infallibility of the Scripture but of the Church and yet the infallibility of the Church shall be the formal reason of believing it But you say you must know the Scripture to be infallible that I cannot do but by the Church Well but do not you then see that you preferre the authority of the Church before the authority of Scripture for the Church with you is to be believed for it self for so it must be or else the Scripture must be believed for it self or else we shall have in Divinity no principium primo primum wherein to rest Now if the Scripture be to be believed for it self then we have ended the businesse If the Church be to be believed for it self then we prefer the Authority of the Church before the authority of Scripture then you derogate from the authority of Scripture Thirdly the Church hath authority or not It hath you say then of it self or not what will you say If of it self what hath a company of Christians more to say for themselves then others If you say the authority comes from succession others also have had a constant succession And it must come to one first society Well where had that society its authority of it self or not If of it self what by revelation beside Scripture or not If beside then the charge of Anabaptisticalness is fallen upon you What then From Scripture Well then the Scripture in regard of those Texts which concern the Church is to be believed for it self and then why not in others Fourthly The Word of God in the substance and matter of it was before the Church therefore because the Church was begotten by it and therefore it must be known before the Church Yea reconcile your Opinion with that of Bellarmine in his first Book De Verbo Dei cap. 20. The Rule of Catholique Faith must be certain and known for if it be not known then it will not be a Rule to us If it be not certain it cannot be a Rule If it be a known Rule against Anabaptists why not also a known Rule against Papists and therefore that it must be made manifest by the Church is not necessary for how was it made manifest to the first Church to be the rule As for the instance of yours that Christ was made manifest to many by the Testimony of the Baptist and of the Apostles before the Scriptures were written and yet this derogate not from Scripture We answer soon First It is yet to be proved whether the Church hath that inspiration as John Baptist and the Apostles had for the first planting of the Church until that be made good your Argumentation is not Secondly Although the New Testament was not written the Old was and Iohn the Baptist and the Apostles preached no other Doctrine then was contained in the Old So our Saviour If ye had believed Moses ye would have believed me for he wrote of me in the 5. of Saint Iohn the 46. verse Thirdly If Iohn the Baptist and the Apostles were believed by a Divine Faith without the authority of the Church as the first Disciples did why may not the Scriptures be believed by a Divine Faith without the authority of the Church If the Apostles were believed immediately without the Church in what they said why may they not be believed also in what they wrote And surely to goe a little more close and deep if we speak properly there is not so much a ground of Faith as a cause if with the Schoolmen we grant as we may that Faith is a supernatural habit infused by God which disposeth the understanding to assert that which is said by God is true because he saith it not because the Church saith it And if you say that the Scripture and the Church are not opposite true when the Church ruleth it self by Scripture But if the Question be which proposal is
Crimen falsi for I do not see upon the place any half Syllables out of which you may draw any such interpretative Confession I have often upon your occasion said the contrary that the authority of the Church cannot be the cause of faith And therefore whether you have any faith of the Articles of Religion or of Scripture in all your Church is more easie to be found then said And assuredly though we talk of faith in the world the greatest part of it is but opinion which takes religion upon the credit of man and not of Scripture And as for us we have also the authority of the Church Catholick to move our judgement and Scripture to settle our faith And we are more related to the foure General Councils in consanguinitie of Doctrine as he said then your Church now And now at the end of all you doe fairly rebate the edge of your censure of my Expression namely Excesse of Faith But you say my distinction doth no way salve the improprietie of my Speech For there is still a difference in more believing Objects and believing more Objects But granting that it may be improperly spoken yet even in that sense it is not truely said because there can be no Excesse of Faith in believing that which God hath said So then by my Distinctions which is your School of Fides Subjectiva fides Objectiva fides Qua fides Quae there may be an Excesse of Faith in the Object if we beleive more then God hath said supposing we can believe what God hath not said although there be not an excess of faith in the Subject for we cannot have too much faith in that which is to be believed But the quarrel against the speech was not becacause it was not proper enough and congruous in this Discourse but because of the Application of it to you as it now appears and therefore here would you vindicate the Church in this upon the same ground of infallibilitie and therefore for your Faith in whatsoever you believe you have this Warrant Thus saith the Lord. But since this infallibilitie of yours you cannot have without begging of the question even to the last nor shall have it surely by begging you are yet to finde out some Expedience of Means or Arguments how to preserve your selves from that just charge of Excesse of Faith and the chief of that kind is that you speak of your infallibilitie for which you have not Thus saith the Lord. How then do you prove it by Tradition And how do you prove Tradition by the infallibility of the Church Therefore go not to Faith about by a circumference If you have a desire to rest your judgement and your soul in certain infallibilitie by your own word then center in Scripture from which all Lines of Truth are drawn and dismisse Tradition as your men state it for which this infallibilitie was devised and yet cannot be maintained for it cannot maintain it self You close with a passage of Saint Austin If so the words you intend it to set out your Charity to the Church of Christ not to perswade my Faith in its infallibilitie I may love the Church without infallibility because though I doe not love Errour yet must I love the Church when it is in Errour And this gives you occasion to think well of this respective and full answer to your last Paper Excuse me that it was so long ere it came and yet not much above the space of yours and also so long now it is come Onely let me leave you with a Father or two in whose company you are delighted Tertullian in his Prescript cap. 8. We have no need of Curiositie after Christ nor further Inquisition after the Gospell When we believe we desire to believe nothing beyond For this we first believe that there is not any thing beyond which we ought to believe Again against Hermog cap. 22. I adore the plenitude of Scripture And a little after Scriptum esse doceat Hermogenis Officina If it be not written let him fear that woe appointed for those who adde or take away And Saint Austin in his 2. book De Doc. Christiana cap. 9. In iis enim quae aperte in Scriptura posita sunt Amongst those things which are plainly laid down in Scripture are found all those things which contain Faith and Manners of Living to wit Hope and Charitie For the excellent modification of Scripture in the 6. chapter Magnifice igitur salubriter Sp. Sanctus ita Scripturas Sanitas modificavit ut locis apertioribus fami occurreret obscurioribus autem fastidia detergeret Nihil enim fere de illis obscuritatibus eruitur quod non planissime dictum alibi reperiatur And the same in the 7. chapter for the second Degree or step to Wisedome He saith Deinde opus est mitescere Pietate neque Contradicere Divinae Scripturae sive intellectae si aliqua vitia nostra percutit sive non intellectae quasi nos melius sapere meliusque percipere possimus sed cogitare potius credere id esse melius verius quod ibi scriptum est etiamsi lateat quam id quod nos per nos met-ipsos sapere possumus And again Saint Austin contra Literas Petit. Lib. 3. cap. 6. Proinde sive de Christo sive de ejus Ecclesia sive de quacunque alia re quae pertinet ad fidem vitamque nostram non dicam nos nequaquam comparandi ei qui dixit Licet si nos sed omnino quod secutus adjecit Si Angelus de Coelo vobis annuntiaverit praeterquam quod in Scripturis legalibus Evangelicis accepistis Anathema sit Consider what is said and the Lord give you understanding in all things To the Reader How in these times in which there be so many Religions the true Religion may certainly be found out 1. A Satisfactory Answer to this Title will alone put an end to the endless controversies of these dayes This made me think my labour well bestowed in treating this point somewhat largely And because that Treatise hath received a very large answer the examining of this answer will make the Truth yet more apparent That this may be done more clearly I will briefly tell you the Order I intend to observe in the examination of the said answer And because this answer directly followeth the same Order which I observed in treating the question prefixed in my Title Therefore when I have shewed you the Order of that Treatise you will clearly see that I shall most orderly answer the Reply against it 2. That Treatise had a short Preface to tell the intent of it My first Chapter must then be the Examination of what is said against this Preface Again that Treatise did shew five things First it did shew the necessity of a Judge to whom all are bound to submit Secondly That Scripture alone did not suffice to decide all necessary Controversies without a living Judge to
of you in this dispute you have first said you knew not what and now you know not what to say Tell us where the originall of infalibilitie lies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surely it doth not become infalibilitie to be so reserved To passe this you tell me in your fourth Par. that I lay to your charge the supposing of the question And I am still of that minde For if you say that as things stand we have no other assurance to ground our faith upon but the Church you do plainly suppose that which is mainly in question and so must do until you prove it And I still say unto you as I did that you do not well consider what you say in saying as things stand as if the rule of faith were a Lisbian rule and might alter upon occasions and as if the Scripture must be accommodated to the use of the Church Yes intellectus currit cum praxi And the Scripture is to follow the Church and not the Church the Scripture would you have it so So it seems by what follows for so you answer that though God might have ordained otherwise yet as things stand the Church is the ground of our faith in all points speaking of the last ground on which we must stand to wit not an humane but Divine ground the pillar and ground of truth And what do you say here more than you said before or more than we can say mutatis mutandis Though God could have ordained otherwise that there should have been a standing Councel or a singular person successively infalible to have proposed and determined all things infalibly yet as things stand the Scripture is the ground of our faith in all points necessary speaking of the last ground on which we must stand not a humane but a Divine ground Wherein are we inferiour to you but that we do not put in all points But we put in all points necessarie And what need more And the Church is not yet proved to determine any thing infalibly the Scripture proposeth all things necessary infalibly And me thinks you should if you please think the Scripture a divine ground rather than the Church To take then your own principle The ground of faith must be Divine The Church is not a ground Divine Therefore no ground The Major is your own The assumption is proved thus The Testimonie of men is Humane The Testimonie of the Church is the Testimonie of men Therefore The first proposition in the ordinary capacity of men is plaine For no effect can exceed the cause And the second proposition is as plaine if the men that are of the Church are considered as private men by your own grounds But these men you say being in the capacitie of a Church are inspired by the Holy Ghost so as they cannot erre in any point True if they be assisted with the Holy Ghost Well but how shall I know what a Church is and whether such men be of the Church and whether such men be assisted with the Holy Ghost Yea whether there be an Holy Ghost All these particulars I must be satisfied in before that I can believe by a Divine faith that what the Church proposeth definitively is true A Church cannot be in the nature of it expressed without a profession of that Religion which directs man to his supernaturall end Now this Religion requires a supernaturall revelation as Aquinas disputes it in the begining of his Sums Then this Religion must be revealed being not naturally intelligible either by principles or works of nature Where and how is this Religion revealed you cannot say by the Church for the question is of the Church And so consequently how is it revealed that such are of the Church and assisted by the Holy Ghost or that there is an Holy Ghost Expedite these questions And again consider that S. Austin and other Fathers have spoken freely of discerning the Church by Scripture whe◠in I am informed what Religion is what a Church which the true Church and that there is a Holy Ghost Again I must believe by a divine faith that the Church is the pillar and ground of truth as you say Well but how shal I come by this divine faith God infuseth it you will say well but doth he infuse it immediately as in respect of Scripture So you must say well then cannot you think that he can infuse faith of the Scripture immediately in respect of the Church Answer me is this faith wrought in me by the credibility of the Church or not if not how If so then the Church is naturally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the testimonie of the Church must be resolved into the testimonie of men extra rationem Ecclesiae then is it of itself but humane Therefore must you come to this that the Testimonie of the Church is infallible by Athoritie of Scripture Well then if so then the Church is not the last ground on which we must stand Nor yet is it the first ground as we take it for a Divine ground which you mean for it is not Divine but by the word of God yea if the Church be the last ground on which we must stand then why do you prove the Authority of the Church by the Authority of Scripture And if you say that you also prove the Scripture to be the word of God by the Church yet not as the last ground but the Church is resolved into the Authoritie of Scripture as the last ground for if the Church hath no being as such but by Scripture in the substance of it then the Church must be ultimately grounded in Scripture for that which is primum in generatione is ultimum in resolutione So a primo ad ultimum the Scripture is the ground of faith And so this will be contrary to what follows in your last that we do not first believe the Church for the Scripture If you speak of a generall motive to believe the Scripture so we may begin with the Church upon the account of credible men as towards humane faith but if you speak of belief as Divine so we cannot first begin with the Church because we must first be assured of the Church by the word of God under the formalitie of Divine faith the word of God must be first in genere credibilium unlesse there were a resultance of a Church out of naturall principles which is not to be said And in your following words you intimate as much as if we might first admit the Scripture to be the word of God and then prove by the Scriptures the authority of the Church If we may admit the Scriptures for Gods word first then first the Scriptures may be believed to be the word of God without the authority of the Church which is contrary to what you have said formerly Then secondly the Scripture must be the last ground of faith because as before that which is first in generation is last in resolution And
an infallible assent no more than the first principles which are the object of intelligence And also therefore upon the premisses that which concludes the number might have been forborn Indeed you have brought your whole Religion to as pitifull a case as your Adversaries could wish it These braving words do not hurt a solid cause they are to be returned to the place from whence they came who hath brought Religion to so pitifull a case as the Pontifician who must have religion made accomodable to their pride and covetuousness No case of Religion so pitifull as uncertainty no such uncertainty of Religion as with them For if they ground their Religion upon the determination of Councils wherein onely Bishops have their vote and the Bishop of Rome his confirmation thereof no man can according to their principles be certain whether there be a true Pope or true Bishop as hath been said Moreover we can make use of intrinsecall arguments for the truth of Scripture to be the word of God as well as they We can make use of extrinsecall arguments better for we make use of the authority of the whole Church and do give it in this point as much reverence as is due thereunto But therefore till that which is here said for the setling of our faith be disproved and also till it be proved that we do not make use of these arguments towards our faith of Scripture because we do not pitch our finall resolution in them our ground of faith and of Religion is as good and sound as theirs yea in respect of our own subjective faith more Yea the Romanist might know that he hath been told that Estius doth differ from them upon this point and says that it is not necessary to faith to be begotten by the proposall of the Church in the third B. of senten 23 dist Yea also Stapleton in his Triplication against Whitaker saith p. 103. Ego igitur quicquid in haec causa Spiritui sancto tribuendum est plenissime assignavi c. I have most fully assigned what is to be attributed to the Holy Ghost in this cause asserting these two things both that by faith infused alone or by the testimony of the Holy Spirit alone all faith may be begotten when it pleaseth the Spirit of God to teach any extraordinarily immediately and also although ordinarily a thing is delivered by the testimony and authority of the Church yet no faith doth efficaciously follow without the gift of faith infused by God or without the internall testimony of the Spirit of God And again the same in the next page to the same purpose to clear himself of the suspition of giving no more to the Holy Ghost in this point than those who put the last reason of believing in the testimony of the Church he says disertly Ego enim c. For I have denied and do deny that the last reason of believing is to be put in the testimony of the Church not onely upon that head that that last proposition or resolution I believe the Church to be governed by the Holy Ghost is not had without the inward gift of faith or that he who believeth this believeth this by a gift of faith and not by humane faith or acquisit but especially upon that head that without any testification of the Church or notice of the Church or of the knowledge of that proposition That the Church is governed by the Spirit of God by the onely Magisterie of the Spirit of God one may believe all that is to be believed as the Prophets and Apostles being taught by the Spirit of God alone did believe many things for from hence it follows invincibly against Durandus and others since there can be but one formall reason of our faith and some believe without the testimony of the Church but none can believe without the testimony of the Spirit that the proper and formall reason of faith is not the voice of the Church but must be the testimony the Doctrine the Magistery of the Spirit of God So he And therefore there is lesse between Stapleton and me than betwixt my Adversary and me When all is done therefore we must come to this of the Father Cathedram habet in coelis qui corda docet in terris He hath his Chair in Heaven that teacheth hearts on earth and with the heart man believeth unto salvation Rom 10.10 Num. 21. Therefore in the following number he needed not to take notice of my differing from others of our own Church in this point let them agree with their own men Let Bannes and Stapleton agree with Durand or if they cannot be reconciled let them never hereafter make any difference amongst our selves a prejudice to the cause It is then no more reproach to me to differ from others than for some of them As for the three then whom he says I differ from Mr. Chillingworth Dr. Cowell and Mr. Hooker if they do not agree it it is no infallible argument against me even in the opinion of those three But also as to the first I say and my Adversaries might have known that he held not faith in the high notion of a Divine assent as they do But that a morall assurance was sufficient to it and sufficiently influxive into necessary practice And therefore having this opinion of faith he conceived no such need of an infallible ground hereof but took therefore a common principle for his motive hereof namely universal tradition Secondly if he takes not his grounds from my Adversaries what do they get by him For in his sixty sixth page he says that it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him that the Gospell of St. Mathew is the word of God as that all that the Roman Church says is true Yea moreover the same p. 135. doth fairly shew that the Spirit of God may give assurance hereof which he says indeed is not rationall and discursive but supernaturall and infused An assurance it may be to himself but not to any other and again p. 211. that the Doctrine it self is very fit and worthy to be thought to come from God Nec vox hominem sonat And is not then in his opinion the Scripture 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If then he had raised faith to that height of a Divine assent as my Adversaries do it is very like he would have thought better of this assurance by the Spirit to be more ordinary since universal tradition if it hath any weight must rest in Scripture as it is the tradition of the universal Church which also he contradistinguisheth not onely to the Roman Church for place but to the present universall Church for time because we cannot prove the Church but by Scripture And as for the other two whose judgements he opposeth to my opinion I think they may receive convenient satisfaction by what is said to the former that they did not deny this assurance by the Spirit of God but
that it is not argumentative to others And therefore as to the question about the sufficiency of Scripture Mr. Hooker says that this is to be supposed that the Scriptures are the word of God And notwithstanding he thinks this is not to be proved by it self yet in his first book 34. p. he speaks enough in that he says the Scriptures do sufficiently direct us to salvation And he quotes for it Sotus in the margent And if it sufficiently directs us to salvation then must it be sufficiently clear of it self that it is the word of God for otherwise the principal point unto salvation must be known otherwise And if they think to argue well that we must have all faith from the authority of the Church because we have the faith of the Scriptures from the Authority of the Church we may as well conclude that since we have sufficient direction to salvation from the Scripture we are also sufficiently directed to this main point of faith from the Scripture that the Scripture is the word of God Yea more the Scripture doth give better evidence of it self to be the word of God than the Church can give testimony of it self to be infallible because the Church as such in religion is a non ens without Scripture in the substance of it But to make an end of this exception against me in varying from others this is the common Protestant principle or else Stapleton was decieved who makes account that every one of us ad unum do hold the Scripture to be known per se et sua quadam luce propria In Analsiy principionem Therefore if the question be how we are privately assured ultimately that the Scripture is the word of God we say with Stapleton that we are assured hereof by the testimony of the Spirit if the question be how we prove it to others to be the word of God we can for extrinsecall proof make use with Mr. Chillingworth of universal tradition His exception then against our private assurance of the Scripture to be the word of God in his following words comes to nothing for we need not from what we have said say that the assent of faith is evident as to an object of sense but yet the assent may be more firm and certain The formall object of faith is inevident yet may we more fastly hold to what we believe than to what we see because what we see depends upon our fallible sense but what we believe hath an infallible ground namely the word of God that this is his word For this ultimately must settle our personall faith or else we have no faith of proper name which is infallibly grounded All believe that what God says is true but if to the question whether God says this God cannot bring his own testimony there can be no authentick ground of Religion in subjecto And those therefore who would not have died to bear witness to a thing of sense have died to bear testimony to the Christian Religion and also have died for it assuredly ex vi habitus by the power of the habit of faith not ex vi traditionis by the credibility of the Church And as to that which he takes â—â—â—tice of that I acknowledge a greater necessity of such a Church to declare by infallible authority which books be the true word of God which not than to declare any other point I answer that it is not very ingenuously taken here by him what I said for I spake by way of supposition that it would not follow if the Church were infallible as to propose or tax and consign Canonical books as Stapleton speaks yet that we had need of the Church infallibly to propose every other point of faith He it seems took positively what was spoken upon supposition Every thing which is given in discourse is not granted to him but this he refers to num 43. For the ending then of this Paragraph and sufficiently for the Controversie upon the whole matter it remains that the Scripture must be credible for it self or else the Church Not the Church that must be known by the Scriptures as before therefore those texts by which the Church is proved in the truth and infallibility must be worthy to be believed for themselves or not if so then why not other parts of Scripture and so we have our purpose if not then are we in a circle and must beg the question and never be satisfied Num. 22. Here another argument is drawn against me from the effect negatively which in the kind of it doth not conclude A non esse ad non posse non valet And we may as well argue that some have this way attained faith therefore this is the way however the possibility proceeds from the effect to 〈◊〉 but it doth not proceed against a possibility from the deniall of it to some Because Pighius and Hermannus have not found assurance this way therefore this is not the way for finall assurance is inconsequent Secondly the cause of non-assurance thus doth not arise from the defect in Scripture which Stapleton says and some others is true and holy and authentick but God doth not give by his Spirit faith to all All men have not faith as the Apostle as commonly we expound it and though they are said to believe in the sense of the Church because they professe the Christian Religion yet by an internall act of faith many not Thirdly neither are we bound to maintain this proposition of theirs Facienti quod in se est datur gratia ex congruo and therefore if upon the use of means they have not this Divine faith infused it is no prejudice to our cause for not onely gifts are gratiae gratis datae but also the gratiae gratum facientes are also freely given and therefore is their distinction by the way faultie And therefore if there be many millions which is yet more than he could know who can truly and sincerely protest before God and take it upon their salvation that they are wholly unable by the reading these books to come to an infallible assurance that this is Gods word This inferrs nothing of moment against us because although we have not ordinarily the effect without the means yet because we use the meanes therefore necessarily we shall have the effect doth not follow if the graces of God be free Yea fourthly those millions he means are of their Church we may suppose and they we may think are instructed to find no resolution but in their own way by the proposall of the Church So that as St. Paul says Rom. 10.3 of the Jews that they going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God so also may we say of these that they going about to establish the authority of the Church in this point have not submitted themselves to the authority of God Yea fifthly and lastly to be even
they were read in the Church The strength of this reasoning is resolved into this proposition Whatsoever is read in the Church is to be taken for Canonical and this proposition is false by the practice of the Church of England by St. Jerom's distinction yea also by the Canon it self for it sayes Liceat etiam legi passiones Martyrum cum anniversarii dies eorum celebrantur Itmay be lawfull also to read the passions of the Martyrs when their anniversary days are celebrated And also if that reason did bind the Fathers in the Council of Carthage to establish them as Canonical why did it not as well bind St. Jerom in whose time the books also were read if they were universally read And if the Church of God was sufficiently instructed in point of faith without them till St. Austin's time which was above four hundred years after Christ as Bellarmin confesseth why may not the Church be well enough without them still For either there must be nothing in them materiall or expositionall which is simply necessary for Gods Church or else the Church of God for the purest and best times must be unprovided thereof as Canonically to ground faith If they confesse the former we have what we would if the latter besides other consequences they destroy the rule of faith to Councils themselves or as some now will say by succession of tradition Therefore by this instance he gets nothing it is neither proof nor disproof Num. 28. Here he triumphs before the victory he doth here put a new face upon an old argument If you say that we must have a speciall Spirit that is new eyes to see it then you who have this Spirit are all Prophets discovering by private Revelation made to your selves that which all mankind besides could not and cannot discover This argument prophylactical preserves them little A speciall Spirit is considerable two ways either in ordine ad subjectum or in ordine ad objectum it may be speciall in the first sense and not in the latter Now it is the speciall Spirit in the latter sense which makes the Prophet when some new thing is revealed thus we deny any speciall Spirit which rather belongs to them who will not have all things for necessary faith and manners revealed in Scripture that so they may find in the Church by tradition the points of their Religion which they cannot find in Scripture as is noted But also the speciall faith in the first sense may be subdistinguished it is considerable either as oppositly to those who have not faith or respectively to those who have faith in the first way we say it is speciall for all men have not faith as the Apostle speaks 2 Thes 3.2 but if it be taken respectively to those who have faith we say it is not speciall but common for there is no true dogmaticall faith but such as Stapleton and their Schoolmen confesse Yea this argument may be returned to them too if they say they are inlightned by the Spirit to see all truth infallibly to be delivered by the Church they have the new eyes and they are all Prophets discerning by private revelation made to them selves that which all mankind besides could not discover So then the other old argument which here he incrustates that if the evidence of Scripture to be the word of God were such as of a prime principle as this It is impossible that any thing should be and not be in the self same circumstances then all should assent to it as they do to this principle is again slighted for first every one hath not that supernaturall light or eye to see the truth of that first principle that the Scripture is the word of God which we have said before but then secondly the prime principle in Metaphysicks are not so clear as to exclude all necessity of means of knowledge of them though they do naturally perswade assent so there are means of knowing the Scripture which do not prejudice their autopisty through the Spirit of God and therefore there may be a failing of belief Yea thirdly the Spirit bloweth where it listeth John 3.8 Yea fourthly many truths are assented to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said which are not prophorically acknowledged And yet some of their own men have confessed this truth being overcome by the soveraignty of it Fifthly it is retorted if the authority of the Church were the prime principle for the evidence of faith then all would assent to it but all doe not assent to it therefore by his own argument the Church's authority is not the prime principle But the assistance of the Spirit he then pleads a fortiori for the Church the Church having far more proof of her assistance than every private Protestant Ans First we have no to need be put upon the compare with the Church If the Church have infallible assistance herein yet private Christians may have it too and that would be sufficient for us in this point But secondly the Church is no otherwise infallibly certain hereof than we for this is assured to every one that votes it in the Council the same way if indeed they doe give their suffrage upon a ground infallible Thirdly the private Christian is assured hereof by the Spirit for himself therefore the Council needs not be infallible herein as to teach it because we are thus taught of God If the compare were thus if the private Christian were thus assisted to teach others much more the Council this would be somewhat like but the private Christian doth not undertake this and yet doth it not follow that this infallibility doth attend the Council which doth undertake to teach others because there is use of its teaching without infallibility and no need of its teaching infallibly this point which we are infallibly perswaded of by the Spirit of God And fourthly we deny that there is any points of as much consequence wherein the Church should be assisted with infallibility as this that the Scripture is the word of God because if we be assured of this we need not depend upon any infallibility in the Church for other points since all things necessary are with sufficient plainnesse set down in the Scripture Fifthly as before the Christians were assured hereof before Pope or Council in which he placeth the authority infallible of the Church And again if the universall Church had this priviledge they speak of they are to prove themselves to be first a true part and then also that the part hath the property of the whole and when they have done these we can say as much yea more for our own Church And lastly they are yet to shew their clearer proofs of assistance to the Church than a private Christian hath for the hardest of all points namely that the Scripture is the word of God which indeed if it be compared with the points of Controversie in Divinity is not the hardest point
But first The Church Universal doth not say it Secondly who of them hath proved that the Church is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they bear witness of themselves therefore their testimony is not true not in modo if it were true in materia Thirdly What the Church can say amounts but to a prudential motive or congruous inducement but what is it which grounds Faith and binds Faith and makes it a divine belief if not what is said in Scripture Without this what is the Church but a company of men in naturalibus The Roman doth not so much believe this or that because God saies it but they believe God saies it because the Church saies it But the Church virtual in the Pope Representative in a Council diffusive in the people signifies nothing without religion The question then is what religion makes the Church which we are to believe Not reason satisfies us in this because some principles of Religion do transcend reason and because reason cannot by its principles produce Faith of proper name then we must have somwhat which is supposed as a common principle whereby true Religion is discerned Not the Church For the question is which is the Church What then but Scripture Let them then think upon the former Texts for sufficiency of Scripture which if they were acknowledged would save us this dispute And let them think upon that Text Esa the 8. the 20. To the Law and to the Testimony If they speak not according to this word it is because there is no light in them That which is referred to another for direction is subordinate thereunto The Church is referred to the Law and to the Testimony therefore it is subordinate If they speak not according to this word as written it is because there is no light in them Another Text may be named 1. Epist of St. Peter the 1. ch 23. ver Being born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible by the Word of God which liveth and abideth for ever So the Apostle from whence we thus argue That which is begotten of the Word is subordinate to it the Church is begotten by the Word Therefore their argument is retorted by the contrary For the Word in the substance of it must be before the Church because the Church is begotten by the Word therefore the Church must depend upon the Word which liveth and abideth for ever and this better suits the standing charracter of Scripture than the loose and fluent or fluxive way of Tradition And how comes Tradition into the world By the first Church they will say Well and how came the first Church to be such What did they joyn together in the profession of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as some say the world came together by the casual concurrence of Atoms The first Church viritim was begottten by the Word through the Spirit so in the ver before seeing you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit Then all is to be resolved into the Word quod est primum in generatione est ultimum resolutione So Aquinas Omne reducitur ad principium All is to be reduced to the first principles Therefore they will never reconcile St. Paul and Irenaeus unless they admit my distinction of the Church Then that which Frenaeus saith will well agree with that of St. Paul St. Paul saies as we commonly read it the Church is the Pillar and ground of truth St. Irenaeus saith the Scripture is the Pillar of truth Both agree for subordinata non pugnant Subordinates make no warre Let them not therefore tell me that what God tells me by his Church I am to admit this we admit But let them tell me how I shall infallibly know that he tells me so by the Church And let them tell me how I shall know the Church but by letters of credence namely in Scripture How can I divine whether there is to be a Chureh and which is the true Church and which the true Religion without Scripture And Nemo tenetur derinare as the saying So that that which he saies that the Church is first believed independently on Scripture dependâ— neither upon Scripture nor Catholick Church nor reason Take Scripture in the matter of it and that which he saies hath no consistency In saving Religion there is nothing before it not only in signo rationis but also in time because the Church is begotten of the word of God We deny not that the Church is made use of to dispose us to faith of Scripture but this doth not resolve us because it self of it selfe resolvs but into a moral capacity which makes not faith properly called not faith Divine therefore in Genere Credibilium the first proposition to the Church is that the Scripture is the word of God and without its testimonies of the Church it cannot be said to be credible in the sense of divine faith Therefore if he meanes that the Church is first believed independently on Scripture namely upon the account of humane faith we may grant it of the universal Church but what is this to our purpose since we are disputing about faith divine If he takes it of divine faith this would be to purpose but that it is not true Yet he proceeds So he that begins to be a Christian cannot admit of Scripture as men admit of the first principles of sciences Ans Nor do we say so Ordinarly he begins with prudential motives from without he useth arguments drawn from out of Scripture but the question is whether these motives are productive of Faith in him And he seems to say as much as deâ—â—ses it because he saies in respect of us the Church is first believed independently of Scripture So then the way by the Church is imperfect as the way of knowledge by those things which are more known quoad nos But in the way of Faith which makes the assent more firm and certain we must begin with Scripture upon which the Church depends To joyn issue then We at first lead men to the Faith of Scripture by the way of the Church as the Samaritans were led to Christ by the voice of the woman But Faith doth not rest here because they who deny the Scripture may deny the Church and may question its credibility Therefore since the Authority of the Church doth de se terminate its self in the Testimony of men we would have our Faith by such a way as is proportionable to it which if it be Faith divine must rely upon some divine Authority And this way the Scripture must be more known than the Church because by the Scripture we know the Church in a distinct knowledge And without it can be no more than an Individuum vagum Surely it is Scripture which makes Individuum demonstrativum And they are wont to prove it determinatum as in Petrus by the Scripture And as for the Criticism in the forenamed Text of Scripture to Timothy about the
Infallibility pretended were either proved or quitted we might rejoyce in more hope of Peace to Christendome If it were sufficiently proved we should presently yeild if it were quitted they might possibly yield And I would the Pope would turn Patriarch again but untill it be Proved and thank God for the Nicene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and no more To my Adversary if I have shewed my self at all uncivil I am very sory for it and what unhandsome Reflexions there are made by him if any upon me I put up upon good account If the pen at any time makes a disorderly sally out unto a perstriction of the person it is a Liberty which I had rather give than take And his Papers are as well and as whole printed as mine and I am glad that they are printed in the same character which is not usual And if I have made in mine any blots as very likely I have about Isidor Clarius or any other Author or Matter I am very ready to acknowledge it it being not in my way to pretend to infallibilitie nor my mind to affect the Reputation of him that was denominated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is enough to me to have given any hints to others for better use If I have found any smooth stone out of the Brook of Scripture Let some able Pastour of the Church throw it at that Roman Goliah and let it sink into his Head and let Saint Jerom's Sword cut off not his Head but his Headship My inability yet will doe me this good that it doth strongly prove their Infallibility not to be good which such a Punie of the Church can go near to discompose and ruffle Towards an Epistle this sufficient since I think my self not worthy to give any advice Onely by my experience I may remind thee that it is time for us to knit the vein again of the Spouse of Christ in the breach whereof our Adversaries do so much triumph This Vlysses would have believe it thou canst not serve God more nor the Roman better Scissura domestica turbat Rem populi titubatque foris quod dissidet intus And I wish that by the light of this conflict thou mightst see that the Roman and the Sectarie are both upon the Extremes and that the Church of England as to Religion and Government goes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So then Reader since my Adversary hath also appealed unto thee unto thee let him goe As he in his Rhetoriques l. 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thy servant in Christ our good Master Sh. A Letter to his friend WORTHY SIR I Have with much eagerness and delight run over your solemical discourse in answer to an interpretative kind of Challenge made by a confident but close adversary whose wit I cannot but commend as in hiding his name so in picking out so fit a time for the scattering of his insinuating papers when our so lamentable distractions yeild him so favourable an advantage So have we known ill neighbours take opportunity of their pilfring when the house is on fire So did the crafty Amalekite fall upon the hind most of Israel when they were faint feeble and tired with their travel Although herein he hath made a good amends and merited our thanks in that his bold intimations have drawn you forth into the light and fetcht from you this your abundantly satisfactory Answer for his full Conviction and the settling of unstable minds in this busie Controversie Certainly there is not a greater Imposture in all Rome then in the name and plea of the Church as our Learned Bishop Morton hath long since laid it out or that wins more of weak and injudicious soules For what a short cut is here of all controversies in Religion what a sure-seeming refuge for the soule what a present and sensible Eviction of all gainsayers The Catholike Church cannot erre The Roman Church is the Catholike The Dictates of that Church are as evident as infallible The Scriptures are ambiguous The Church is clear and conspicuous we know where Rome stands In the communion of that onely is salvation Out of that Ark we drown within it is perfect safety May this be made good Who would trouble his heart or his head with any further disquisition of truth Who need to care for any other spiritual priviledge then to be free of Rome O easie security of our Faith O cheap charter of assured Salvation Whiles these plausible impostors goe thus about to flatter their ignorant and credulous Clients into a dangerous if not deadly misbelief putting this broken reed into their hands you have thus seasonably discovered and checked their fraud and cleerly shewn to these simple and mis-taught souls how unsafe it is for them to trust to so crazie and perilous a supportation which must needs in stead of easing wound them I shall therefore hereupon expect much good issue from this your well bestowed labour Why should not this your so convictive discourse work effectually upon an ingenuous adversary to win him to the acknowledgement of so well-manifested a truth and settle those wavering minds which seemed to be a little shaken with so strongly-confident suggestions and prevent the danger of seducement in those poor souls whose simplicity exposeth them to the subtle temptations of misguidance into errour Such blessing of success I wish to your learned and charitable work and to your self who have ever approved your self so well deserving and pious a son of the Church of England some better encouragement then these times have yet afforded either to you or to Higham April 8. 1654. Your unfainedly devoted friend and fellow-labourer in the work of the Lord JOS. HALL B. N. POSITION IT is not sufficient to make one a Catholick in point of faith that he believe the same things which the Catholick Church believeth unless the Catholick Church be also the Ground of his belief for whosoever doth believe any point upon no other Ground but only because it seems to his private Judgment to be contained in Scripture or to be in it self true yea though he should believe in this manner every thing which the Church believeth yet he would not be a Catholick and so may be damned for want of faith And the Reason is because seeing that faith is to believe a thing because God revealeth it and that there is no infallible way without a Miracle whereby God his Revelation cometh to us but onely by the Churches Proposition it followeth that we cannot believe any thing certainly upon the Motive of God his Revelation unless our belief be likewise grounded upon the Churches Proposition Wherefore the faith of a Catholick must consist in submitting his understanding and adhering to the Church and in believing every thing because she proposeth it for all other perswasions of our own discourse are resolved at last into our particular Judgments or else into the Judgments of other particular Men and so cannot breed in us Catholick and divine
because the Scripture can not deceive whosoever doth fear lest that he be deceived through the Obscurity of this question may ask Counsel touching it of the Church whom without any doubt the Scripture it self doth shew The same S. Aug. l. 4. de Trin. c. 6. saith No lover of peace will be against the Church And Ep. 118. c. 5. he plainly terms it Most insolent madness to dispute against that which the whole Church holdeth I will insist no longer upon the Testimony of the Fathers of which I might pour a whole shower against you lest I receive the ordinary Answer that this their Opinion was one of their Navi Spots or Blemishes and therefore shall be rejected but will â—â—ge your own Authors and Protestants to whom perhaps you will give more Credit Calvin upon Esay expounding the words of the 59 Chap. My Spirit which is in thee and my words which I have put in thy Mouth shall not depart from thy Mouth and from the Mouth of thy Seed and of thy Seeds Seed saith our Lord from henceforward and for ever saith He promiseth that the Church shall never be deprived of this inestimable good but that it shall alwayes be governed by the holy Ghost and supported with heavenly doctrine Again soon after The Promise is such that the Lord will so assist the Church and have such care of her that he will never suffer her to be deprived of true doctrine And his Scholar Beza de haeret à Civili Magistratu puniendis p. 69. confesseth that the Promise of our Saviour of the Assistance of the holy Ghost was not made onely to the Apostles but rather to the whole Church D. Saravia in defens tract de div Ministr gradib p. 8. saith The holy Spirit which beareth rule in the Church is the true Interpreter of Scriptures from him therefore is to be fetched the true Interpretation and since he cannot be contrary to himself who ruled the Primitive Church and governed the same by Bishops those now to reject is not certes consonant to Verity Our Lutheran Adversaries of Wittenberg Harm of Confess Sect. 10. p. 332 333. Confess Witten Art 30. not onely confess the Church to have Authority to bear witness of the holy Scripture and to interpret the same but also affirm that She hath received from her husband Christ a certain Rule to wit the Prophetical and Apostolical preaching confirmed by Miracles from heaven according unto the which she is bound to interpret those places of Scripture which seem to be obscure and to judge of doctrines Field also l. 4. c. 19 20. Sect. The Second acknowledgeth in the Church a Rule of faith descending by tradition from the Apostles according unto which he will have the Scriptures expounded And we cannot doubt but that she hath followed this Rule having such Assistance from Gods holy Spirit Furthermore the same Dr. Field in the Epistle to his Treatise of the Church professeth thus Seeing the controversies of Religion are grown in number so many and in Nature so 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 of Men 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 embrace her Communion follow her directions and rest in her Judgment For brevity I will omit many other of our Adversaries who are of the same Minde and will now press harder upon you Surely if we believe the Creed the Church is holy if the Scripture She is the Spouse of our Saviour without spot or wrinkle which Eulogies and indeed glorious titles would nothing well become her if she can teach us that which is false This Scripture also gives us these known doctrines and directions That the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth 1 Tim. 3. v. 15 c. That the Church is built upon a Rock and the Gates of hell shall not prevail against her Matth. 16. v. 18. He that will not hear the Church let him be to thee as the Heathen and the Publican Matth. 18. v. 17. He that heareth you heareth me and he that despiseth you despiseth me Luke 10. v. 16. Loe I am with you even to the Consummation of the World Matth. 28. v. 20. I will ask the father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you the Spirit of truth Jo. 14. v. 16. And again yet many things I have to say unto you but you cannot bear them now but when the Spirit of truth cometh he shall teach you all truth Jo. 16. v. 12 13. to omit many other the like passages is Scripture Now this Church whose Authority is thus warranted did praecede the Scripture which for a great part thereof was written but upon Emergent Occasions as Field Hook Covel and other our Adversaries have confessed which Occasions had they not been perhaps we never had known this Scripture Suppose then we had lived in those times when there had been no such Scripture as many did some part thereof being not written above sixty years after our Saviours Ascension Ought we not then to have believed the Churches tradition and preached word This Church was called the Pillar and Ground of Truth before the words were seen in writing and the like I might say by the other places before cited which are now in the Scripture but were delivered by word of mouth to the Church before ever they were written by all which places the Authority of the Church is commended to us and we referred to the said Church as a Guide in all our doubts And all these words of God were no less to be believed and obeyed before they were written then since Even the Scripture it self is believed upon the Tradition and Authority of the Church being part of the Credenda it proposeth nor could we at this day have known which books were true now Canonical which Spurious but by the Churches decision and Proposal as the said learned Mr. Hooker and other our Adversaries do acknowledge Again who doth not ground his belief upon the Church upon what doth he ground it but upon his own fancy or private Interpretation of Scripture the true Sourse and Nurce of all Heresy And such as these may indeed be found upon ancient Account as Helvidius Vigilantius and the rest of Hereticks as the Catholick Church did then account them Now to that which is insinuated That the Scripture was sometime acknowledged the Rule of Faith and Manners it is answered that it is so now but this doth no way hinder the Churches being the Ground of our Belief for the Church is both the Ground of our believing the Scripture and also the Interpreter of Scripture as is above confessed by our Adversaries
Why so Mark if his ground be not as I told you Because saith he I have believed the Gospel it selfe upon the preaching of the Catholiques Can he more clearly ground upon the Infallible Authority of their teaching then upon this to believe the Gospel it selfe He goeth on thus Again If you hold to the Gospel my hold shall still be on the Authority of that Church upon whose Authority I believed the Gospel I saith he will hold my self to those by whose teaching I have believed the Gospel and these commanding me I will not believe thee And Saint Austin goeth so far upon this Ground as a Ground Infallible that he saith If perhaps you Manichaeans can find me any clear place in the Gospel to prove that Apostleship of Manichaeus that then indeed they shall weaken the Authority of the Catholiques But what do you think will follow I pray note it well Their Authority being weakned and shewed once fallible now neither can I so much as believe the Gospel And why so Because upon the Authority of these Catholiques I had believed the Gospel The ground of his belief in the Gospel was their Infallible authority as not onely these but also the next words shew manifestly Wherefore saith he if in the Gospel there be found nothing that is evident to prove the Apostleship of Manichaeus then I will believe the Catholiques rather then You. But if You shall read me out of the Gospel something that is evident to prove Manichaeus an Apostle then I will neither believe the Catholiques nor thee Why so I will not believe the Catholiques because they whose Doctrine I thought Infallible have lyed to me concerning your Manichaeans But I will not believe thee even when thou citest clear Scripture for of this case he speaketh and why so Because thou dost cite me that â—cripture to which Scripture I had now believed upon their Authority who have lyed unto me Thus he Could he more clearly say that if once in one single Lye he should finde the Churches Authority to be fallible he should then have left unto him no Infallible Ground at all upon which he were to believe Scripture To deliver a Doctrine thus inculcated over and over again and thus still relying on this one Ground is far and very far from letting a word slip in heat of disputation And therefore to speak plainly my Adversary could not deal sincerely when he said If we considered the whole Chapter we should be of his minde for nothing can make us lesse of his minde then to consider the whole Chapter as I have faithfully done excepting one little parcel in the end which most strongly confirmes all I have said for it followeth but God forbid I should not believe the Gospel having so Infallible Authority for it as the Church is yet believing this Gospel I do not see how I can believe thee teaching me Manichaeus to be an Apostle for we know which Apostle it was who was chosen in the place of Judas the Traytor This we have read in the Acts of the Apostles And because the Manichaeans did not believe the Acts of the Apostles he addeth which Book of the Acts I must necessarily believe if I believe the Gospel And why Because the Catholique Authority doth in like manner commend both these Scriptures to me See here again most evidently he saith the Ground upon which he believeth the Acts of the Apostles as well as he believed the other Scriptures to be the self-same Catholique Authority which in one and the same manner commendeth both Scriptures to us to be believed Had he said that he believed this or any other Scripture for the Light he received by the reading of it by which he discovered it to be Canonical then the Manichaeans might as easily have said that by the like Light we clearly discover the Gospel of Manichaeus to be Canonical Thus I have given a large and most faithful account of this Chapter setting most of it down word for word And this last place as also many other quite overthrow what my Adversary saith that he spoke here of himself as now a Manichaean for you see he speaketh of himself as one believing the Acts of the Apostles and believing it by a necessary consequence because he hath already believed the other Canonical Books upon the same Authority of the Church And if upon this Authority I may with St. Austin believe the whole Scripture to be Gods Word from the beginning to the ending though it containeth so many strange Stories such a world of several points why may I not upon the same Infallible Authority believe Prayers to Saints Prayer for the dead and other like points Neither can it be said that St. Austin as my Adversary saith was settled in the belief of the Scripture for the authority of Scripture it self for I have given you his plain words to the contrary saying that the Authority of the Church being weakned he cannot now so much as believe the Gospel which he might still do if he believed it for it self and not merely for the Infallible Authority of the Church yea l. de Utilit Cred. cap. 14. he saith that his belief in Christ was grounded upon that Authority which certainly he must then needs hold for Infallible If he did thus and was never noted for singularity in his faith for doing thus why may not I prudently doe what he did Yea how can I poor simple creature not doe imprudently if I refuse to do what he did who understood the Scriptures as well as any man the Church had Having now shewed the Church to be the Judge appointed by Christ for all Controversies and that the Definition of this Judge is Infallible and consequently a sufficient ground for Faith I will now show that all this Doctrine must be applyed to the Roman Church and cannot be applyed to the Protestant Church For first this Protestant Church doth not so much as lay claim either to have any such Authority as being Judge in all Points of Controversie or to the having any infallible Authority If either of these belonged to her she would know her own right from which she now disclaims and so by her own doctrine she cannot be Judge or infallible for so as an Infallible Iudge she should judge her self to be fallible No more need to be said to exclude her or any other Church acknowledging by evident and infallible Scripture as they profess their own fallibility and that they are not Iudges in Controversies being infallibly fallible and so uncapable of these Priviledges as is Evident And even this might serve to exclude all other Churches but the Roman She onely claimeth as she is bound to do her due right to be Judge in all Controversies and her infallible authority to decide them with truth All other Churches of all other Religions doe say indeed that they are themselves the onely true Churches but none of them say themselves to be either
the Judges of Controversies or to be infallible Wherefore they cannot be either judges or infallible for if they be true Judges then they judge truly against themselves when they judge it to be as certain as Scripture that there is no Judge but Scripture And if they be truly infallible in defining them they truly and by infallible authority define themselves to be fallible whilest they define it to be Scripture that the true Church is fallable Wherefore infallibly they are fallible and consequently infallibly they are not the true Church which we have demonstrated to be infallible and all those Texts authorities and Reasons must needs prove all Churches false that be fallible whilest they prove the true Church necessarily to be infallible But all Churches besides the Roman by their own faith are according to infallible Scripture fallible None of them therefore is the true Church If then the Roman Church be not the true Church then Christ hath no true Church left on Earth nor hath not had these many Ages Hence you may gather why I never was sollicitous to prove all that was said of the Church by the Scriptures and Fathers to be said of the Roman Church for whilest I did shew them to be said of such a Church as might be of an Authority infallibile and sufficient to ground Faith It followed manifestly that all was said of the Roman no other being Infallible and so Christ should have no true Church if this be not a true one For I have demonstrated that no other can be Infallible This being a Demonstration until this Argument be answered I hold my self bound to say no more yet I must needs tell you in brief a small part of that which I can and will say if this point be again pressed I will shew how unanimously the Fathers acknowledge this St. Cyprian Ep. 3. l. 1. saith that false Faith cannot have Access to the Roman Church St. Hierome in 1. ad Tim. calleth Damasus the Pope of Rome The Rector of the House of God which St. Paul calleth the Pillar and Foundation of truth And in his Epistle to the same Pope he saith To your Holiness that is to the Chair of Peter I am joyned in communion Upon this Rock I know the Church to be built He that gathers not with thee scatters So the Fathers in the Councel of Chalcedon at the voice of St. Leo Pope of Rome said Peter hath spoken by the mouth of Leo. And many such other places I will alledge for which now I remit you to Stapleton and Bellarmine who both shew most diligently how all other Churches have gone to Rome to receive judgement in their chief Causes See this done in all Ages in Bell. 3. De Verbo Dei e. 6. I will shew also how all Churches of all Ages which were not confessed Heretical or Schismatical Churches have been ever joyned in communion to the Roman until St. Gregory the greats time and then ever since and how in his time England received the same Roman Faith which now all Roman Catholiques professe and all Protestants deny And I will shew that this faith then brought into England from Rome did not in any point of Faith controverted between the Roman Catholiques and the Protestants differ from that undoubted true Apostolical Faith which our old Brittains received from Rome in the second age of the Church in the dayes of Eleutherius and from hence the present Roman Churches communion in Doctrine with the Ancient Apostolical Church will appear I will shew that perpetual visibility agreeth onely to the Roman Church and consequently that in her onely that Prophesie concerning Christ was fulfilled That he should reigne in the House of Jacob for ever and of his reign there shall be no end We can shew how he hath reigned here by known and manifest Pastors of the Church who have in all ages appeared in Councils to govern his Church I pray set us but know the name of one of your Pastors Doctors or Preachers in those last thousand ages which preceded Luther All are bound to be of the true Church but to be of an invisible Church having onely Invisible Pastors administring Sacraments in an invisible manner no man can be bound to be of I will shew that all conversions of Nations from Idolatry so often promised to be made by the true Church were all and every one of them made by such as did communicate with the Roman Church and no one Nation ever converted from Paganisme by those who professed Protestant Religion or held these points in which Protestants differ from us I will add also that all who have been eminent for sanctity of Life or glory of Miracles have all been joyned in communion to the Roman Church and you cannot name any one famous in either of these respects whom you can prove to have been a Protestant a most evident sign of the Truth of the Roman Church Compare any other Church to it in all these points here mentioned and you shall see all incomparably more verified in the Roman Church then in any other differing from her or agreeing with you yea verified in none but her I have then I hope performed my Promise to shew a clear way how in the midst of so many Religions to find the true One by the Infallible Authority of the Catholick Church which I have shewed to be the Judge in all Controversies of Faith and of Authority sufficient to ground true Faith upon and that when all this is done This is that holy and direct way so direct unto us that fools cannot erre by it and wise men must erre if they walk not by it The Conclusion Shewing the Reply to my Papers to have been fully answered in the former Discourse This Reply consisteth of Eight Answers with a word or two at the end and at the beginning of these Answers To all these in Order FIrst at the beginning you say there is little reason for you to rejoyn because I wave the Application of my discourse as to the Roman Church I answer That my Position was that the Church is the Ground of Faith Of the Roman Church it was to no end to speak until I had been first granted that some Church or other was the Ground of Faith A man must first prove to a Jew that the Messias is come and then he must prove that Christ was this Messias Again all my Proofs proved an infallible Church to be the ground of Faith of which no fallible Church could be a sure Ground as is manifest But all Churches but the Roman Church do profess according to Scripture themselves to be fallible whence it followeth that all Churches but the Roman must needs be fallible For if they or any of them be infallible then they teach the infallible Truth when they teach themselves to be fallible No Church therefore can be Infallible but she who teacheth her self to be Infallible Consequently when I proved the
yet will it not 〈◊〉 your 〈◊〉 unlesse you can prove that whatsoever priviledges were promised to the first Church in the times of the Apostles should in full dimensions be alwayes extended to your Church and your Church onely Therefore your Isidor Clarius doth apply this Text to the time of our Saviour when he did make the Blind to See the Lame to Walk as he sent word to John the Baptist And therefore since it was signally accomplished then we cannot urge the performance of it in that equality in a sense spiritual which also seems to be acknowledged by Saint Hierome upon the place where the opening of the Ears of the Deaf he doth apply to the Scripture Preached and the way he saies to be God Now then as we cannot solidly argue from the promise of pouring out the gifts of the Holy Spirit which was solemnly and subfâ—â—a visibile made good upon the Apostles as â—oâ—hâ— Peter declared that there shall be the like effusion of immediate gifts upon the Church in the following ages which some Sectaries would plead so neither can we rationally conclude from this promise which was as that excellent manner and in the Letter perfected by our Saviour Christ that it shall be continued to any Church iâ— that measure of a spiritual kind If we cannot evince the same perfection in the same kinde surely can we not by our accommodation of sense evince the same perfection in another kind upon the former consideration because it is mystical and that not argumentative 3. This path and this way and this holy way so that fools cannot erre is upon supposition promised to the Church Is it not Well then if it be promised to the Church then the Church is not that way for that way is promised to the Church so that the Church is not absolutely that way but so far as it goeth that way which is as much as was said before and is not yet answered that the Church is regula regulata not regulans Take then the matter thus that way which the Church goes we must goâ—â— The Church goes by the way of Gods-Word revealed and so must we therefore we are not bound to follow the Church with blind obedience which excludes Faith because that includes Knowledge although it be contradistinguished to Science Fourthly If the promise did belong to the Church in all times yet not to any Church of one denomination therefore untill you can prove that your Church is all this makes nothing for you Particular Churches have not those properties which belong to the Universal Church as such And if you make a proof of the Church to be the holy way because the Church is holy how easily is that undone because there is more reason that the Scripture should be the holy way for that is perfectly holy or the Holy Ghost is the Judge because he is essentially holy but neither is the Church perfectly holy here nor essentially holy not in Heaven And besides secondly the Holy Church if you understand it with relation to the Creed as in your former Paper it is to be taken of the Church invisible which as such is on way And thus I have slighted your strong hold as it seems to you for hitherto you do fly very often In your third Number you come to an assertion of the necessity of an Infallible Judge You say that all Christians of whatsoever Religion do agree in this that there must be one Judge of all Controversies and Doubts which either be or can be in Religion So you You speak very largely of your supposition as if it were agreed to by all Christians but you do not consider that you do leave out that which makes the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the state of the question whether there must be an Infallible Judge on Earth for that is not consented to on all hands by all Religions indeed by none but yours That God either essentially taken or personally the Holy Ghost is the Supreme Universal Infallible Judge and onely in whose Authority we rest and whose word is the Ground of Faith we hold Under him subordinate Judges there are but not Infallible neither is it by your reason sufficiently confirmed that there should be on Earth any Infallible Judge For the defect of such a Judge on Earth doth not leave us free without any fault to follow our own private judgement in holding what we will For first it is impossible for us to hold what we will in our judgements We may possibly though not morally professe what we will although contrary to our judgements as many doe but we cannot assent to what we will because our Understanding is not free to take which part of the opposition it pleaseth by way of Will for it embraceth Truth naturally as it sees it and it cannot give a rational assent without a due conviction and therefore your implicite Faith is false and null Secondly We do not say that we should follow our own judgement of discretion without meanes of regulating our judgement but yet after we have perused the Definitions of Councils and Sentences of the Fathers we cannot resigne up our Assents to their Dictates upon their account but do examine them as the Beraeans did that which Saint Paul said untill we can finde them resolved into the Infallible rule of Holy Scripture For let me ask a Papist according to the renour of your first Paper What doth he believe he answers that which the Church believeth and why doth he believe it because the Church believeth it and why doth the Church believe it because it received it from the first Church through the Sentences of the Fathers or the Determinations of Councils Well but how shall the People know whether this Tradition of Doctrine is truly discerned and faithfully delivered but if so why is he bound to believe the first Church because either they were the Apostles oâ— had it from the Apostles And why doth he believe the Apostles Because they were inspired by the Holy Ghost Well in what they wroâ—e or in what they spoke or both In both Well but how do we know what they spoke We know what they wrote bears witnesse of it self so doth not to us what they spoke so that although they were inspired in whaâ— they spoke yet we know not what they spoke Neither can we be assured by a Divine Faith that what of them was not written is certainly derived And therefore all of Faith must be terminated and determined in that which is written And as towards Controversies we say thirdly that Christ hath sufficiently provided for the Salvation of Man in regard of means of knowledge without an Infallible Judge on Earth of their Controversies because things necessary are plainly set down in Scripture and for matters of question we are not in any such danger if we do our endevour according to our condition to finde out Truth and do dispose our selves to Belief as we shall see
ground established the necessarinesse of an Infallible Judge I need go no further till this be made sure I need not have any thing to do with your assumption indeed if I may be so free a presumption Yet lest you should take it amisse or ill if I should say nothing to it by it selfe I shall not let it passe without some notice of it But what you say at first here that if we finde out this Judge we can never remain in any doubt for without all doubt we must stand to the judgement of this Judge what reasons soever our private judgement or discretion may suggest So you this spoyles all and this is an argument against you that which you say is little else then Contradictio in adjecto as they speak If we must submit our judgements to an Infallible Judge pretended whatsoever reasons of Scripture I mean we have to the contrary then there is no such Judge for it is impossible for us in our judgements to assent to that for which we see reasons of Scripture to the contrary Take Reason simply and so in matters of Faith it must quiescere as the School phrase is as a principle because the doctrine of Faith is supernatural in the judgement of Aquinat at the beginning of his Summs but take Reason as an Instrument for the finding out of the sense of Scripture and so what moments we finde in Scripture for any opinion we cannot sink in any determinations on Earth As far as the understanding sees appearance of Truth it doth necessarily leap and run to it and will not leave it for any Authority under Heaven and therefore while the reason of Authority is not so clearly drawn from the Word of God as the reason of his Opinion in his own judgement it cannot give up its assent And if we are by duty to go your way of absolute credence to the dictates of your Judge we must then if he saies Vices are Vertues say so too as your Cardinal Bellarmin determins in his 4. Book de Rom. Pontif. cap. 5. And thus you again see whither your blind obedience will lead you even from darknesse to darknesse In the seventh Number you lay to our charge an agreement with all Hereticks that have risen up against the Church because we as all Protestants do hold that the Scripture is the onely Judge by which all doubts and differences and Controversies of Religion are to be determined with Infallible Authority To this Saint Austin answers l. de Trinit cap. 38. We also answer to this charge first as before that Hereticks have urged Authority too and therefore by your argument you must quit your way of the Authority of the Church or else grant us our way of Scripture notwithstanding Secondly doth it follow rationally that because the Hereticks have misapplyed Scripture therefore we should not rightly apply it If the Standard be made use of to ill purpose of measuring stoln commodities therefore shall not other measures be ruled hereby It is accidental to Scripture to be thus abused shall it therefore loose its proper priviledge because as Saint Peter saith some who are unlearned and unsetled wrest Scriptures to their destruction therefore those who are learned and setled may not improve it to their Salvation because Robbers make use of the light of the Sun for actions unrighteous and wicked therefore honest men may not use the Light for their lawful imployments Is this good reasoning You had surely raised your discourse to the height if you had told us that we must not urge Scripture because the Devil did urge it unto our Saviour Christ So one indeed concludes as if the Devil did not apprehend what kinde of argument our Saviour would own and what reject therefore did he not set upon him with Tradition of the Church as is noted Neither did Christ reply upon him with Tradition but with Scripture which is a better Argument that this is to be our Rule which we should be be ordered by Thirdly The Hereticks did not presse that which was true Scripture but either corrupted it as Tertullian observes in his praescriptions or took onely so much as was for their use or perverted the sense of it so that if Scripture doth consist in the sense they did not bring Scripture for their proof but that which is not Scripture Fourthly Why doth Bellarmine and others of your Writers so frequently endevour to uphold their Doctrines by Scripture if because the Hereticks use it we must not Neither do they plead Scripture by the Traditional sense of the Church but by their own Interpretations When Scripture seems to them to speak for them then they produce Scripture but when they are oppressed with clear testimonies against them then little respect is given thereunto Fifthly If Controversies are not to be ended by Scripture which the Hereticks plead then how are they to be ended by the judgement of the Church Yes you will say but how shall Hereticks know if they doubt what or which is the true Church it must be by the Scripture so that our last recourse must be to Scripture Again if Hereticks must be perswaded by the Church then are they led if not by their private judgements yet by private judgements of others For besides that the Church consists of private Men the consent of the whole if they could be certain of it being compared to Scripture in way of contradistinction hath it self by manner of private judgement All the publick power it hath it hath by God and Scripture then here again we must end Again how shall Hereticks know that all Controversies are to be ended by the Church they must know it either by their own judgements of discretion which you deny to us or by the Church What in its own cause or by Scripture so we must resolve our selves in Scripture analytically we must bottome there synthetically we must begin there Sixthly This practice of Hereticks if it hath reason to make us forsake Scripture hath it not reason also to make you retract your expressions of your self as towards Scripture that you do professe all reverence and all credit to be due to Scripture as the Infallible word of God insomuch that you are ready to give your lives in defence of any thing conteined herein Will you stand to your words If you will then must you believe that whatsoever is necessary is declared therein sufficiently For what saith the Scripture by Saint Paul Gal. 1.8 If I or an Angel from Heaven preach to you any other Doctrine besides what you have received let him be Anathema And what then becomes of your unwritten word on behalf whereof you wisely cry up the infallibility of the Church in points of Religion For as for the distinction of your men hereupon that the Text is to be understood of that which is against it not of that which is beside it is invalid for it is in the Text beside 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
following instances to be of the necessaries I deny the antecedent in both branches if not I deny your supposition Taking you in the former sence I say that there are not now many Controversies necessary to be determined unto salvation which may not undoubtedly be decided by Scripture and also I say there may not be yet many more The first branch I deny because though many things which are res questionis are not decided by Scripture yet many controversies in things necessary cannot be said not to be undoubtedly decided by Scripture because in things necessary there are not many Controversies And the second branch I denie because we cannot expect any new necessaries and a new Tradition is a certain contradiction Now to answer to your particulars for the proof of the antecedent Controversie may be moved you say concerning the lawfulness of working and not working of Saturdayes and Sundayes How will this Controversie be decided by the Scripture c. So you To which we return you this answer that there is enough in Scripture to ground the practice of the Church for the observing of the Lords day First by the proportion to the Equity of keeping one day in seven which wee have in the fourth Commandement There is in the Commandment morale naturae that there should be a time set a part for publicke worship and this by the Light of Nature the Heathens did see as Tully Non ut Consilii sic Sacrificii c. There is not a day appointed of Counsel as of sacrifice then there is a positive determination to the Jew of the seventh day to be the day in the week of their solemn service and to this is agreable by good analogle that Christians should keep one day in seven as well as the Jews Now the moments in Scripture for the Translation of the day are several the appellation of the Lords day most likely of the day we keep the meeting of the Disciples and breaking of bread on the first day of the week the order for the provision for the poor by Saint Paul to the Corinthians To these we add the Syriack Interpretation which in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the 11. Chapter and the 20. Verse expresseth it thus when therefore you meet you do not as it is just on the Lords Day eating and drinking which is to be understood of the Communion according to the scope of the place And therefore may we think that this point of practise was so competently set out in Scripture as that we cannot suspend the usage upon the Authoritie of the Church since we may conceive that the Church was bound by the former Considerations to celebrate the Day of Christs Resurrection which is the Hope of the new Creature The seventh Day to the Jew was Positive and Ceremonial and therefore upon that account under capacity of being altered and the Equity of one day in the week is now under practice upon the former intimations Secondly If the Jewish day ceaseth not in the Obligation to Christians then the time when Christians should keep is under the Divine Commandement and is none of those things wherein the Church hath power because as you will confesse it hath no authority to rescinde a Divine precept So then if by necessity of mean it is necessary to keep the Lords day it is lawfully done and upon duty if it be not necessary by necessity of mean then is this Example of yours impertinent And so this argument unanswerable as you esteem it is without much labour answered by those who make the Scripture in which God speaks by him the sole Infallible Judge not excluding subordinate Judges which are to regulate their decisions by the rule of the word unto which the Scripture is not silent and in other things no need to be sure of such a Judge as you would have And this second Answer to your first instance may be available for your satisfaction in your second instance from the 15. of the Acts. For if those precepts of the 〈◊〉 in that Council do binde all alwaies then is We matter determined by Scripture if they do not then are we at our Christian liberty from them without a formal discharge thereof from the Church And secondly that we are not held under obedience to those Lawes appears by the intention of their imposition for that time since they were imposed upon occasion of scandal to the weak Jew the reason whereof now ceaseth and therefore the Laws ubi ratio cessat lex cessat as the rule is Onely as the Ceremonial Laws binde yet quâ—ad genus as they speak that there should be a decent publick worship in the Church of God not quoad speciem that we should continue the use of the same Ceremonies so even these precepts which were in their nature Ceremonial do yet binde so far improportion of kinde that in things of indifferency we should have respect to our weak Brother Thirdly Neither can you say that either he that does abstain from those things forbidden or he that does not abstain is upon that account in danger of damnation And therefore as quoad hoc we distinguish of your term Necessary if you take this matter Necessary as absolutely so by the morality of it or perpetual by appointment then we deny it to be necessary so and why do not you keep them if onely necessary as to present practice then doth it not come up to our question for it is none of those things necessary to Salvation which are determinable by the Church and not by Scripture In your tenth Number you give us another case not umpired by Scripture whether the King is Head of the Church And this you say we thought once to be determined by Scripture affirmatively now not so you in effect this point is now no longer ascertained us by infallible judgement of Scripture so you in terms We answer First What is infallibly decided in Scripture will ever be so although we do not alwaies finde it but we cannot find any thing infallibly decided by the Church Secondly We do not say that every point is Infallibly decided in Scripture because it is not at all decided therefore if you mean us so you mistake us And now premising these considerations we answer that we do hold our principle still if you will understand as according to our mind Head of the Church as you hold the Pope to be Head of the Church so as that we are bound in Conscience as upon his Infallibility to be ruled by his dictates in matters of Religion we never held the King to be but to be Head of the Church so as to be the chief Governor thereof as being appointed by God to be the Keeper of both Tables so we hold him to be still This distinction makes an end as it may seem of your objection and yet secondly we do not pretend the King to be head of the Universal Church as you pretend
need then of an infallible Judge since in points of question simple errour is not damnative and where indeed shall we have an infallible Judge if there be fallibility in any particular If the Spirit of God speaks in the Church by infallible assistance cannot the Spirit of God infallibly determine all points or if it assists infallibly only to material Articles which are necessary then do you give us a list of your Fundamentals And also for Fundamentals we need not such a Judge having them with sufficient plainnesse in Scripture which is Infallible Upon the whole matter then there is a possibility of their erring without Infallibility and of our erring without damnation So that your first error is an Infallibility of a Judge the second the necessity of such a Judge and a third is this that no Church can prudently be held to be the Catholick Church but the Roman But ought we not to disturb your delight you take in holding a Religion prudently prudently as if we were to choose a Religion by interesse which prudence doth rather direct to not by sapience of the highest speculative principles which direct the understanding but to let that passe We onely note hereby your pronouncing this main Text for the Authority of the Church that what Authority it hath must be resolved into Scripture then is that the first and highest principle That the center of Truth wherein we must rest and the further we go from that the further from Truth And the greater circumference we draw the lines are the remoter from that wherein we must acquiesce as being the Word of God Yet you say here we see the Judge which Christ hath warranted from bringing in any damnable error therefore may we securely obey So you But where is your connexion in this argumentation Either you distinguish damnative error against that which is not damnative or not If not then in your opinion all error is damnative then take you heed of this for this is one Or if you do distinguish it against error damnative yet may we not securely obey this Judge because then we may be bound to obey him in an 〈◊〉 and so should the understanding be obliged to assent to error which is impossible and he must act against his Conscience even in his assent which is a contradiction And that none may disobey this judge securely the Text you bring Matth. 18.17 will not evince to your pâ—â—pose For first it concerns matters of Trespasse betwixt Brother and Brother not matters of Faith and thus it is Eccentrical to your â—esigne Secondly It concerns refractorinesse of the person not unbelief of the Understanding and so the Authority of the Church may binde against the former though not against the latter Thirdly It respects Excommunication by censure not determination of a point by Infallibility and so also is not proper to your cause And fourthly It may erre in the Censure and therefore Excommunication eo ipso doth not damne as Unbelief may Neither am I bound to believe the Censure is just unlesse it appears to be so Fifthly This power belongs to every particular Church and to the several Prelates thereof as you speak also in the number of multitude and therefore is not appropriated to your Church Sixthly It doth not follow a fortieri as you would have it nor yet at all that because the Church is to judge of private complaints therefore it can judge infallibly in causes of greater importance by its authority it doth the former without Infallibility it does not the latter The former of them doth not conclude against me and the latter cannot be from hence collected As for that which followes Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven as far as it regards Excommunication must be also taken specificatively clave non errante as they speak And this toucheth the person unto the submission not the Conscience as to renounce that which it apprehendeth as true for then should Athanasius have been bound in Conscience by the Censure of the Church to have been an Arrian Then from the peril of disobedience to this judge you gather that this must supposse the judge not to be fallâ—ble in such prime causes as must concern the Church and all such causes are those which may bring 〈◊〉 damnable errors So you in the â—nd of that Number But your premises being destroyed your Conclusion is ruinous and yet also you do not conclude punctually according to an Eleâ—ch for you conclude it not fallible in prime causes of main importance but you should in your proof conclude it not fallible in any thing for if it be fallible in any thing wherein the error is not damnative then you doe not conclude it infallible Yea though it should not erre actually in any decision yee followeth not from hence that it is infallible For Infallibility excludes all error in whatsoever iâ— doth propose or decree and also the possibility of error Therefore prove it thus and then an infallibility of our knowledge of it and infallibly what is the subject of this Infallibility and then I shall stand up to your Creed And if you would go the right way in this dispute you should use another method for whereas you would argue the Church to be the judge which we cannot safely disobey if you could make this sure which yet is not done yet you should rather goe this way synthetically the Church is infallible in whatsoever it doth define therefore it is the Judge which we ought to obey in all things whatsoever it 〈◊〉 out but your discourse from uncertain decisions and inconveniences doth not bespeak any credence of your infallibility much lesse of our knowledge thereof Now we follow you into your eighteenth paragraph And here we meet with St Austins suffrage in his 20. de â—in cap. 9. where he comments upon these words of Rev. â—â— 4 I fanâ— throâ—â— and they sate upon them and judgment was given them So the testimony And what from hence Because the Praeposits judge on earth therefore infallibly then every Church which hath Praeposits should be Infallible Doth this follow we deny not their Iudicature but their Infallibility Conclude thus or you agree with us Then you â—â—y to the Old Testament Mal. 2.7 For the Priests lips shall keep knowledge and they shall require the law from his mouth So you And you note besides a great corruption in our English which rendreth the words the Priests lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law We need not answer that this Text hath nothing for you Is it meant of the Priests at Rome If not how belongeth it to you but to the Priests of the Church â— what an general what then do you get by this Secondly They keep Knowledge sufficiently for the people Do they keep it Infallibly If not we are agreed If infallibly how are the Priests taxed in the following words for not doing so And if the
of singularity because it doth not follow the Catholique If then you will do prudently as you speak go with Saint Austin no further then he would have you follow him namely in the way of Scripture which he understood well and at the latter time of his life but whether he understood it as much as any the Church had which you say may be yet under debate with all respect to Saint Austin since it appears not that he had any skill in Hebrew and if I remember well confesseth that he learned Greek but late So then if in some cases your own Men confesse that we must have recourse to the Original Languages how could he understand them so well And now come we to your grand assumption that what hath been said of the Catholick Church that it is by Christ appointed to be the Judge of all Controversies and that the definition of this Judge is Infallible and consequently a sufficient ground of Faith all the Doctrine must be applyed to the Roman Church and cannot be applyed to the Protestant Church And now then you are pleased at the latter end to discover your selfe that you did intend at first the Roman Church but dealt more cunningly then the rest of the Pontificians who do include in the nature of the one and true Church subjection to the Bishop of Rome Methinks this plot of yours might be somewhat resembled by him who had that Phantasie that whatsoever Ship came to Port was his so now every Church must be yours or none as if the Roman Sea were the Ocean or you would have all the Honours that might be conferred by God upon that Church he would please to own signally and to make his conceiving that this Church can be none but your own And thus would you have led me on with some ingenuity to be liberal in my respects and devoirs to the Catholick Church that so you might without contradiction sweep all for the Roman Catholick But prove that those priviledges you speak of belong to the Roman Church and cannot be applyed to the Protestant Church You prove it thus First This Protestant Church doth not so much as lay claim to those priviledges and so by her own Doctrine she cannot be Judge or Infallible nor any other Church but the Roman upon the same reason because they professe themselves by evident and Infallible Scriptures their own Fallibility as you prove the consequence to be to the end of your Page of the 27. Number and therefore the Roman Church is the true Church unlesse Christ hath no true Chrch nor hath had these many ages This is your argument which proceeds by way of a negative induction not the Protestant Church nor this other Church nor that nor any other Church doth claim the priviledge of being Infallible Judge onely the Roman therefore otherwise Christ hath had no true Church these many Ages Sir Which will you give us leave to do to smile or weep that men not to be contemned for their Learning and Reading should be abused and should endevour to abuse others by such ratiosinations which are made useful onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We and all other Churches do of their own accord yeild unto you that they are Fallible We save you the labour of the eviction True Churches they say they are and say they are not Infallible and they say also that you only do lay claim to this Infallibility but what then therefore you have Infallibility what because you only claim it Suppose that the Roman Church doth lay claim to Utopia or to the Terra incognita no other Church doth not the Protestant not any other therefore it is due to them Yes but where is this Utopia where is this Terra incognita what be the Priviledges and Dominions thereof they are yet to seek for them who lay claim to them First then make it out that there is such an Infallibility to be had before you challenge it and do not prove the beeing of it by your challenging it lest your Roman Eagle be said to catch at flies but prove solidly the beeing of it by the grounds thereof and then secondly prove a just claim for suppose that others did not lay claim to it what right can yet you have by a claim Is this also given primo occupanti If you have no other tenure for your Infallibility you have none and it doth bespeak fallibility to say the title is good If I might be so bold and surely I may in the cause of the truth of God it is more likely to fall out thus no Church but the Roman doth pretend to Infalliblity therefore is it highly presumptuous and is onely in this not an Usurper because there is no such thing as belonging to any Church We have no such tradition nor the Churches of God and yet also is it an insolent Usurpation of that Prerogative which belongs onely to God and Scripture This is enough to undo your argumentation and you but whereas you say that all other Churches of other Religions do say indeed that they themselves are the onely true Churches it is not true they doe not speak of themselves exclusively as you do Particular true Churches they may be under the truly Catholick Church and therefore they can contesserate one with another with respective acknowledgements but you are they who exclude all from the condition of being true Churches which will not reconcile themselves to you by absolute subjection And since you say that all other Churches but yours disclaim Infallibility you see that we alone do not stand aloof from obedience to your Roman Tyranny So you are not Catholicks in dominion neither Yet you would seem to have some reason for your discourse that one Church must be Infallible otherwise Christ hath not nor hath had any true Church these many ages This is inconsequential unlesse there be some Church Infallible Christ hath no true Church It is a false proposition as we have answered you from the first to the last that a true Church is Infallible and it is now all the question Though it be not true in every point yet may it be a true Church Every error doth not destroy the beeing of the Church and you have very great cause not to presse this lest it be retorted against your Church as it might be to be Even with you that Church which holds it selfe Infallible and yet hath erred is Fallible and therefore by your Doctrine no true Church the Church of Rome holdeth it self Infallible and yet hath erred then this is no true Church And might not the assumption here be proved by your own Doctrine for if the Tradition of the Church be the Rule of Faith then you have erred in rejecting the Millenary opinion which was a tradition of the Church So then your designe you speak of in the 28. Number of not expressing the Roman Church in your dispute you see is destroyed for what you say of
proposed the question they put down the reasons which seem to make against the truth This was done to my hand in your first paper Then they set down the Truth and the Reasons of it and this Saint Thomas in his Quaestionibus fasiùs disputatis doth sometimes very largely and this I did to your hand in my last paper Lastly they solve the former Objections against truth by reference to such Reasons as they in their Proofs did shew the truth to be grounded upon And this in my conclusion I shewed my self to have performed or if any little thing were wanting I did supply it Wherefore though I had not your consent to proceed thus with your paper yet I content my self with having the consent of the best Schoolmen My intention in rejoyning by a Treatise was to have this most important matter distinctly orderly and fully put down And by having done so I find this great commoditie that your answer becomes more Methodical and my Reply to your Answer more clear and perspicuous And the Reader seeth still how orderly the combat is The Second CHAPTER The necessitie of a Judge in all Controversies to whom all are bound to submit 1. IN the beginning of your Answer Of my first Number to what I said concerning this point you go about to perswade us that we Recusants who upon this account are liable to loose two parts of our Estates and what else you are or shall be pleased to take from us be it goods liberty or life that we I say are most likely to take up our Religion by prejudice Doubtless you must think us first to be very noble contemners of the world whose greatest commodities do not hinder us from looking upon even with prejudice a Religion so manifestly prejudicial to us and so your own Tertullians saying fitly checks you for being one who cannot see so manifest Verities as be in our Religion you perswade your self to see certain Falsities which so manifestly be not in it let us come to the matter Of my second Number 2. God having made man to a supernatural end to be attained by supernatural means among which the first is true faith it is clear that he must according to his merciful Providence provide us some way to this faith so easie that all if they pleased might be brought to the knowledge of it And because the far greater part of men were ignorant it beseemed his goodnesse who is the Lover of Souls to provide us such a way as these ignorant men should not be able unless by wilfully carelesness to erre by it according to that of the Prophet Esay 35. promising at the coming of the Messias A Path and a way which shall be so direct to us that fools cannot erre by it To elude this Text You say sure may we be that the Letter doth respect the Jewish Church after their Redemption from Captivity I answer if this be sure then sure it is That God directeth the Jewish Church by a way so direct that fools could not erre by it And if he did this to the Jewish Church there can be no good reason why he should be less careful to direct the ignorant of the Church of Christ Whence you see I had no reason to have feared this Interpretation Yet I think it is sure that this is not the true interpretation for when did the blind see deaf hear when did then God himself come and save us And if you will have our Saviour himself to be this way as he said I am the Truth and the Way this self same Saviour said I who am this way am with you untill the consummation of the world to wit directing my Church the right way to salvation of which direction the Church hath no lesse need now then then And as we could not securely have put a limitation to these words of Joel if Saint Peter had not secured us of the true sense so cannot you here limit these words not having the like warrant for it And as for the first part of Miracles it is manifest by our Saviour his own words Those who believed in him should do greater then he had done If then this Text was Verified after our Saviours time you cannot say it is onely spoke of his time and that he did take away a way so necessary for us His guifts being without Repentance And it is strange that you thinking this guift Litterally conferred to the Jewish Church should with the same breath plead so hard that it is a guift which should not in full dimension be alwayes extended to the Church I cannot believe that you trust your other argument If this way be promised to the Church Ergo the Church is not this way Suppose God had promised the Kingdome of France a Monarchy Ergo the Kingdome of France say you is not this Monarchy The true consequence is Ergo The Kingdome of France is this Monarchie The Church is this way which God promised it should be And it is so by the sure guidance of him who is the way and is with his Church ruling it until the continuation of the world And so Christ is Regula regulans and the Church Regula regulata But being ruled by him there is not the least danger that it will swerve from the VVord of God and you may well follow such a Guide with blind obedidience And still I must mind you that I speak of the Universal Church represented in a General Council confirmed by the Supreme Pastor This Church guiding by her infallible doctrine is this way the Church Diffusive guided now by this Doctrine was promised this Direct way such a way we were promised a way so direct represented that fools cannot erre by it The Scripture as some may conceive for you dare not defend it is not this way for we see with our eyes not onely fools but also most learned men to erre grosly and to follow most contradictory opinions whilest they professe from their hearts to follow Scripture as neer as they can the Scripture therefore is not this way yet such a way we must find to make Gods promise good Nothing then with any probabilitie can be said to be this way but the Visible Church of Christ For the Church Invisible as such is no way according to your Confession The visible Church then is this Judge by submission to her judgement we in all things are secured Of my third Number 3. Whence what you say against my third Number is easily answered For all Religions agreeing that there must be one Judge of all Controversies which either be or may be in Religion they must all give infallibility to their Judge as you your selves do affirming Gods written Word to have plainly set down all things necessary to salvation so that no necessary controversie can spring up but this Judge as you say doth decide it which how false it is I shall fully shew chap. 3. All other
Sectaries agreeing with you in this point I understand not how you could say that none but we held a Judge infallible And indeed without an infallible guide every man might proceed as if your faith were fallible and so give an infallible assent to nothing I did never say that without such a judge we should be free to follow without any fault our private judgement in holding what we will as you insinuate but I said otherwise every man might be free to believe what he judged best and so we should have as many Religions as there be private and different judgements Had you put these my words you had not had a word to say But you thought good to put such words as you knew how to answer and to leave out my true words and to say nothing to the argument by which I proved them And so that argument still standing in force all that you say against your own saying is from the purpose 4. You adde that you doe not say we should follow our own judgement of discretion without means of regulating our judgements But mark how in the next words you take away all means for to take away all infallible means is to take away all means able to produce an infallible assent to faith to have us surely guided in matters of faith for you say yet after we have perused the Definitions of Councils we cannot resign up our assents to their Dictates upon their account but do examine as the Bereans did which Saint Paul said untill we can find them resolved into the infallible Rule of Holy Scripture So you far from the spirit of that great Saint Gregory who said Li. 1. Ep. 24. I do professe my self to reverence the first foure Councils as I reverence the four Books of the Gospel And in like manner I do receive the fifth Council whosoever is of another mind let him be an Anatheme Thus he received all the lawful General Councils which had been before him for there were but five But whereas you will not resign up your assent to the Definitions of Councils until you first can find them resolved into the infallible Rule of Scripture I must tell you first that you will still be strongly pressed to shew upon what infallible principle you take Scripture by an infallible assent to be the undoubted Word of God and then you shall see how the whole Machin of your religion topleth tumbleth to the ground for there cannot be a more groundles ground See of this chap. 3. Numb 20. then that ground upon which you by rejecting the infallible authoritie of the Church are forced to build your whole religion to wit that you by the meer reading of the Scripture can by its Light as you discover the Sun by its Light discover it so manifestly to be the undoubted Word of God that this discovery sufficeth to ground your infallible assent to this veritie And it must be a far surer discovery then that by which we discover the Sunne by his Light for this discovery can onely ground a natural certaintie the other discovery must ground a supernatural not certainly but infallibly Secondly I must tell you that these your proceedings to a private review after you have perused the Definitions of the Councils to examine them until you find them resolved into the infallible Rule of Scripture of which resolution you make your private judgements the Iudge to open awide gap to Heresie as I have shewed in the last chapter Numb 2. And for the importance of the matter I will here again further declare in an example which hereafter also will stand me in much use Let us take an Arrian Cobler to this man this your Doctrine giveth the final review of the Council of Nice and you give him leave after he hath perused the definitions of this Council defining God the Son to be of the self same individual substance with his Father to examine them until he find them resolved into the infallible rule of Scripture He doth examine them and chiefly how they agree with that text I and my Father are one on which Text you * Chap. 4. Number 57. afterwards confess the infallibilitie of this definition to be chiefly grounded and therefore St. Athanasius did press it thrice Now in the examining of the conformity of this definition with this text the Arrian Cobler by his poor understanding is easily able to see that which a wiser man would yet see sooner that he is put upon a necessitie to inquire how God the Son and his Father are one whether it be by affection onely as Arrians hold or One in the self same individual substance as the Councel defineth and inquiring this he calls to his mind that other text Jo. 17. v. 21. where Christ prayeth That all his Disciples may be one thing as thou Father in me and I in thee Here will this Cobler say because he hath often been instructed by his own Doctors Christ who said I and my Father are one thing demandeth that his Disciples may be one thing as he and his Father are one thing But he doth not demand that his Disciples may be all one thing in the self same individual substance Therefore he concludes Christ is not one thing in the selfe same individuall substance with his Father but one thing in affection onely as his Disciples might come to be one thing False therefore would he say is this definition of the Council which cannot be resolved into the infallible Word of God in which all things necessary to salvation as this point is are plainly set down as this point is not for this is the plainest place and yet conferring it with the other I find it not evidently agreeing with the Definition of the Council but rather evidently against it by which I conclude in this my Review the Definition of the Council to be false Most learned Sir either convince this Cobler by some clearer Text of Scripture which I am sure if this Text fail is impossible or else to the eternal good of misled souls confesse that if once you give private men leave to make a Review of the Definitions of Councils you can find no means upon earth to put an end unto our endless controversies the Scriptures alone not sufficing for this end as I shall shew in the next chap. without you take the Scriptures as they send us to the Church bidding us hear her under pain of being accounted Publicans and Heathens 5. Thirdly Learned Sir I must tell you that this your Doctrine maketh the Definition of true Councils and their final determinations to be indeed no Definitions nor final Determinations at all For you make all those great Fathers of the Church to assemble themselves from so remote parts of the world onely to talk and discourse about such and such points in controversie and to leave the controversies themselves undefined and undermined to be finally defined and determined onely
Christian or any word of the new Scripture was writen The meaning of St. Paul is that an Heretick might if he would clearly see his private doctrine to be opposite to the known publick Doctrine of the Church which Church then shined with the glory of infinite Miracles stupendious conversions and most eminent Sanctity and was then formed most completely with all things necessary to infallible direction to the true faith Yea you will say she was then more completely furnished to that end then ever she was since that time 49. Now because your cheif exception against the Churches being our judge is that you hold her not infallible besides all the proofs I have already brought of her infallibility I shall now add divers more But in the first place I must a little more fully tell you what we understand by the name of the Church He who is a seeker of his Religion must first believe the Universal Church diffused to be furnished by God with true infallible meanes to direct us securely in all doubts of faith wherefore he most prudently judgeth himselfe bound to joyne himselfe to her in faith being convinced that she directed most securely in faith Being thus also a seeker resolved to ioyne to these true believers When he proceedeth further to take a particular account in whom this infallible meanes given to the Church Universal of directing all securely in matters of faith doth consist he will readily find that it doth not consist in all the members of the Universal Church for Children and women be of the Church and yet their Vote in no mans opinion is required to the deciding any controversie in faith the Laiety also hath no decisive Voice in those points nor every inferiour Clergy man but only such as are Prelates Overseers and Governors over the rest So that in fine this infallible direction is Unanimously affirmed by us all to be undoubtedly settled upon the authority of the prime Pastors Prelats of the Church assembled together in a lawfull generall Councell with their cheife Pastor and Head the Bishop of Rome Against a thing so easily to be understood you cry out aloud of strange intricatenesse and inextricable proceedings And yet I think most clowns of this Land did easily understand what was meant by a decree of the Kingdome to the which the consent of King and Kingdome assembled in Parliament as the custome was for many years together was required Now what more difficulty is there to know what we meane by a decree or Definition of the Church The kingdome representative was the king and the Parliament The Church representative is the cheife Bishop with the full Assembly of the other Bishops in a lawful Council the Decrees and definitions of which assembly be the decrees and definition of the Church In a thing so cleare you labour your uttermost to raise a thick mist 50. First you obiect who can be certain by a divine faith of the lawfulnes and Regularity of a Pope in his first creation I answer that when I speake of a Pope defining in a lawfull Councel as I do now speak I speak of such a Pope to whom the Church submitted in calling the Councel and whom the Church admitteth as her lawful head to preside in the Councel These very acts supply all defects in his election and do make it evidently credible that he is the true head who thus admitted defined with the Councel as their acknowledged head Secondly you ask when there was Pope against Pope who of the people could distinguish the right Pope I answer that he shall ever be esteemed the right Pope to whom the Prelates of the Church shall unanimously obey when he calleth them to meet in a general Councel and in this Councel to preside over them To to have two such Popes as these are at one time is impossible And this is the only time in which a Pope defineth with a lawful Councel What you say of Popes not defining in such a Councel is not our Case put me a Pope defining with a lawful Councel and then prove him fallible if you can Whether the Popes definitions out of a Councel be fallible or infallible maketh nothing to this purpose Only this is evident if they be infallible out of a Councel they be infallible in a Councel Thirdly you think that no Controversies can in our opinion be decided when there is a doubt who is true Pope And you ask who is then to call a Councel And when the Councel is called you think us to think that this Councel can define nothing without a Pope I doubt not Sir but you have found a clear answer to all this in Bellarm lib. 2. de Concilis Chap. 19. that although a Councel without a Pope cannot define any article of faith yet in time of schisme it can judge which is true Pope and provide the Church of a true Pastor if she had none who thus provided by the Councels authority may dissolve the Councel if he pleaseth or if he please to have them remaine assembled they remaine so now by his authority and can define as well as other Councels called by the Pope In that meeting in which the Pope was to be chosen or declared the undoubted Pope the Prelats of the Church might and ought to meet upon their own authority and assemble themselves Fourthly you ask how we can by divine faith come to be assured of the lawfulnes and generality of Councels for Councels have been called by Emperours not by Popes Sir your Church which never had nor shall have generall Councel is to seeke in all things belonging to them Our Church almost in every age since Constantine hath been visibly assembled in general Councels and by perpetual practice hath been sufficiently informed to deliver by the assistance of the Holy Ghost all that she hath received from her ancestors to be essential to a true Councel and to deliver this point infallibly To your obiection in order I answer first That it is out of Scripture evident that there is no divine institution by which either Emperours be assured to be still found in the world or that when they have that dignity they be by divine institution invested with a power to call Councels We seek for this divine Institution This we will not admit until it can be shewed in Scripture or Tradition the fact of calling sheweth not divine Institution Secondly as for the Prelates of the Church we can shew divine Institution Act. 20.28 Bishops placed by the Holy Ghost over all the flock to feed or govern the Church of God And 4. Epho Not lay Magistrates but only Ecclesiastical are said to be given us by Christ for the work of the Ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ that henceforth we may not be carried about with every wind of doctrine c. Thirdly The Emperour is not by divine Institution Lord of the Christian world No nor of any considerable part
and the dayes of her mourning had been these full thousand yeares short of the end of her mourning And there had been no reason why in such grosse errours she should to Gods comfort be sought for and a City not forsaken These words I am sure are spoke of a visible Church sought for and found out because inhabited and not forsaken your invisiible Church was so desolate that no body can tell where it was And in this sense it is a City still sought for but never to be found for a thousand yeares Or else tell me where 34 For a ninth Text letting all these last Texts of Esay passe as for one I alledged that of Daniel 2.44 In the daies of those Kingdoms the God of Heaven shall raise up a Kingdome which shall not be dispersed and his Kingdome shall not be delivered to another people And that we might know that he speaketh here of the kingdome of Christ which should be visible to us all there is added a circumstance which must needs make it most visible to wit And it shall break in peices and consume all those Idolatrous Kingdomes and it shall stand for ever Now if this true Church of Christ which so visibly hath broken in pieces and quite abolished all Idolatrous Kingdomes be so visibly to stand for ever then this visible Church cannot be said for this last 2000. year to have been faln As it must needs be said of all visible Churches which have bin these last thousand years for besides the Roman Church you will not find one visible Church which hath not faln this time into confessed heresie therefore to verifie these words you must say that the Roman Church did not fall that so you may find Christ a visible Church which did stand for ever And thus also we shall literally expound what the Angel Gabriel said of Christ And he shall reign in the house of Iacob for ever Luke 1.33 This Roman Church then is the Church which hath stood ever since Christs time Whence it is manifest that it did not fal either into idolatry as you intimate hereafter when you reply to this place of Daniel nor when it proclaim'd it self to have an infallible tribunal by which all Controversies are to be truly decided for erecting which tribunal you Page 22. say shee is in peril of treason against God the judge in setting up another judge in the consciences of men And againe Pa. 106. That for pretending to infallibility she is highly presumptious and in this more then an usurper committing an insolent usurpation of the prerogative which belongeth only to God and Scripture And P. 23. you hold this Infallibility as destructive to soules as uncertainty of true Religion Nay say you uncertainty may be helped but infallibility hath no remedy Surely if the Church should have universally faln into uncertainty of true belief it should no longer have been the standing Kingdom of Christ which shall stand for ever But it had been a multitude faln into the want of that faith the want of which had put it in a state in which it had been impossible to please God For uncertainty in faith is wholy inconsistent with an infallible assent but all divine faith consisteth in an infallible Assent Therefore where there is uncertainty there is no divine faith at all without which it is impossible to please God as St. Paul saith you put the Roman Church faln even by this one fall into a worse condition Can a Church in this condition be that Church raised in Christ and spread over the world destroying all Idolatrous Kingdoms by her visible preachers and teachers succeeding with a visible succession one to another administring visible sacraments and by her visible decrees and such like visible Acts destroying all Idolatrous Kingdoms and raigning in their place visibly and thus in the light of the world verifying Daniels prophecy by standing for ever in quality of a kingdome Yet if the Roman Church be not this Church find me out if you can a visible Church for so many visible Acts convince that the Church verifying these words must be visible distinct from the Roman and agreeing with yours in the points debated between us what you hereafter adde concerning this place of Daniel and my first place out of Esay I shall answer in its place Here I thought good to put all these nine Texts of Scripture together that their force might the better appear 35 This being done I must again put you in mind that according to your doctrine Scripture alone is able by clear Texts to decide all Controversies according to truth This Controversie of the fallibility or infallibility of the Church erected by Christ is one of the most important Controversies that can be raised in the Church Now you who pretend this Controversy to be decided for you against me by clear Texts of Scripture are obliged by clearer Texts then all these are put together to prove that Christs visible Church is fallible I say Christs visible Church for all my Texts speak of that and not of the Synagogue and therefore the Texts you bring must be concerning Christs Church And you must bring Texts and not discourses or else you decide not the Controversy by the sentence of the judge to which only you appeal Observe these few things and give me these Texts and I here give you free leave to proclaim me quite vanquished and driven out of the field And by this you will see that we adhere not therefore to the defence of the Churches Tribunal because we fear to be tried by Scripture but because upon trial made by Scripture her Tribunal is proved infallible and in all things to be obeyed by us 36. What occurreth next is to justifie my selfe from the false slander with which you charge me of corrupting the Text in St. Austin Lib. de Utilitate credendi Cap. 19. Sir if I should doe as you did that is if I should only regard that Edition of St. Austin which I have I should not only justifie my selfe but condemne you of corrupting this place Now I onely charge the Edition which you used of corruption yea of such corruption that a man could not but suspect it who would read the context with his perfect sences about him For St. Austin in his 14. Chapter having said that he first believed moved by the authority of the Catholick Church which there he sheweth to have been done by him upon good reason he cometh in the 51 Chapter to presse his adversaries to the easiest way of freeing themselves from errour by yeilding to the authority of the same Church And then in his Sixteenth Chapter he urgeth the wholesomnesse of following this authority Here come in those words which I cited to wit for if the divine providence of God doth not preside in humane affairs in vain would Sollicitude be about Religion But if both the very beauty of all things and our inward conscience doth both publickely
might gaine more credit to their error by holinesse of life as Socinus and others You come then to refute my arguments First it is so far from being contrary from that text you err not knowing the Scriptures that it is most agreeable to it For a most fit way to erre against the knowledge of the Scripture is to permit such and a great number of such men to interpret Scriptures as are most fit to erre in the interpretation of them And is this a good refutation And therefore the meaning of our Saviour must be according to your use they erred because they have the knowledge of the Scriptures which they mis-interpreted Shift you how you will you cannot evade was the knowledge of the Scriptures the cause of their error no that is contrary to our Saviour who said you err not knowing the Scriptures was it necessary that those who did know the Scriptures should mis-interpret them no for then that will by a recideration come into the same inconvenience for then the knowledge will be a certain mean at least in a large sense of this mis-interpretation And so it would be our best way to know nothing of Scripture that so we may not err 3. Can we imagine that our Saviour Christ discoursed as you do that because by our fault the Scriptures are an occasion of mis-interpretation therefore the people should not commonly use them is this symbolicall to the sense of our Saviour's words you err not knowing the Scriptures 4. Our Saviour then by you rebukes their mis-interpretation then he would have them know the Scriptures better not have the people deprived of them 5. There is a double knowledge as to this purpose 1. An habituall Knowledge which is chiefly of the Principles in Scripture this they had in their mind Then there is an actuall Knowledge which consists in an application of those Principles to particular Conclusions of belief and practise They were wanting it seems in the later in that they did not so as they should consider that text in Moses which our Saviour makes use of for the Resurrection They might have inferred the Resurrection from that text and so not have erred Therefore had they more need to look over the Scriptures again and consider them better The saying of the Jew is good He that reads a book an hundred times is not like him that readeth it an hundred times and one The oftner we read it especially the Bible the more we see in it But you bring a corroboration of your answer specially being licensed to cross all Antiquity and all the Authority of the Church if they stand in their way Sir this will not do 1. We licence them not to crosse all Antiquity we need not give them such a direction and surely if they should you would have no cause to blame them We have liberty to use that of the Philosopher in his Rhet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Do you look to that who contradict God and Fathers and Doctors 2. They cannot intend surely the crossing of all Antiquity for certainly they do not know all Antiquity yea if you speak all Antiquity with a full universality there are few of your own learned men that know it And therefore if any of their interpretations doth crosse antiquity it doth but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is but by accident And in things necessary they are not so like to do so 3. Who is there of all your men that have proved this proposition that the Consent of the Fathers supposed makes an argument of Divine Faith therefore though we love their company yet we desire to see our way But object to us nothing but that which is proper How shall your men know that what they hold doth not crosse all Antiquity The Authority of the Church gives them neither faith of it nor Knowledge Yea some of yours say omnes Patres sic ego autem non sic You go on And I wonder why you call this your manner of proceeding the knowledge of the Scripture c. unto secondly Ans You make your self sport with the Ambiguity of the word Knowledge You mean it by way of a Science as Physick we do not say that Trades-men make any knowledge of Divinity so as to give an account of the principles of Divinity in the body of it no but they may have a knowledge of Scripture sufficient for their use although they do not teach others As if there were plain principles of Physick in our language we might make use them for our selves as Tiberius said after thirty years of age he would laugh at those who did need a Physitian you are deceived then or would deceive in the fallacie of consequent though all Science be knowledge all knowledge is not Science for knowledge is more generall and therefore surely of it self doth not inferre the most perfect species You say secondly you in vaine object that of St. Paul that the Scriptures are able to make us wise unto Salvation c. unto thirdly wherein you allow the truth of the text with your gloss namely not as they are interpreted by every giddy fansie but by Tim. who did continue in the things which he learned and had been assured of by orall tradition Ans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what will you get by this answer If you understand by orall tradition such doctrines of the Gospell which were first preached afterwards written we grant you the use of such orall traditions but this boots you not for you must have traditions in point of faith besides what is written and such we deny unto you that Timothy had And I prove my deniall by your own words For how could Timothy understand Scripture by what was beside Scripture you speake of his understanding the Scripture by tradition tradition of proper name is that which is beside Scripture in the matter of it and how can he by that which is different in matter understand the Scripture If you mean by orall Traditions some traditive interpretations as learned men call them of the more difficult passages of Scripture this indeed were more reasonable in the hypothesis as to Timothy but this is nothing to us unlesse you can tell us certainly how many and what they are If there were such and lost then your Church is lost 2. Againe we allow no giddy fansie to define the sense of Scripture but in things necessary and plain their own knowledge may be sufficient and their private judgement may be as safely exercised in the sence thereof as in the choice of your Religion But thirdly by your own words I will conclude against you a fortiori for if the Scriptures were able to make Timothy wise who was a Teacher much more others since as Mr. Cressy and you afterwards affirm there is more requisite to a Minister to be believed than others If then they be able to make a Minister wise unto salvation then one of the People much more who according
and pat could the most important matter in debate betwixt us have been more distinctly orderly and fully put down than to have shewn from place to place where I had not answered directly to the state of the question or had hit the question but did not sufficiently take off the Argument And could his Reply be by this manner more clear and perspicuous when it cannot appeare plainly how he took off my Answers or answered to the matter or form of my occasionall Arguments If this be an orderly Combate then let us beat the aire and that will be sufficient to beat an Adversary Thus much of the first Chapter which is no hard Chapter The Answer to the second Chapter No necessity of a Judge in all Controversies to whom all should be bound simply to submit their assent Num. 1. MY Adversarie says here that I go about to perswade him that he is most likely to take up his Religion by prejudice Ans It seems he is pleased to forbeare any Answer to my retortion of his similitude but he takes notice of my returning to him the greater probabilitie of prejudice in point of Religion to be on their part And he argues the contrary because being Recusants upon this account are liable to lose two parts of their Estates and what else we are or shall be pleased to take from them be it goods libertie or life Ans The prejudice on their part was as I said upon the opinion of the infalibilitie of their Church so that I spake upon account of a religious interesse and he answers me upon a civill account rather This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And therefore this answer is not pertinent And whereas he would seem to have good ground in Conscience for his Religion for which he suffers so much if he intends to vye with us in that kind others of our Religion have suffered more from them Surely he forgets the Marian days wherein we dropped more blood than they have done And whereas he saies to me and what else you are or shall be pleased to take from us As to this much might be said also without passion in the same kind No man can take away more from us than our lives one would think Yes Roman Catholicks would take away from us Heaven too They had almost destroyed me upon earth saith the Psalmist But these will destroy us in heaven also Secondly If he who was mine Adversary was a Native of England he was as much included in the order of his deprivation as I. Thirdly I will say more yet that some of his Religion have had more favour than we Yea yet more than this one whom I think he knows well hath lost more in proportionall quantity as Aquinas distinguisheth than any of them hath lost who hath lost but two parts of three and for Conscience too Therefore that character which I gave the Romanist he is to keep still untill he can prove it doth belong more to us Certainly this is not proved not to belong to them because they have suffered so much for their Religion for we have suffered more and therefore it doth not belong to us but them rather But this suffering de se is easily known not to make an Argument for unlesse our cause be good before we suffer we have no cause to suffer at all The saying is common Causa non passio facit Martyrem Fourthly As for the present sufferings of the Papists they are neither rightly charged either upon our Church or upon our Kingdome for there is not yet proved any legall consent of either to what they or others have suffered Nay fifthly At the day of Judgement we shall see whether they are not more like to answer for what we have suffered than we for what they have suffered in these times So that while they do not see what is true against them they will seem to see what is not true against us As Tertullian said But let us come to the matter To examine then your grounds in the second num Num. 2. That God hath made man to a supernaturall end and to be attained by supernaturall meanes we grant as Aquinas in the begining of of his sums Take men indefinitely and confusely without exclusion of Infants dying before Baptisme from Salvation possible and those who are not compotes mentis and we grant it And also that amongst those meanes the first is true faith and that according to his mercifull providence he hath provided us some way to this faith so easie that all if they pleased might be brought to the knowledge of it namely exceptis excipiendis And that the greater part of men are ignorant yea all naturally ignorant of the way to this supernaturall end as Aquinas because it is supernaturall these things we yield to you And that because the far greater part were ignorant it beseemed his goodnesse who is the lover of soules to provide us such a way as that ignorant men should not be able unlesse by wilful carelesnesse to erre by it These things we do willingly yield But we demurre upon your assumption that this way should be the Church as you interpret that of Isaiah the 35 where you say the Prophet speakes of a path and a way which shall be so direct that fools cannot erre by it Here we must stand a while and inquire what is the sense of this way And first I must note that you do not rightly render the words according to the Hebrew veritie You say and it shall be unto you a direct way so that fools cannot erre But it is not so in the text But thus He shall be to them or with them walking the way and fools shall not erre How is your Church like to be this way when either you erre in not following it or it doth erre in not right following the text And you make it to be in the text a direct way and so that fools cannot erre Whereas it is rather shall not erre which doth note so much infalibilitie as preservation from error Now a negative of the act doth not prove a negative of the power for then the Argument would be good a non esse ad non posse Therefore could my Adversary have proved that the Church of Rome never erred which will never be proved yet all is not yet whole because infalibilitie is not yet proved by the not erring but by an impossibilitie of erring And if you may erre by carelesnesse as before then when were any sure of being right for who can be sure he hath been as carefull as he should be and therefore if this be the condition of not being deceived yea of infalibilitie it is at least morally impossible that any should be assured in their faith because they may be wanting in their diligence and so also may demerit a deprivation of Divine light My Adversary goes on To elude this text you say sure we may be that
we see with our eyes not onely fools but also most learned men to erre grossely and to follow most contradictorie opinions whilst they professe from their hearts to follow Scripture as near as they can Ans This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First because men do erre therefore is not that the way The errour is by them because they go from the way not by the way because they go in it It concludes as much as if the way to Rome were not the way because some men do not finde it Secondly they professe from their hearts as they say to follow Scripture as near â—s they can but do they from their hearts professe it Thirdly if most learned men do erre grossely and follow most contradictorie opinions c. it seems then some most learned men think this is the way Fourthly if they follow most contradictorie opinions and yet follow Scripture the fault must be in them for you dare not say there is any contradiction in Scripture Fifthly they may be in way of Salvation though some do erre in the sense of Scripture as it is drawn down in application to some points of question Sixthly there should have been considered here a possibilitie of recrimination with more advantage against the Adversary For how many of them do erre in following the Church and are more prone to erre because the Church is more variable and their traditions which they say are part of the rule are not written In particular how many of them passionately differ from one another about the subject of Ecclesiastick power about temporall power whether the Pope hath any then whether direct or indirect How many of them hotly maintained contrary opinions in the Council of Trent And yet I hope they followed the Church For if they held Scripture the rule they were Adversaries to my Adversary Seventhly Therefore since men may finde your way and yet erre by it and not finde Scripture and yet erre by it for the Church may for ought is proved teach errour the Scripture not let fools go that way and most learned men goe the way of Scripture My Argument then is yet good That way which the Church goes we must go And this they will not deny But the Church goes the way of Scripture and this they cannot deny Nor is there any direct Answer made thereunto Therefore Neither is my fourth Answer answered Therefore may we conclude contradictorily to his conclusion of this number the visible Church is not this Judge by submission to the judgement whereof we are secured from all errour Num. 3. S. 2. Whence what you say against my third Number is easily answered For all Religions agreeing that there must be one Judge of all controversies which either be or may be in Religion they must all give infallibilitie to their Judge Ans And from what was said before all that you reply to my answer is easily answered for no Religion but yours doth say that there must be a formall visible Judge of all controversies infallible And as for us we say there is no need of such a Judge and our principles do conclude negatively to such a Judge For whereas we say God's written word hath plainly set down all things necessary to salvation as you do relate it we also by consequence inferre that there is no need of controversie in things necessary because the Scripture hath plainly determined those points which are necessary already which how true it is we shall shew in answer to your third Chapter All other Sectaries agreeing with you in that point I understand not how you could say that none but we hold an infallible Judge Ans If you include us here amongst the Sectaries as you seem to do we deny the charge And we say we are no more Sectaries than the Catholick was before Papacie had head or foot in the world We say as he my name is Christian my sir-name is Catholick We have made no such change of Doctrine as to be accounted Hereticks as you call us nor of Discipline as to be accounted Schismaticks but we should not appear so innocent unlesse Romans should first accuse us And secondly there are no Sectaries but you that do maintain the contrary unlesse they be Anabaptists and Enthusiasts which make themselves infallible Judges as your single Church makes it self an infallible Judge For Thirdly those who hold the Scripture to set down plainly all things necessary are not in this Sectaries as seems to be intimated in the former words Nor fourthly by holding the Scripture to have plainly set down things necessary do they inferre that there is a necessity of an infallible Judge to decide all controversies which may spring up For their opinion includes the contrary And therefore upon the whole matter the former words are not so rationally delivered And what he saies afterwards that without an infallible Guide every man might proceed as if your faith were fallible and so give an infallible assent to nothing is indeed gratis dictum For if this discourse be resolved as it must be into this proposition Without an infallible Guide our faith is fallible and we can give infallible assent to nothing it will appear to be salse because the proposition is false as it is taken universally For though in points of question I cannot give an assent infallibly to a Judge unlesse I do give an assent infallible to this Judge's being infallible yet we hope we may give an infallible assent to those things which are plain in Scripture and not questioned Yea secondly I may give an infallible assent to that which is in question without an infallible Judge external because by his agitation of it I may see it plainly resolved into the sense of Scripture which indeed is the formall rationall end of all Councils that by the conference of learned men the meaning of Scripture as to the case may be cleared The former discourse therefore is plainly fallacious a dicto secundum quid or a particulari as if because we cannot have an infallible faith of things disputed without an infallible Judge we could have no faith in any thing but fallible Yea it is false in those particulars debated for we may have a faith infallible of them by Scripture though the Judge ministeriall be not infallible The faith objective is infallible in the Scripture and the faith may he infallible subjective by the rule of Scripture and yet the Judge fallible because we may make use of the Fathers of the Church as Consuls not as Dictators In the next words he would vindicate himself from saying that without such a Judge we should be free to follow without any fault our private Judgement in holding what we will as you insinuate But I said otherwise every man might be free to believe what he judged best and so we should have as many Religions as there be private and different judgements c. Ans He doth me wrong in saying that I
put in such words as I knew how to answer and leaved out his true words I altered no words but expounded him in them as I had reason For if every one might be left free without such a Judge to what he judged best this freedome would be simple or morall If simple then it would be without a fault and if morall it would be without a fault but now he denies that he meant a morall freedome Yet is it best for him to understand such a freedome according to his principles for if we have not a morall freedome without a fault to believe what we judge best then have we lesse reason of giving undisputed assent to an externall Judge since we are awed and commanded under peril of a fault to take heed what we do believe And therefore cannot we believe this Judge with blind obedience because it seems now we may not believe what we will but we must see good reason for what we do believe And good reason it is that good reason should exclude blind obedience And indeed his consequence is false in terminis for we have not a simple freedome to believe what we will as I said because the understanding naturally assents to truth apparent But this he takes no notice of as if I had said no such thing How much of my words he takes away privatively which must inferre a variation of my sense may be gathered by compare of my copy with his rehersall and it appears that negatively he hath taken away a great part of my words for he saies to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And so his argument is null and his vindication nullified Onely I must also note that he did not well weigh his own consequence if every man were left free to hold what he judged best we should have as many Religions as private judgements for in principles of Religion we are not like to differ if we believe the Scripture and particular Controversies which you direct your discourse to if you speak ad idem if not you are more to be blamed do not make different Religions because then you must have different Religions amongst your selves In the begining of this number my Adversary would faine take me tripping or enterfearing upon my own words by a consequence Num. 4. because as he thinks I take away all meanes of regulating our judgement and yet say we should not follow our own judgement of discretion without meanes of regulating our judgement Ans His reason may well be put into this forme he that taketh away all infallible means takes away all means able to produce an infallible assent but I take away all infallible means Then I deny his assumption I do not deny all infallible meanes I do not deny all meanes because I deny some to be infallible and I do not deny all infallible means because I deny some that he thinks infallible in both he would impose upon me the fallacie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a particulari All means are not infallible and there may be and is other infallible meanes besides those which he supposeth and I deny The Scripture is an infallible mean to hold to this I deny the infallibilitie of Councils And then again secondly I deny a necessity of infallible assent to all points of question either part of the contradiction may consist with salvation For corroboration of his opinion about the infallibilitie of Councils he brings in afterward St. Gregory the Great 's saying I do professe my self to reverence the first four Councils as I reverence the four books of the Gospell And in like manner I do receive the fifth Council whosoever is of another mind let him be an Anathema Ans First we do not think the judgement of St. Gregory to be greater than the judgement of the four Councils if we do not think them infallible we have no cause or reason to be urged with one Gregory Secondly we also reverence the learning of that Gregory as he reverenceth the books of the Gospell if the as be taken in similitude not proportion in the quality not equality Thirdly if the opinion of St. Gregory should prevaile with me why doth not the Authority of the Fathers whom I produced for our cause and the answers I gave to his Authorities before prevaile with him Testem quem quis inducit pro se tenetur recipere contra se Fourthly let us marke his own words And I also receive the fifth Councill in like manner Now the fifth Council was that of Constantinople wherein Vigilius was condemned in his defence of the three Chapters And the Council proceeded without his consent yea and against his mind So that if St. Gregory's authoritie were authentick the cause were spoiled for so infallibilitie should not be stated in a Council with the Popes confirmation Fifthly oppose and confront Gregory with Gregory Nazianzen with the Roman and which of them shall we believe for Councils Neither doth the whole machin of our Religion tople and tumble to the ground upon my former principle as he imagined though he would presse me more strongly to shew upon what Authoritie I take Scripture by an infallible assent to be the word of God This by the way should not have been brought into question with us since we give more reverence to the Scriptures than they do and therefore are like to have a firmer faith in it to be the word of God than they The main design of my Adversary at first I suppose was to debate the faith of particular points the Scripture being supposed to be the word of God although not supposed by him to be the onely rule But therefore let me returne his own words changing the tables that the whole machin of his Religion doth tople and tumble to the ground upon his ground by pressing him to shew by what authority he takes Scripture by an infallible assent to be the word of God before he hath proved the infallibilitie of the Church His reason follows because there cannot be a more groundless ground upon which you by rejecting the infallible authority of the Church are forced to build your whole religion to wit that you by meer reading of Scripture can by its light as you discover the sun by its light discover it so manifestly to be the undoubted word of God that this discovery sufficeth to ground your infallible assent to that verity Ans First he is not surely right in this that I am forced by rejecting his way of believing Scripture to this way If he be then I am right in the choice of my principle upon my refusal of his but Mr. Chillingworth whom he blames me for differing from in this point does find as it may seem and as he himself professeth a middle way of grounding faith in the Scripture to be the word of God namely by the authoritie of universall Tradition which as any can distinguish from this way so he doth distinguish from the Pontifician
blessing may be like to pitch upon that true sense of Scripture which may determine the judgement unto certain assent As by the conflict of hard things sparkes of fire do break out so by the industrious discussion of opinions truth may appear eminently But we cannot conclude the definitions intuitively and ipso facto infallible And why should we be obliged to stand to their declaration of truth as if they did also make it to be truth And why should we stand to their Conclusions when their discourse is fallible unlesse they go by Scripture And if they by Scripture examine opinions why should not we by Scripture examine their definitions as to our selves Which should be last in the determination Council or Scripture when Councils begin by it and determine with it Therefore I do not make them in no sense finall or none That which follows Now surely it is cleare c. unto the end of the number how little strength of reason hath it This in effect was answered immediately before My Adversary does us right in confessing our acknowledgement of the first four Generall Councils And also may we confesse that we think they thought they had all plenitude of power and authority from God to define and finally to determine those Controversies but what then 1. What if they thought so We have liberty by our principles to think that inconcludent because we hold them not infallible in their judgement Not because they thought they had such power therefore they had it unlesse we should hold them infallible as we do not Neither is this thought of ours that they might think amiss of such power to be in them any prejudice to our acknowledgement of those first four General Councils because this opinion of theirs is no part of their determinations Secondly we distinguish All plenitude of power is taken either reduplicatively or specificatively for all that power which belongs to the whole Church the former if their opinion of themselves were infallible would serve his turne but we deny that they thought they had all power so and if they did think so we think they did not think right the latter power they might think they had and not think amisse but this serves not the turn for all authority of the Church doth not bind us to receive the definitions thereof so as to sink all examination of the truth thereof by Scripture Have not other courts a plenitude of power to hear and determine causes and yet are sometimes defective in point of law Their fallibility doth not proceed from want of power or authoritie but from want of judgement or will to give a right sentence And yet their censures also proceed And therefore the excommunications which my Adversary objects to me may neither import their faith of their infallibilitie nor yet wrong to all such as should gainsay what they had defined and determined if error and falsitie and contradiction to Scripture could be found in their definitions and determinations for first it is not fallibilitie of sentence that doth the wrong but falsity either by ignorance and so ignorantia in Judice reputatur pro dolo or else by wilfulnesse which formally makes the injurie because intended Secondly the excommunications proceed against the person for an outward act of obstinacie and not for a dissent of judgment for cogitationis poenam in nostro foro nemo luit so then there is no wrong to him that gainsays by excommunication for that simply he might keep his judgment And also thirdly the Judge though he judgeth not well yet may do well if he judgeth with competent knowledge and due integrity and therefore is it no injury if he does his best since God hath not thought fit on the behalfe of publick peace to disannull humane Judicatures for humane infirmities His Answer to my instance of the Bereans who searched the Scripture daily to see whether that which St. Paul said was true my Adversary doth referre to another Chapter We stay his leisure Whereas you adde fourthly Num. 6. that the decisions of the Church though unprovided of infallibilitie do yet oblige unto peace though their judgement cannot claime an undisputed assent yet the power they have from Christ doth require an undisturbance in the difference you teach by words what the deed of your glorious Reformers have notoriously gainsaid To this it is readily answered that Reformers may be glorious as to the generall effect though it 's possible for them to be extravagant in modo Sober businesses may be managed with too much heate Secondly whereas he supposeth that our glorious Reformers did notoriously gainsay the whole Church I deny it and if they did not gainesay the whole Church it doth not come home to his purpose for he is upon the authority of the whole Church They did gainsay the Roman Church but not the whole Church That which St. Jerom said in his Epistle to Evagrius is yet for our use si authoritas queritur orbis major est urbe if authority be lookt after the world is greater than a City which was also spoken in application to Rome And put case there were no sort of Christians that did not professe obedience to the Roman Church when those glorious Reformers did first appeare yet it cannot be rationally said by the Romanist that they did gainsay the whole Church because the Romanist doth take the root of his Church from the primitive times which those Reformers did not gainsay So then as we deny to them that they were all the whole Church when the Reformers did begin so if they had it would be nothing as to the gainsaying of the whole Church because the whole Church in their sence doth include all times and specially the primitive which they did not contradict And surely if the Romanist proves his Church by conformitie to the Primitive otherwise he hath the lesse reason for himself then must he interpretatively grant that there is more authority of the Primitive Church than of that present Roman And so then if the Reformers gainsaid not the primitive they gainsaid not the Catholick in the best part of it for time and that also which the present Roman doth most as they say depend upon Thirdly therefore we do not take our Religion from those Reformers as being worne into their words and therefore we do not impropriate Christianity by any singular persons we might take hints from them to consider those Doctrines which they preached and conferring them with Antiquity and Scripture we believe them to be Apostolicall and so is our Church by Tertullian's rule in his book of Prescriptions ch 32. In eadem fide conspirantes non minus Apostolicae deputantur pro consanguinitate Doctrinae those Churches that conspire in the faith are not lesse accounted Apostolical for the consanguinity of Doctrine Fourthly those Reformers even according to my Adversaries Principles did not oppose themselves to the authoritie of the whole Church because according to
thirdly I can charge the Council of Trent with contradictions to it self and the Trent Council was a generall Council in the opinion of my Adversary therefore that grace is voluntarily received is their opinion and that yet we cannot know whether we are in state of grace includes a contradiction as if we did not know our own will what it does This absurdity was urged by Catharinus in the Trent Council Again not to speak of some of them who had voted the Edition vulgar to be authentick and yet did except against the interpretation of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for sin pardoned in the History of the Council p. 207 there is a contradiction noted by the German Divines in the sixth session the seventh ch Where it is said of justice which every one receives according to his measure quam Spiritus Sanctus partitur singulis prout vult et secundum propriam cujusque dispositionem et cooperationem Which the Holy Ghost doth impart as he will and according to every ones disposition and cooperation If according to his will then not according to our disposition for then it is not as he will And so in the thirteenth session in the first ch it is said of the manner of Christ's existence in the Sacrament quam etsi verbis exprimere vix possumus which although we can scarce expresse in words and yet in the fourth ch it is called of the Holy Catholick Church Transubstantiation convenienter et proprie appositly and properly And in the second Canon of the same session it saith of Transubstantiation quam quidem conversionem Catholica Ecclesia aptissime Transubstantiationem apellat which the Catholick Church cals most fitly Transubstantiation Was the Council of Trent infallibly assisted or assisted with infallibility in these contradictions and yet it may be these not all Num. 9. But number the ninth will make an end of our cause if a Rodomontado of my Adversary could do the deed Thus And when you ask again why you are charged as if you were opposed to the true Catholick Church I answer Christ had in all ages a true Catholick Church and consequently he had such a Church when your Reformation as you call it began But at this your Reformation you did oppose in very many and important points of Doctrine not onely the Roman but all other Churches upon earth Therefore without doubt you opposed the truly Catholick Church in very many and important points And in plain English I tell you this Argument which is in lawfull form is unanswerable Ans So then But is this Achilles Is this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alas if we come near him it is but bombast First we deny it in the lawfulnesse of the forme which he asserts for it is concluding in the second figure affirmatively and in this regard onely it is unanswerable for it is not to be answered for want of forme But yet secondly lest they should think it is unanswerable in the matter we answer to the major first by distinguishing if he takes the true Catholick Church as in the Apostles Creed he commits an equivocation for so it cannot be taken in the minor because we have in the minor the Roman Church and other Churches now the Roman is a visible Church he means and so he means the other Churches to be visible for we cannot properly oppose he will think any but visible Churches but in the Creed is meant the Church invisible which is the object of faith If he takes it for the true Catholick Church visible as always perspicuous and flourishing in visibility in all the parts of it it is denied that the Church Catholick is so visible and therefore we deny the major and need not say any thing to the minor and yet also we deny the minor because if it were not so visible we could not be said to oppose it And he cannot prove that we opposed all other Churches because they were not in his sense visible and therefore how can he say that we opposed all other Churches since if they were visible in the parts to some that were Neighbors yet not visible to the world generally Was the Church lesse the Church in the Primitive times when it wanted candles to be seen in the night or the seven thousand which Elijah did not know of lesse belonging to the Church of the Jews because they did not openly professe the true Religion How then can it be said rationally that we opposed all Churches for how could he or any one man under Heaven know all the Churches of the world then Yea thirdly in how many and important points did the Reformers oppose the Greek Church and the Waldenses who as the Author of the History of the Trent Council sayes had forsaken the Church of Rome then four hundred years before in his fifth book Yea fourthly the major proposition supposeth for all times and places doth it not for so the Catholick Church is properly taken as including all times and places and so we deny the minor we did not oppose all Churches of all times Dato non concesso that we did at the Reformation oppose not onely the Roman but all other Churches yet did we not oppose all Churches or the Roman of the Primitive times and therefore did we not oppose the Catholick Church Yea yet fifthly we distinguish dissent from opposition Although opposition includes a difference yet every difference doth not include an opposition for then St. Cyprian had opposed the Church in differing from it upon the point of Rebaptization And if it be said that the point of Rebaptization was not then defined by the Church we say that yet this consideration doth not make every difference to have in it the nature of opposition for then though St. Cyprian had not opposed the authority of a Church in a Council yet had he opposed the authoritie of the Church which then did bind him more than the Trent Council doth us And that St. Cyprian did so oppose the Church was not then held by the Church Catholick Sixthly to return the Argument upon them Christ had in all ages a true Catholick Church and consequently he had such a Church when their deformation went on in the Trent Council but they then in very many and important points of Doctrine did oppose all true Catholicks therefore without doubt they opposed the truly Catholick Church in very many and important points as in communion under one kind in Transubstantiation in Purgatorie in the merit of works in seven Sacraments of proper name in invocation and religious worship of the Saints in Images Yea the Roman Church hath more formally opposed the whole Church because in the Trent Council it would have the Roman Church to be the Catholick which supposeth that all Christians must strike sail to them or else they are sunke Seventhly we tell him wherein the Romanist hath divided from the whole Church but he doth not tell us
not this also that a Minister of the Gospell may competently inform the people in the necessaries to salvation And if a Minister can do it surely the Church But the stresse of the discourse lies in this whether what the Church can doe may not sufficiently be done without the Church And then secondly if not without the Church whether it may not be done without the Church its infallibility Now to this last my Adversary speaks thus that he stands not upon this whether this competent direction should be called an infallible direction or not No doth he not Then he seemeth to yield that which he hath so much contended for the infallibilitie of the Church that that is not necessary He hath formerly urged the infallibility of the Church to ground faith now he either grants that we may be saved without faith or that faith may be grounded without infallibility which indeed in my opinion doth yield the cause But then also they will give us leave to note that the cause betwixt the Romanist and us as to verbum non Scriptum is also yielded hereby for if he will sit down with this postulate that the Church may competently direct us to happinesse through the Scriptures then the word not written is secluded from a competent direction to salvation For the word not written is absolutely contradistinguished to Scriptures And therefore I see no reason we should goe further in this work which is not so hard as tedious But that he calls us back with an Epanorthosis Though we think it most certain that no fallible direction can competently direct the people to happinesse Well will they stand to this Where shall we have them If it can then as before If it cannot upon their second thoughts then we say absolute loquendo we grant it thus that the Church not proposing any infallible direction cannot competently direct us and therefore untill they prove the Church infallible in their traditions infallible too or as to the interpreting of Scripture they have no cause by their own argument to obtrude so often the authority of the Church because it is no competent direction to happiness unlesse it be infallible as they now think But take the Church as proposing Scripture which we have hitherto made plain sufficiently as to things necessary so though the Church be not infallible in its own direction yet being considered as bringing Scripture which is infallible it may competently direct unto happinesse And so these great magnifiers of the Church upon due account have left us in the field to defend the Church when they have left it We can make use of its competent direction with the Scripture which is certain and infallible They cannot make use of the Church without infallibility So then as the Catholick Moderator says of the reformed religion that it cannot be blamed in the point of justification since it lays hold upon that which can certainly save us namely the righteousnesse of Christ so also to be sure here we are on the surer hand because we make use of that which is certainly infallible the Scripture and also of that which gives us some competent direction the Church specially taking the Church universally for place and time It is no question that the present Church cannot end the present controversies Now because by the way I did say our Church could not err in damnative errors you conceive me to grant that it may err in points not damnative Ans This is well put in by the way I did say he spake it more than once and it appeared also to be spoken provisionally that there might be some refuge for the Church if it should be convicted of some error yet not damnative And surely it were better for them to lie close under the buckler of this distinction unlesse they had better arguments to prove universall infallibility But since it may be Mr. Knot 's inconveniences of that distinction have been found prevalent and so it is quitted He expounds himself thus When I said these words I did onely take and subsume that which you your selves most commonly grant unto the Church that it cannot err in damnative matters Ans This but one degree from a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He says he meant it as we If he meant it as we how doth he conclude against us We hold it distinctively upon the case of the whole Catholick Church though a particular Church may err in points damnative So then he meaning it as we leaves the way plain to inferr that he held that the Church might err in points not damnative If he did take it as we we are agreed and then by Mr. Knot 's argument infallibility is extinguished He used it formerly in way of distinction and specificatively or not If not then the use of it formerly is none if so then he is lost And they may very easily perswade themselves that we can allow unto them this priviledge of the Church that it hath a main advantage over any Minister or private Interpreter This we can afford unto them without absolute infallibility of the Church If they will be contented with such a priviledge to the Church as no Minister or private Interpreter can have they need not exceed the distinction of the Church's not erring in damnatives specifically taken For a private Minister or Interpreter may erre in damnatives Yea also this exemption from errors damnative in this sense gives a demonstrative reason why we should not follow our own interpretations without apparent cause because the Church universall cannot err in damnatives therefore we should prefer that when we see not plain cause to the contrary and because it may err in other things therefore cannot we absolutely yield the Church obedience of faith for its own sake And our differences from the Church in interpretations are not therefore damnative simply because we differ from the Church but if we contemn the Church which hath authority and more faculty and if we wrest hard texts as some men did in St. Paul's Epistles to their own perdition as St. Peter saith Interpretations may be flatly contrary and not damnative till the Church be proved without possibility of error to be without possibility of error let them then hold the former distinction untill they can make good these two points first that the Church cannot err at all the second that all error is damnative These are two hard propositions and therefore if that which is most hard is most easily broken as the rule is in the Trent History they should do well to break them When the Church shall shew her Commission for her infallibility she may 〈…〉 Commission for our obedience intuitiâ—â— Num. 9. Here he begins I will presse again your text and give a second answer Namely the second Ep. to Tim. 3.16 So then now we shall contend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He says we render the word for correction so your Bible reads it And why doth
them then note that this he speakes is in cases of uncertainty namely about things of question but we are ultimately upon points necessary And then 2. He speaks against casting off obedience but we are upon assent of judgment And then 3. The rule he useth speakes that we should not publiquely oppose his decrees but we are upon the negative only whether he may not suspend his opinion And hence the Author discourseth that we may leave them we may cast them off and oppose them when we are certaine as protestants were that what they command God doth countermand And for the second as he nameth him I think all things considered he hath little from him for his use As the scribe at least mistooke the quotation so the Author I think mistook the man In the places quoted pag. 310. 311. n. 110. there is nothing like It is true that excellent Author had great cause to urge convenent obedience to humane lawes but he denies intuitive obedience to any law but of God And therefore if he and Mr. Chillingworth be joined in the testimony that which answered one may answer the other And further if they will take p. 110. And so on for n. 110. They may finde enough to satisfie them of his opinion that he held Scripture a sufficient rule in matters necessary and therefore the obedience he urgeth must be in thinges of order which is extrinsecall to our debate and not blind neither as p. 110. The third Authority is rightly quoted but not rightly applied out of that excellent book for it speaks expresly of externall obedience we are upon internall He speaks for peace my adversary should apply it to faith He speaks it as to private persons my adversary should vltimately apply it to the Church nationall That which followes is a cavill that then the private man when all comes to all is the last judge to whose sentence finally all comes to be referred Ans The private man is no judge authoritative to whose sentence finally all comes to be referred but exerciseth for himself the judgment of discretion as being to be perswaded in his own minde as the Apostle speaks And thus much must be allowed by my adversary who lately asserted prudence to be of use in chusing Religion Yea if Prudence be tolerated in things of Faith Sapience is to be commended which refers to the highest principles and those are of Scripture And though it be some ingenuous prudence to preferre the judgment of a General Council or the Church as to the suspension of my opinion against them yet surely will it be sapience to rest my faith in principles of faith Therefore this and much more of this discourse comes not home to the question whether God hath bound me to give absolute assent to the definitions of the Church and to believe their commands to be just eo ipso because theirs 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Neither is it impossible that a General Council should not see it There is a double impossiblity simple and Physical and then Moral The Simple impossiblity would make Faith but such is denied The Moral If it were granted could not make such a Faith as they stand for namely an infallible assent But the Moral impossibility which is no more than a great difficulty is not to be yeilded neither since the Trent Council They might as well not see that which was Evident as they did see that which was not Evident Communion under both kindes was Evident in Scripture and the practise of the Church yet notwithstanding they would see what was not Evident Communion-under one kind And therefore least Communion under both kindes should seem more Evident Bellarmin prudently informes that some of their learned men would not construe the 2. of St. Iohn of Sacramental participation And the ground he goes upon is sandy that which is truly Evident will of it self appear to be so or at least to the most judicious upright and best instructed Prelats of the Church Ans This may appear to them de facto not so Were not the Trent Fathers so And yet they did not see what was Evident in the point of the Communion and in some other points too as some of their own Religion did think as we have it in the History of the Trent Council 2. What a case should the poor people be in since populus non distinguit and yet they must compare the most judicious and most upright and best instructed Prelats Thirdly Take the Fathers of all ages and places and then their Doctrines will not abide the test as hath been made good to them by Bishop Jewel And therefore their Doctrines are not Evident by their own Principle because not Evident to them And then fourthly somewhat Evident to them the Romans have cashiered Infant Communion the Millenary opinion trine immersion standing up in prayer therefore they had best betake themselves to more than humane assistance namely from the Holy Ghost His debate afterwards about the consideration of the cause of the Censure will come to little if it be considered that the act of not hearing the Church is ambiguous and may relate either to the non-assent or to the contempt The former doth not simply expose him to the Censure in Heaven the latter may And if he understood his own terms he must rather take them of the latter because he speaks of an act of not hearing For the non-assent is negative to an act and so is the Greek considerable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this is it which makes him truely guilty of not hearing the Church That which follows in way of concession is destructive of his building for he grants an errability of the key in which case the Censure is not ratified in Heaven So then how shall we know whether any be truely guilty For as the Church cannot be infallible to us at all to believe it if not infallible in all as Mr. Knot argues and my Adversary too if he denies the distinction of damnative errours so it cannot bind infallibly in any if not in all though there be a distance betwixt Faith and fact the proportion is the same And yet again if they will divide here by affirming infallibility in Faith fallibility in Fact why do they urge this Text which respects the latter And therefore that which follows And so the Church cannot erre in denouncing excommunication against such a person in dependance upon the premises is as much as to say the Church cannot erre when the key doth not erre Yet it might have erred in sensu divis◠which is sufficient for our purpose because our dispute is upon the point of possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle said It is necessary that that it be while it be yet was it not therefore necessary to be before it was for that destroys the distinction of things contingent from things necessary And therefore what follows hereupon if I should answer he would account necessary to
may not the Church of England have an Authority not limited c. And what need then of running to another Church for more authority But neither is his Text in the Hebrewes well understood or else not well aplied in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the establishment of a better Covenant upon better promises is not certainly intended to have respect to the visible Church for discipline but to the invisible Church for salvation It respects Christ as the Great High Priest to save his Church by the sacrificing of himself once upon the Cross for us not as King of his Church by way of an externall policy as if the Goverment of his Church were part of his Kingdome and of his Gospell If so they give the right hand of fellowship to the other Disciplinarian But also he takes it ill that the text should be limited to case of trespass betwixt Brother and Brother and he thinks rather it should belong to the cases of heresie which is a trespass committed by one Brother against all his Brothers and their dearest Mother the Church yea St. Thomas calls Schism of which heresie is alwaies guilty the highest crime a-against the whole Community Ans It is one thing to say what the text intends another to say what it may be by discourse accommodated to The direct respect of the text in the ordinary sense of the letter is clearly carried to case of trespass betwixt Brother and Brother And the Pontifician by his principles and use is ingaged to the sense of the letter prinipally But 2. dato non concesso that it should also respect case of Heresie notwithstanding also that the terms let him be to thee a Heathen or a Publican we rather referre to the Jewish Church than the Christian yet cannot he have from hence what he would namely the Churches infallibility of Censure in points of Faith For though the Church did infallibly know on which side the truth did stand in every point of Faith and therefore what was opposite thereunto for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said and therefore that such a doctrine was to be condemned as Heretical yet since though the Church do proceed secundum allegata et probata it may be mistaken in the fact as he confesseth it may erre in the Censure as to a particular person and how then is such a person bound to subscribe to such a Censure as just because he cannot be bound to assent to that which is false as he also lately confessed It is true in civil causes though the sentence be injust I may and must pay the amercement there being no Law against the course of Law and so also in Ecclesiastical cases he that is in justly excommunicated must abide the Censure but all the Authority under Heaven can never make a man beleive in his Conscience that it is a just Censure when he knows himself not to be guilty of the fact namely publishing of an heretical Doctrine and therefore all that can be exacted by man in this case 〈◊〉 passive obedience which the Person may yield though the Conscience doth not yeild that it is a just Censure So that the text is yet preserved in its integrity against binding the Conscience to believe whatsoever is done by the Church to be right and just After this he would winde himself off gradually from supposing any infallibility of particular Churches that so all at length might be ascribed to their Church in solidum for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said And the Authority he would have to fall upon the Pope and a Council yet he expresseth one Head of the Church and the supream Prelat of the Church So then Before when there was a professed occasion to dispute the point whether the Pope were Head of the Church he was shie and cautious and uncategorical now by the by and under the winde he can assert it so that he may not be bound to prove it We see then what reason they have to afford Prudence a good place in Religion Nullum numen ab est si sit prudentiarum And the main exercise of Ecclesiastical authority the key is laid upon his shoulder He is bound to use the fullness of his power to suppress the arising heresie Now surely they are bound ingenuously to speak out whether they mean this fulness of his Authority of all the Authority he hath or of all Authority that the Church hath There is a fulness of the Fountain there is a fulness of the Vessel Do they allow him the fulness of the Vessel So indeed the Trent Council seemed rather in a good part thereof to incline when they urged so much to have the title of the Council to be established The Representative of the whole Church for had this proceeded his power had been sunk in their power But if he be the Head of the Church my Adversary must allow him the fulness of the Fountain then the controversie is determined betwixt the Jesuits and the Sorbonists and the latter are cast in the suit But then what need of a Council towards infallibility when he hath all the Authority in himself as being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And then my Adversary hath not pleased the Court and the Jesuite in joyning the Council as partners in the Authority Nor do the words ensuing bear good respect to the Pope as Head of the Church namely that he may forbid if he feareth danger in the Doctrine that no such Doctrine may be published until the Church shall think it fit Are not these diminuent terms of the Head indeed almost comminuent if we may say so as if the Head of the universal Church the ordinary Pastour and Vicar of Christ Successor of St. Peter could not presently see that there was danger in heretical Doctrine or could not see whether it were heretical doctrine until the Church shall think it fit I had thought the Pope had been an Independent and should not have depended upon the Church for a final resolution at a point heretical And if the Church must meet in a Council to consider of it and all Popes be as disaffected to a Council as some were to the Trent Council what shall become of the people in this danger of heresie I had thought a Council had been but the vicar of Christ His Counsail and though he did condiscend so far to make use of their Counsail yet he could do all alone by his own Authority We heard before that particular Prelats had Authority not limited and must my Adversaries Supreme Prelat be bound to wait for a General Council And then all must be as St. Paul saith Heb. 13.17 Obey their Prelats So he Ans This he means of Prelats not in confuso but in conventu And to these infallibility should be annexed So then Those Prelats who are here meant are infallible Particular Prelats are here meant therefore they are infallible and so there will be no need either
he had been condemned by himself because by the Church then had he been condemned by himself extrinsecally to himself or he and the Church must have been all one therefore whether he had the doctrine from the Church or immediately from any one of the Apostles yet was he condemned by that doctrin as being impressed upon his own Conscience So that I have as much as I can desire by this discourse namely that is possible for us to be Judged and condemned within our selves of Heresie without an externall Judge which then was not fully and exactly I am sure constituted according to the mind of our Adversaries although in purity of doctrine the Church was better then then ever she was since that time N. 19 In this he begins more solemnly to tell us what he means by the name of the Church and wherein consists the power of infallibility in a Decree or definition of the Church And first he tels us who are to be excluded from a decisive voice Children and women and laymen and inferiour Clergy thus he proceeds first by exclusions as they do in the choise of a Pope And then he goes on by way of a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so he makes the subject of the power of this Decree to be the prime pastours Praelats of the Church assembled together in a lawfull General Council with their Chief Pastour and Head the Bishop of Rome This the progress of this Paragraph Well but our question is of the praedicate whether the Church thus constituted is infallible in its Decrees and therefore since he here hath no argument he hath bound us not to have an answer And yet may we note that if he means the formation of a Church to be thus we can more clearely contradict him in what he said formerly that the Church was formed before St. Pauls conversion It was not so formed And yet 2. We may as well dispute here the subject of the question whether the Church thus formed is infallible in its decrees as he disputes the an sit of Scripture when we were upon the praedicate whether the Scripture be sufficient to Salvation And surely I may do this legally because I am a respondent and I may do it also more boldly because I know they cannot make good the praedicate that this Church is thus formed infallible in its Decres And as to his exclusions then we could confront him with the opinion of Alphonsus de Castro who would have had a chapter against him for his exclusions since he maks the acceptation of the diffused Church to be necessary to inerrability And as to the Chief Pastour and Head he speakes it cum privilegio surely as if not only what the Pope said was not to be questioned but also what is said of him They will never prove that there ever was to be any such Chief Pastour and Head of the Church universal dejure nor can they ever prove that there was de facto any one so called till Boniface the third who had the Title granted him by Phocas But non fuit sic ab initio And the rule is good Errores ad sua principia reducere est refellere And therefore either the Church was not allwaies infallible or was infallible without Councils because for above three hundred yeares was no General Council and therefore why doth he urge the necessity of Councils unto infallibility And when there was Councils afterwards till Trent Council inclusively either the Councils were fallible with a Pope or might be infallible without him because till Boniface the third there was no such Pope as Head or Head as Pope And therefore why do they urge the necessity of a Pope for their infallibility This he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in before and now should have been proved since he knew that this is not granted on both sides as the Scripture is to be the Word of God And he that is a seeker of his religion will never find the Pope to be in the Church as a King in his kingdome who is no part of the representative properly And if he would have the Pope no more than part of the Representative he should be no more Head of the Church than as a Speaker in an Assembly And how should he be then the Church virtual as the high Romanists doth speak of him And therefore the Pope in the time of the Trent Council would not suffer that title of the Council to proceed that it should be called the Representative because though he and his Courtiers esteemed him the Head of the Church and so should have been superiour to the body of the Church yet he conceived that they intended to take him in confusely in the Representative and so to exclude his Head-ship But secondly He then allows a man to be a seeker of his Religion then he doth allow him that liberty which he sometimes hath disputed against namely to exercise his judgement of discretion in matters of Religion for he would have him most prudently judge himself bound to to joyn her the Church in Faith being convinced that she directed most securely in Faith So this is theâ—r sense they allow discretion to joyn with them but not to differ Thirdly Should he be bound to joyn himself to the whole Church or not If to the whole then to that part locally which most agrees with the whole in Doctrine and discipline and practice But then can he not most prudently joyn himself to the Roman Church because that hath gone away from the Catholique in all those particulars And therefore we may conclude it to be our wisdom to find our direction in Faith most securely in the Scripture N. 20. This number he spends in the power of Councils To such power I made exceptions he would here remove them The first about the uncertainty of the irregularity of the Pope To this he saies he to whom the Church submitteth in calling the Council and whom the Church admitteth as her lawful Head to preside he is right these acts do supply all defects in the election But first Suppose he be not a Priest Can the Churches submission or admission of him make him a regular Pope And this That he is a Priest they cannot be sure of by certainty of Faith according to their Principles unless they had an omniscience to know the intention of the Ordainer and whether he was a right Bishop or not Secondly If so then Cajaphas was a right High Priest as before and yet he erred with the Council Therefore a Pope with the Council may erre Caiaphas was submitted to was admitted by the assembly of the Jews but this before And as to that he saies put the case of a Pope defining with a lawful Council and then prove him fallible if you can We answer First it seems then he would not stand to the maintaining of a Popes infallibility without a Council And so then he and the Jesuits must
either abstractly from the speaker or complexely with the speaker in the former it is considered with respect to the matter and so he said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are not to look at so much the author as the matter in the latter respect it is respective to the motive and so I am more induced by the Church though not determined And therfore as to those termes to whose saying you would give an infallible assent when you see that which he saith to be conformable to Scripture we say that the termâ— saying is distinguishable into the object purely or into the object with the act and authour In the former there is no difference in the latter there is we may believe that which is said when we do not believe him that saies it And so may we believe rather the Church whose office it is to propose truth as he confesseth it is not the Divells Neither did we by these answers smother up any thing which clearly overthroweth our replie who say we must follow the Church onely so far as we see her follow Scripture That which he saith here doth no way weaken our replie It hath been answered before and the strength of it broken For first though they could not see at all how far the Church followed the Scripture for the first two thousand years and the barbarous Nations never having seen the Scripture did truely believe doth this hinder us from holding now that we are to believe the Church in points of faith no further then we see grounds for what they said out of Scripture take it of faith divine and in things of faith it is yet good And their instances do not evacuate it Distingue tempora distinguish the times God might in that time and season of immediate revelation work then a faith immediately which now is not reasonable to expect ordinarily as appears by the first Chap. of the Ep. to the Hebrews the first ver Privilegia paucâ—rum non faciunt regulam communem Secondly the Faith of the barbarous nations was not terminated in the Church as if they had believed the Church and therefore believed that which was said by them But was terminated in the matter which was said by the Church The Church was instrumental to the knowledge of the matter and might be instrumental as to dispose them for faith But the authority of the Church was not the formal cause of the act of faith And Knotts himself is loath to assert it And this is that which Tertullian hath said non ex persona fides sed ex fide persona aestimanda est We are not to esteem the doctrine by the person but the person by the doctrine And the tradition which St. Irenaeus speaks of was the sum of the Christian Faith which is in Scripture So he as before and so St. Cyril of Hierusalem vnderstands it as may appear by that of Cyril in his fourth Catech. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we must not deliver any thing in the divine and holy mysteries of faith without the divine Scriptures This is the Epilogue of the Chap. and is of use onely to tell me what he hath done I think not done before N. 38. and this is all the answer he gives me for taking away what he had said out of two places of Scripture forementioned towards infallibility Before he referred me for satisfaction to the due place here he referrs me back again And as for any reply to my answer out of the Fathers or my use of them he saies to me you know why I resolve to pass them Yes particularly why he saies nothing more to what I said about St. Austins testimony in his Epistle against the Manichee If I may be interpreter it is thus resolved he had good reason to pass them because they pass him And so we have made an end of his long but not hard Chapter CHAP. V. No Church is our Iudge infallible then not the Roman This Chapter which concerns the Hypothesis should injustice have been longer but he reduceth the proof of it to a small pittance and if all the Churches which submit not themselves to the Bishop of Rome as their supreme Pastour be of no better proportion it will be Catholick for all that do submit but not for all But since he is so short in this we will be even with him and bring all he saies in this second Treatise for so some times he calles it into one Syllogism the Church is the Judge infallible appointed in businesses of Religion No other but the Roman is this Church therefore To the proposition we have said enough before He would now make good the assumption or praesumption as we might speak supposing the proposition to be demonstrated 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore he quarrels with me because we except against his supsition of it It is true had the major been a maxim irrefragable then there had been more reason to blame us for exception against it and for not applying our selves in present address to the minor but since we see no cause nor the Churches of God why the proposition should be swallowed we call upon him to make good the thesis that there is a Church appointed as infallible Judge in businesses of Religion and therefore we told him that he might as well prove he had right to Utopia because he only claimes it whereas he should first prove the An sit whether there be such a place And therefore if he would have had us say nothing to the questioning of the supposition he should have made it stronger first and then should not have concluded bravingly that therefore all he had said of the Church was to be applied to the Roman no other being infallible as in the former treatise num 28 Well but he must prove his minor N. 2. because all other Churches do not lay claime to this infallibility and are demonstrated to be fallible we grant the Antecedent without any proof and his proof was not so good as his proposition But therefore it belongs to them to be infallible we deny the consequence We deny the Title upon the claime And he is angry because we make his plea from the claim to be weak And the weaknes of it appeares in that it is weaker grounded upon a true supposition nor is it very sound in the proceeding of the consequence in the first regard we say debile fundamentum fallit opus And therefore since that is one of his principles his conclusion must be naught as before His consequence he proveth thus the Protestant Chucrh and all other Churches different from the Roman do Iudge themselves acknowledge themselves declare and profess themselves to be fallible and that according to infallible Scripture If then any of these Churches be infallible in what they Iudge and declare for truth grounded in Scripture they are infallible in this their Iudging and declaring themselves to be fallible therefore infallibly they
are fallible Therefore upon supposition that it hath been formerly proved that some Church is Iudge of controversies and infallible and it being by the former argument demonstratively proved that neither the Protestant Church nor any Church different from the Roman can be Iudge of controversies and infallible it evidently followeth that the Roman Church is this Iudge and infallible as she teacheth her self to be This is the whole procedure of his discourse Herein he hath a supposition that there is some Church which is Iudge of controversies and infallible this is not yet nor can ever be proved And here is also another supposition that no Church different from the Roman hath claimed this priviledge upon declaring her self infallible But this may be demurred upon for in effect and by way of interpretation this was done by the Donatists who like the Roman separated themselves from their Brethren and taught no salvation but in parte Donati And therefore his discourse is more weak while we question his suppositions but yet supposing his suppositions to be good first this makes them not to be infallible by way of consequent if by way of consequence For that none other Church doth claim this infallibility is extrinsical and accidental to the Roman right and it doth little victory relate to possession rather then right And if truth of right should right of truth be given primo occupanti Veritas est virgo semper as he said non dum occupatur And therefore the necessity of consequence is left to shift for it self since all that can be said for it comes to pass in the matter upon this accidental negative for if any Church of the world had been as bold as the Roman in claiming this infallibility they had had it before them but because there hath not been claim laied to it by other Churches that which they have found and taken up must belong to them Therefore what he saies that I make him argue thus the Roman Church claimeth infallibility therefore by claiming it she hath right to it is no great slander though the termes might not be the same for he doth little else in his former treatise when he saies All other Churches of all other Religions do say indeed that they are themselves the only true Churches but none of them say themselves to be either the Iudges of controversies or to be infallible therefore they cannot be either Iudges or infallible And what sense is this argument resolved into but this that the claiming makes the right and therefore he might somewhat have spared a reproach which falls upon him Neither is it true that all other Churches of all other Religions do say indeed that they are the only true Churches And this I noted before for which nothing is said to me now But he saies I say nothing to that which he presseth and still doth press that the Church which is appointed by God for infallible Iudge of controversies cannot possibly be any of those Churches which teach themselves not to be this infallible Iudge No Have I said nothing to it Yes I have said as much as he could prove that none of those Churches are such a Church And I have also said that his supposition was to be denied and to this supposition of his my proposition is contradictory no Church is appointed by God to be infallible Judge But because he hath been a valiant supposer I must be accounted a weak disputant If he includes the supposition in the argument for one of the propositions I deny that proposition And if he will yet conclude he makes it a formal Enthymem but in vertue none And therefore I said to him in termes first then make it out that there is such an infallibility to be had before you challenge it and do not prove the being of it by the challenging of it lest the Roman Eagle be said to catch at flies Yet he goes on It had been very easie to understand this right and not to make me say that onely laying claim to infallibility is a sufficient proof of infallibility Ans I think that I have understood more then my adversaries have been contented with And I say yet it is easie to understand here an argument by a claim And so they must do if they will conclude their Church to be the infallible judge It is the best plea they have upon the supposition and the only plea without it And I have the less to do because he denies this argument to be a sufficient proof if not that the rest may answer themselves And I say as he saies in this that though a Minister must be a man yet it followeth not that such an one should be a Minister because be is a man and not a woman unless Pope Ioane because one is more general and therefore the proposition is not simply converted yet if he saies against us the Church which is infallible judge must be a Church judging and teaching her self to be infallible and cannot be a Church which judgeth and teacheth her self fallible and if he makes this an argument then he makes it an argument for himself that their Church is the infallible judge because it teacheth her self to be so And yet he saies this I said not but I said that Church that must be infallible must not want this condition and therefore no Church teaching her self even according to Scripture to be fallible can truly be this infallible judge Ans This evasion will do them no good A condition hath it self by way of an inseperable accident but this inseperable accident when it is denied to any other is as a property and therefore beareth vim argumenti the force of an argument and I presume they thus intended it Let them therefore choose But if it be one thing to say the Church which is the infallible judge must be a Church judging and teaching her self infallible and another thing to say that that Church is infallible judge which teacheth her self to be so then that Church which teacheth her self to be infallible may yet not be the infallible judge and so there is destroyed and by himself also the necessity of consequence But secondly to answer them in kind the Church which teacheth her self infallible is in this fallible their Church teacheth her self to be infallible the assumption is theirs the proposition is proved thus either it is true or the antient Church was not infallible because it did not teach her self to be infallible which he saies is a necessary condition Therefore either their consequence is not good or they prove thereby the antient Church not to be the true Church and so to be different from theirs Thirdly put case some other Church should bethink themselves as the Greek Church and pretend to be infallible the Roman consequence would hold but pro tempore for then notwithstanding the supposition supposed the question which Church is the infallible judge is yet to be decided by