to be reputed a matter of faith which is not formally and expresly to be proved by the Word of God either written or unwritten and delivered by full Ecclesiasticall Tradition and seeing the Protestants doe not nor can pretend to this Tradition nor yet can prove their tenets by Scripture in expresse and evident termes but such as themselves confesse to receive probable solutions it must hence necessarily follow that their doctrines are false without foundation and to be rejected by every Christian § 6. Lastly whereas Protestants object that the Pharisees are reproved by Christ for the observation of Traditions it is altogether impertinent for the Scripture doth not say that their Traditions were derived by succession from Moses the first deliverer of their law nor did the Pharisees pretend to it but they were Traditions of their owne whereof some were frivolous and superstitious some impious some pious The frivolous and superstitious were their washing of hands pots dishes the like supposing that otherwise they might have some spirituall impurity in them which our Saviour confutes saying There is nothing without a man entring into him which can defile him Mark 7.15 The impious were such as whereby they violated the commandements of God under the pretence of observing their Traditions as when they allowed a man under pretence of giving something to the Church to neglect his duty to his parents Mar. 7.11 Neither of these kinds is the Catholike Church guilty of Of their pious we have an example in their paying Tithes of mint a very small herb which was a Tradition of their owne not commanded in their law yet this our Saviour approves and binds them to it saying this you ought to have done Luc. 11.42 And it is worth the observation that the thing most of all objected against our Saviour was the written word and Tradition of God by Moses about keeping the Sabbath day as appeares in all the Evangelists from which precept not by Tradition unwritten but by logicall inferences of their owne they concluded that our Saviour brake the Sabbath by healing or doing some small labour thereon So that the Pharisaicall Traditions were not pretended to be doctrines unwritten derived from the first deliverer of their religion but doctrines concluded from the Scripture by the rules of Logick and reason as they conceived according to the present manner of the Protestants CHAP. VIII That the Church is infallible in whatsoever she proposeth as the Word of God written or unwritten whether of great or small consequence That to doubt of any one point is to destroy the foundation of faith And that Protestants distinction between points fundamentall and non-fundamentall is ridiculous and deceiptfull § 1. HAving thus found out that the Church was shee from whom I was to receive assurance what is the word of God and that otherwise it was impossible for me to know it and that shee could not mistake nor erre in her directions I conceived then that I was bound to believe all that shee propounded to me as the word of God whether it were written or not written writing being no testimony of the truth of any thing seeing it may be false as well as speaking and that to doubt of any thing was to call all into question and to dissolve the whole nature of divine faith For to believe hath a threefold signification in speech first it is taken for knowledge as where our Saviour saith Thomas because thou hast seen me thou believest John 20.29 to wit that I am risen now he that sees one knowes so much Secondly for opinion which is an assent begot by probable reason so men delivering their opinions use to say I believe thus or thus Thirdly and most properly for an assent unto such things as doe not appear but are assented unto by a firm reliance on the truth of him that reports them as S. Paul saith Faith is the argument of things not seen Heb 11.1 And this reliance on an Author such as cannot deceive or be deceived at least in those things which he propounds unto us to be believed must beget in us an equall belief of things that have humane possibility or probability on their side and of things that are clean against it the matter propounded makes no matter nor yet the manner of propounding it is the Author and our apprehension of him that controles all opposition By this do we believe the inexplicable mystery of the Trinity the Incarnation of God the Mother-hood and yet Virginity of the B. Virgin Mother with many others with as much ease as we believe that Noah had three sons or that S. Peter had neither silver nor gold and by this do we believe the latter with as much strength and firmnesse as the former For he that believes a thing because such an one sayes it who he believes cannot lie must believe all that he sayes and that with the same firmnesse because the reason of his belief still remaines namely the inerrability of the speaker But if he apply his belief according to the probability of the thing spoken and no further then he doth not believe because of the truth of the speaker but of the thing spoken which he must gather from probabilities of reason wherein he doth not believe the thing for the truth sake of the speakers testimony but for the likelihood thereof which he finds by the measure of his own understanding which is not to believe the other but himselfe and the other no more than he would do the arrantest lyer in the world yea the Devill himself that is so far as he by his reason conceives that he speakes the truth Which reason of his if it be infallible he doth not believe the thing properly but he knowes it if it be but probable he believes it not properly but hath an opinion of it and no more assurance than of other humane reports whose authors have no security from error which as they may be true so they may also be false And thus to believe is not to believe by divine and infallible faith but by humane and fallible and so it cancells divine supernaturall faith the first in order of the three theologicall vertues without which no man can be saved § 3. So that all the place that reason hath in the government of our faith is this to lead us to believe that testimony which cannot deceive us and for the particular objects of beliefe to take them upon trust of that testimony without checking at them whatsoever they be and though they be bones to Philosophy yet make them milke to faith and not as Heretiques doe make us demand a reason of every particular point of faith which if it square not to their apprehensions they cashiere This is not faith but fancy For to rely upon a humane basis such as reason is will not support such a mighty statue as divine faith And to use Chillingworths own similitude Water will not rise
Disciplines you shall find none Tradition is shewed thee for the Author custome the confirmer and faith the observer And in the first age S. Clement speaking of S. Peter reports thus of him g Clem. Ro. Ep. 1. de S. Petre prope fin His daily preaching amongst other divine commandements was this c. every one as farre as he understands and is able to love God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself to relieve the poor to cloath the naked to visit the sick to give drink to the thirsty to bury the dead and diligently to perform their funeralls and to pray and give alms for them § 8. Concerning Traditions in the fift age S. Augustine saith h Lib. 4. de bapt con Donat c. 24. That which the whole Church doth hold and is not instituted by Councells but is alwaies retained is rightly believed not to be delivered but by Apostolique authority And S. Chrysostome i In 1 Thes 2. In 1 Thes hom 4. It is manifest that the Apostles did not deliver all things by Epistle but many things without writing And as well these as those are worthy of the same credit wherefore let us esteem the Tradition of the Church to be believed It is a Tradition seek no further In the fourth age S. Basil speaks thus k Lib. de Spirit sancto c. 27. The opinions which are kept and preached in the Church we have partly out of written Doctrine partly we have received by the Tradition of the Apostles brought to us in a mystery Both which have the same power to piety and no man contradicted these who hath but mean experience of Ecclesiasticall rights In the third age * Heres 61. we must use Traditions saith S. Epiphanius for all things cannot be received from divine Scripture wherefore the holy Apostles have delivered some things by Tradition even as the holy Apostle saith As I have delivered to you and elswhere so I teach and have delivered in Churches In the second age S. Irenaeus thus expostulateth * lib. 3. c. 4. But what if the Apostles neither had left Scriptures unto us ought we not to follow the order of Tradition which they delivered to them to whom they committed the Churches And in the first age S. Dennys tells us that c Areopag c. 1. Eccles Hierar those first leaders of our Priestly Office delivered to us those chief and supersubstantiall things partly in writings partly in unwritten institutions I could give plenty of proofs in all other particulars But as the cluster of grapes which was brought out of Canaan to the Israelites was a testimony of the fruit the Land brought forth Numb 13.23 So this small parcell of antiquity taken out of their great store is proof sufficient that the most antient Church even in all the first ages and the Scripture it selfe in the judgement of those Fathers did teach the same Doctrines that the Roman Church now doth and hath had a perpetuall and uninterrupted succession in those Doctrines and her Pastors and is therefore the self-same Church with the Apostles A thing fore-told by Daniel who cals it a Kingdom which shall never be dissolved Dan. 7.14 And in which the Maxime of wise Gamaliel is verified if this counsell or work be of men it will come to nought but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it Act. 5.38 39. § 9. But among the Protestant Churches I found no such thing neither Antiquity in their Doctrine but contrariwise their Doctrine condemned by Antiquity as I have shewed before nor yet in the bodie of their Professors And though they alledge some places of the Fathers in proof of their Doctrines yet they corrupt the meaning as may easily appear to those that divesting themselves of all interest can and will indifferently examine the places who shall find that they make not for them Nor indeed can they for my former alledged reason namely that if Antiquity had understood them so to wit in the Protestant sense some or other would either have reproved them for so frequently elswhere affirming the Roman Doctrines as Protestants confess they did as I have shewed or for affirming those Protestant doctrines which were contradictory to them which seeing they did not 't is manifest they believed no such contradictions in their writings but understood those places which Protestants alledge as Catholiques now doe as making nothing to the Protestants purpose But for their Catholique doctrines it is manifest that they cannot be interpreted to comply with the Protestant Religion for if they could why do the most learned Protestants accuse them of Popery It is a rule of * De doct Christ lib. 3. cap. 25. 26. S. Augustine in the interpretation of Scripture which is also as proper for the Fathers and agreeable to reason that where there are many cleer places on the one side and some few obscure places on the other the obscure must give place to the cleer and be reduced to an agreement with them in meaning which rule if it be observed it will easily appeare whether the Fathers were of the Roman or the Protestant Church As for the Antiquity of the body of the Professors of the Protestant religion it whom the antient Apostolicall Church hath her resurrection which like Epimenid◠they say fell asleep when she was yong and waked not till she was old no man knowing what was become of her in the mean while I could not indeed find i◠more antient than some very old men somewhat above sixscore yeares old Pa◠that died in England but few years agoe might have been grandfather to the Religion or at least elder brother to the Father thereof Martin Luther who in the year 1517. like a prodigious Comet began to appear and ingendring with the devill blasted the beauty of the Spouse of Christ and filled the Christian world with Heresie and bloud And in the year 1529. Luther and his Disciples received the name of Protestants from their Protestation and Appeal from the decree of the Diet of Spira in which title the nation of England I think doth more triumph than any of Luthers ofspring And whereas they do pretend some of them to have alwaies had a Being before that time it will fitly be examined in the next mark of the Church which is visibility For the maxime of law will hold good in this case IDEM EST NON ESSE ET NON APPARERE it is all one not to be and not to appear For the present seeing no more of them than yet we doe we may speak to them in the words of Tertullian * Tertul. de praescript 17. QUI ESTIS VOS UNDE ET QUANDO VENISTIS who are you from whence and when came you for either they are as young as Luthers Apostasie or else older than Christ and his Apostles even Jewes and so old that the mark is quite worn out of their mouth CHAP. XIII Of visibility the
being no such plaine places in many cases to be found which they themselves prove by their disagreement about the sense of many places Therefore to allay the unreasonablenesse of this assertion they add that it is Scripture diligently read by us and one place conferred with another all circumstances weighed and much prayer used which is in effect that not the Scripture it selfe but they interpret the Scripture by the aforesaid meanes § 6. But all these waies of study and conference skill in the tongues or the like are but humane endeavours and subject to error yea though much fervour of prayer be mixed therewith and such as the meanes are such of necessity must be the interpretation and determination but the meanes are uncertaine doubtfull and fallible therefore such must be the interpretation and if it be uncertaine it may be false and whether it be so or no Protestants have no way to discover but by the Spirit as he instructs every particular man whose insufficiency I found in my former consideration of the meanes to know the Scripture to be the Word of God And if it cannot assure me of the letter of Gods Word no more can it of the meaning considering that I can neither know whether another have the Spirit nor yet whether I have it my selfe or no without some miraculous revelation for all other proofs of having the direction of the Spirit are but humane and so subject to deceipt but miracles we are sure are from God because they exceed all humane and created power § 7. And seeing Protestants ground their salvation upon faith onely which as they say doth onely justifie and faith upon Scripture only which according to them containes all things necessary to be believed and the Scripture and sense thereof upon the private Spirit only by which they expound the Scripture it followes that the private Spirit is the sole or principall ground to them of the sense of Scripture the Scriptures sense the like ground of their faith and this their faith the like ground of their salvation therefore no Protestant can have greater certainty of his faith or salvation then he hath of this private Spirit whereof seeing he hath none either from Scripture Church Councells Fathers common sense or experience it must needs follow that he hath certainty of nothing and that this relying upon the private Spirit must needs plunge him into infinite and abominable errors CHAP. IV. Of the vanity and impiety of those who affirm that each mans particular reason is the last Judge and Interpreter of Scripture and his guide in all things which he is bound to believe and know And that the Catholike Church is the sole Judge § 1. FInally Chillingworth the last reformer and calciner of the Protestant Religion seeing the weaknesse of all the former pretences hath boldly and roundly reduced all to one only principle and that is of naturall reason affirming that our belief of the Scripture to be the Word of God and also our belief of the Scripture in every particular part thereof depends upon each mans reason and discourse beyond which or different from which he is not bound to believe a title Yet he doth not say that this way is infallible but because all wayes else are fallible as he supposes and this the onely way God hath given us to be guided by we must be herewith contented and God also must be contented herewith in us and give salvation to those that believe and do according to their best understanding And this opinion I observed had got a large possession in the minds of Protestants especially of the Clergy and Gentry whose ingenuous education gave them the highest claime to the exercise of reason who were therefore very glad to embrace such a principle of Religion as of which they accounted themselves the chiefest Masters § 2. This conceipt seemed to me no lesse absurd and much more insolent than any of the other for the other did seem at least to ascribe our knowledge of the Scripture and sense thereof to God either speaking in the Scripture or by his Spirit speaking to their soules or concurring with their humane endeavours though in conclusion they drew it to the determination of their owne fancies But this man more impiously hardy than all that went before him doth directly and in plaine termes attribute all the assurance we have of the Word of God the director to salvation unto our selves and that too as we are meer men And this resolving of faith not into Authority but into reason and that not as preparing or inducing us to believe which Catholiques allow but as the maine ground and strongest pillar of our faith and the dependence of faith upon reason as the Conclusion on the premises is a doctrine incredibly pernicious and the source of monstrous impieties And for this purpose he builds much upon this * Pag. 36. n. 8. Axiome we cannot possibly by naturall meanes be more certaine of the conclusion than of the weaker of the premises as a river will not rise higher than the fountaine from whence it flowes Hence in the same place he inferres that the certainty of Christian faith can be but morall and humane and not absolutely infallible Therefore as an instance to the same purpose he saith * Pag. 116. We have as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the eight King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate And in larger explication of this his doctrine he saith If upon reasons seeming to my understanding very good I have made choice of a guide or rule for my directions in matters of faith when afterwards I discover that this guide or rule leads me to believe one or more points which in the best judgement that I can frame I have stronger reason to reject than I had to accept my former rule I may and ought to forsake that rule as false and erroneous otherwise I should be convinced not to follow reason but some setled resolution to hold fast whatsoever I had once apprehended From which wild and vast principle doth follow that if the Scripture for example propound things seeming more contrary to any mans reason and opinion than the inducements which first moved him to believe Scripture were in his opinion strong and convincing he must reject the Scripture as an erroneus rule and adhere to his owne reason and discourse as his last and safest guide Especially considering that according to him the motives for which we believe the Scripture are but probable and by consequence subject to falshood which in all reason must give place to reasons seeming demonstrative and convincing as there will not want many such against the highest mysteries of Christian faith if once we professe our assent to them must be resolved into natural discourse For for what reason do the Socinians and such like deny the misteries of the blessed Trinity the Diety of our blessed Saviour
propagated it But the Church having in it the property of heat which as Philosophers say is to gather together things that are of the same nature and separate things that are of different natures includes all that are of the same faith and admitteth no other § 3. I therefore conceived according to the judgement of the most learned the Church to be a society of those that God hath called to salvation by the profession of the true faith the sincere adminstration of the Sacraments and the adherence to lawfull Pastors Which description of the Church is so fitted and proportioned to her that it resembles the nest of the Halcion which as Plutarch saith is of such a just and exact size for the measure of her body that it can serve for no other bird either greater or lesse Then for the meaning of the word Catholique the Protestants say that that Church is Catholique which holdeth the true faith which though it be not spread universally over the world yet it ought to be so say they and therefore it is Catholique By which they leave men in a labyrinth of finding out the true faith in all the particulars thereof which as they say must guide a man to the Church that is truely Catholique which being the object of the understanding is much more difficult to find out than that which is the object of the sense as is its being Catholique And therefore it seemed to me as proposterous as to set the cart before the horse to prove a Church Catholique because it is true whereas it should be proved true because it is Catholique Beside the name Catholique is not a name of belief only but of communion also else antiquity would not have refused that title to those which were not separated from the belief but only from the communion of the Church S. Aug. Ep. 50. nor would they have affirmed that out of the Catholique Church the faith and Sacraments may he had but not salvation So that Catholique imports thus much both the vast extension of doctrine to persons and places different and the union of all those places and persons in Communion Therefore allbeit the Protestants should hold the same belief that the ancient Church did yet if they did not communicate with the same ancient Church which by succession of Pastors and People is derived down to this present time I could not see how they could with justice assume to themselves the title of Catholiques CHAP. VI. Of the Infallibility of the Church § 1. NOw that the Catholique Church which society of Christians soever it be of which we shall deliberate hereafter is the only faithfull and true witnesse of the matter of Gods Word to tell us what it is and what is not it the only true interpreter of the meaning of Gods word and the last and finall judge of all controversies that may arise in matters of Religion and that shee is not onely true but that shee cannot be otherwise seeing shee is infallible I was perswaded to believe by many reasons In the alleadging of which I will avoid the accusation of Protestants of the circular disputation of Catholiques saying they believe the Scripture because the Church saies it is so and the Church because the Scripture bids them do so First then without dependence on the Scripture I conceived the Catholique Church to be infallible in her Traditions in that which she declareth to us concerning the doctrine of Christ and the Apostles and that even in the very nature of her testimony and tradition For Tradition being a full report of what was evident to sense namely what doctrines the Apostles taught what Scripture they wrote it is impossible it should be false Worlds of men cannot be universally deceived in matters evident to sense as are the things men heare and see and not being so it is impossible they should either negligently suffer it or maliciously agree to deceive others being so many in number so distant in place so different in affections conditions and interests Wherefore it is impossible that what is delivered by full Catholique Tradition from the Apostles should be by the deliverers first devised as Tertullian saith Tert. de praesc cap. 28. That which is found one and the same amongst many is not an error but a Tradition Yet supposing universall Tradition as it is meerly humane be in its nature fallible yet the Tradition of the Catholique Church is by God himselfe preserved from error which is thus demonstrated God being infinitely good and ardently desiring the salvation of mankind cannot permit the meanes which should convey the Apostles doctrine to posterity by the belief whereof men must be saved to be poisoned with damnable error to the destruction of their salvation now the onely meanes to convey this doctrine is the Tradition of the Catholique Church Tert. de Praes cap. 21. as Tertullian saith what the Apostles taught I will prescribe ought no other wayes to be proved than by those Churches which the Apostles founded All other means as I have shewed you before are insufficient and if this Tradition of the Church should be insufficient also by reason of its liablenesse unto error then were there no certainty at all of the truth of Christian Religion no not so much as that there was such a man as Jesus Christ but all men would be left to grope in the wandring uncertainty of their owne imaginations which for God to suffer cannot fall under any prudent mans belief § 2. Secondly that which bindeth men to believe a thing to be Gods Word God cannot suffer to delude men into error whereby for their devotion unto his truth they may fall into damnation now Catholique Tradition from the Apostles is that which bindes men to believe the same to be the Word of God and that because it is thereby sufficiently proposed the World affording no higher nor surer proposall so that either this must be infallible or else God hath left us to the guidance of our own weak understandings the weaknesse of which conceit I shewed even now and all Christians to that confusion which all different opinions yet reputed the Word of God by them that hold them may produce § 3. Thirdly God being the Prime Verity he cannot so much as connive at falshood whereby he becomes accessory of deceiving them who simply readily and religiously believe what they have just reason to think to be his Word but there is most just and sufficient reason to believe that the doctrine delivered by full and perpetuall Tradition from hand to hand even from the Apostles is undoubtedly their doctrine and the Word of God therefore he cannot suffer Catholique Tradition to be falsified Nor can as I conceive any prudent man imagine that God having sent his Son into the world to teach men the way to heaven every moment of whose life was made notable by doing or suffering somthing to that end should suffer the efficacy and
after they have thus fluttered up and down finding like the Dove out of the Arke no rest for the sole of their foot they at last fly to the Scriptures think to pearch upon that under whose obscurity and their corruption of them while they will admit none to interpret them but themselves they frame what sense they please as any bodie els may do with great confidence but little judgement as all Heretikes do assure themselves thereof But if they will allow the Fathers for good interpreters as none but those that are puffed up with the Spirit of Pride will refuse to do then we find as I shewed before that even Christ and his Apostles were of the Roman not the Protestant Religion and the first Founders and publishers thereof But Doctor White in his Reply p. 105. concludes thus that this notwithstanding if Protestants be able to demonstrate by Scripture that they maintaine the same faith and religion which the Apostles taught this alone is sufficient to prove them to be the true Church But they that cannot by the markes of the Church set downe in Scripture cleere themselves to be the true Church do most fondly appeale to Scripture to shew the truth of their particular points For what more vaine than to appeale from Scripture setting things down cleerly unto Scripture teaching matters obscurely or not so cleerly Now no particular point of doctrine is in holy Scripture so manifestly set down as is the Church and the markes whereby we may know her No matters about which the Scripture is more copious and perspicuous than about the visibility perpetuity amplitude the Church was to enjoy so that as S. Augustine saith the Scriptures are more cleer about the Church than even about Christ in Psal 30. Conc. 2. and De unitat Eccles c. 5. that the Scripture in this point is so cleer that by no shift of false interpretation it can be avoided the impudence of any fore-head that will stand against this evidence is confounded a Tract 1. in 1. Ep. Ioan. That it is a prodigious blindnesse not to see which is the true Church For b Aug. l. 1. cont Crescon c. 33. l. 13. cont Faust cap. 13. God would have his Church to be described in Scripture without any ambiguity as clear as the beams of the Sun that the controversie about the true Church being cleerly decided when questions about particular Doctrines that are obscure arise we may fly to her and rest in her judgement and that this visibility is a manifest sign whereby even the rude and ignorant may discern the true Church from the false What vanity then is it for Protestants not being able to clear by Scripture the cleerest of all points to appeal to her for the cleering of other points by lesse evident places CHAP. XIV Of the fourth mark of the true Church viz. a lawfull succession and ordinary vocation and mission of Pastors And that it is ridiculous to affirme that Catholiques and Protestants are the same Church § 1. A Fourth mark of the Church is personall succession of Pastors and their mission by ordinary callings which is alwaies to be found in the true Church as is foretold by the Prophet Esay ch 59. v. 2. My spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from henceforth for ever And the Apostle saith of our Saviour Ephes 4.11.12 that he appointed Pastors and Teachers in the Church to the consummation of the Saints for the work of the ministery for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the faith And this charge is not to be undertaken by usurpation but by lawfull calling and mission as the Apostle saith Heb. 5.4 No man takes to himselfe this honour but he that is called of God as Aron was to wit visibly and by peculiar consecration And againe How shall they preach except they be sent Rom. 10.15 And our Saviour saith who so entreth not by the doore into the sheepfold but climeth another way is a thief John 10.5 And God in the old Testament reproves those that went without mission saying J have not sent these Prophets yet they ran Jeremy 23.21 I have not sent them saith the Lord yet they prophecie fasly in my name Jer. 27.15 And this is a note of the Church so pertinent that S. Augustine Lib. cont Epist Fundament c. 4. saith the succession of Priests from the very Seat of Peter the Apostle to whom the Lord commited his sheep to be fed even to the present Bishoprick doth hold me in the Church And Optatus Milevitanus reckons all the Roman Bishops from S. Peter to Syricius who then was Pope to shew that the Church was not then with the Donatists who by like succeson could not ascend up to the Apostles and then lib. 2. cont Parmenianum he addes Shew you the originall of your chaire who challenge the holy Church to your selves Now that this mark is found upon the Church of Rome I know no man that denies But the Bishops where they are and Ministers of Protestant Churches cannot thus derive themselves from the Apostles The Roman Church indeed made Luther Priest and gave him Commission to preach her Doctrine but to preach against her Religion who gave him order That Commission seeing he had it not from any Church he had either from himself minting a Religion out of his owne braine coloured with abused Scripture which he then proudly pretended to know better than all the Christian world beside g Tom 7. VVittenberg fo 228 or from the Devill with whom he conferred and to whose arguments he yeelded as himself confesseth Also the succession of the English Bishops and Ministers was interrupted upon their pretended Reformation the lawfull Bishops being turned out and others preferred to their place by the temporall authority of the Kingdome in chief which had no power to choose or consecrate Bishops and ordain Priests Or if they were at first consecrated by lawful Bishops of the Church of Rome as for their credit they pretend yet they had not thereby Commission to preach their new Doctrine differing from the Church of Rome nor howsoever is their succession lawfull for in a lawfull succession it is required that the former Bishops be dead or lawfully deposed but these conditions were not observed in Enland the Catholique Bishops being violently cast out by the Authority of Q. Elizabeth assuming to her self the title of head of the Church a thing never arrogated by any temporall Prince of the world untill her Father King Henry the eight gave the example But it is worth the observation that the Bishops and Ministers of England to maintain the lawfulnesse of their succession do affirm that they were consecrated by Catholique Bishops their predecessors which while they do
one Tyrant over their consciences so they called the Church of Rome to another the Church of England there must needs arise varieties of Sects in Religion according to the various conceipt and apprehension of people even out of the very nature of this their Doctrine which is the ground-work for all the rest and is the most exercised in those who are most conversant in the reading of Scriptures to wit the Puritans and Sectaries And in the many differences that are amongst them they call no Generall Councells nor indeed can they by way of authority no Sect acknowledging it self subject to anothers Jurisdiction if it be under another temporall Governour but constitutes a Church by it selfe absolute and independent And in the variety of Sects in any one Kingdome or Government neither party believing it self justly subject to another in matter of conscience But supposing themselves alwayes in the truth they think they are bound to maintain that truth with the hazzard of their lives and to oppose their lawfull Soveraignes in the defence thereof and whensoever they have power they put it in execution and turn Rebells for Gods sake As we see many have done heretofore and the English are many of them now in the accursed act Nor can the men under whose conduct the people do this hope for more calme obedience from them longer than by force they are subdued to it unlesse they give them that in possession which now they have in hope and for which they have all been united in their service to wit Liberty of Conscience to every particular person to be of what Religion soever he shall make to himself out of the Bible free independent on the jurisdiction of any other And with very good reason for seeing they have all shaken off Christs yoke why should any man put a yoke upon another mans conscience and oblige him to believe or do or suffer that which is against his Word of God Thus as their Religion is divisible according to their severall senses of the Scripture so Kingdomes are divisible according to their Religions So that there must still be division either in Religion or in War for the defence thereof Yea so accurately doth Heresie teach to run division that it is meerly by accident that any two Protestants are of the same Religion in any one point for seeing they do not oblige themselves to agree in any one Principle but only the letter of the Scripture and refer the interpretation to themselves as Chillingworth Preface fine saith Let all men believe the Scripture and that only indeavour to believe it in the true sense and require no more of others it is but by the constitution of their brains and the grain of their fancie running the same way that brings any two of them to an union in the same belief concerning any point of Religion which constitution as it was accidentall in their generation so it is daily changeable by age education and many other occurrences and so also as uncertain for the future as accidentall at the present Thus all tends to division amongst them through the nature of their doctrines and the method of knowing and preserving them And this division of theirs in doctrine and opinion is the reason why when I mention the belief of Protestants I usually say some Protestants because they are not all of a mind scarce in any one point wherein they differ from Catholiques And some of them are so silly as to think that if they themselves doe not believe such a point no Protestant else doth supposing all Protestancy included in their owne brests which indeed is nothing so only they have reason according to their principles to believe as they do that that which every particular man holds is the true Protestancy and ought to be a rule to all the world beside § 2. The Catholique Roman Church hath in it the propriety of heat and doth congregare homogenea gather together things of the same kind and disgregare heterogenea separate things that are of different natures casting out of her Communion all sorts of Heretiques And on the contrary the Protestant Religion hath the property of cold which is congregare heterogenea to gather together things of different natures enfoulding under her name a miscellane of Religions freezing them altogether and withall making them so brittle that every chance breakes them into smaller sects and sub-divisions which in the end will be the destruction of the whole as it hath been of all foregoing heresies And this truth Sir Edwin Sandys a learned Protestant In his Relation of Religion of the Western parts confesseth saying The Papists have the Pope as a common father adviser and conductor to reconcile their jarres to decide their differences to draw their Religion by consent of Councells unto unity c. whereas on the other side Protestants are like severed or rather scattered troupes each drawing adverse way without any meanes to pacifie their quarrells no Patriarch one or more to have a common superintendency or care of their Churches for correspondency and unity no ordinary way to assemble a generall Councell on their part the only hope remaining ever to asswage their contentions Of which seeing there is no hope the sword must be the Umpire Which if it should in England prevaile on the Puritane or Roundheads side as they now stile them which God forbid I think I may without rashnesse say that it falls out by the just judgement of God that they that cast out the Catholique Religion and Catholique Bishops their predecessors upon pretence of the Reformation of Errors which they discovered as they said by the pure word of God are upon the same pretences cast out themselves and are forced to say with Adonibezek in the first of the book of Judges As I have done so God hath rewarded me So true a rule it is that he that practises disobedience to his superiours teaches it to his inferiours § 3. But the Protestants say that they do not differ from one another in fundamentalls no not from the Catholiques so much at unity with all the world do they professe to be The impertinency of their distinction of fundamentalls and unfundamentalls I have before discovered and little reason have they to use it in this case For to my apprehension all their differences are in fundamentalls yea all that they believe they account fundamentall For the Church of England saith in her sixth Article That whatsoever is not read in Scripture nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any ma that it should be believed as an Article of Faith or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation as nothing but what may be proved by the Scripture is by her accounted necessary to salvation which is the same with fundamentall so I suppose that all that can be proved by the Scripture is necessary to salvation even in their own opinion for I think they will not say
miserable and endlesse end Now seeing in the opinion of all men there are but two sorts of things required in this matter that is things to be believed and things to be done and that the things to be done are consequences of the former it behoveth you in the first place to be assured of the things you ought to believe seeing as our Saviour saith Mark 16.16 that He that beleeveth not shall be damned Which words in reason cannot be understood of some one or few yea or many points of faith excluding any one but of all that our Saviour commanded to be believed according to his Commission given to his Apostles saying Goe ye therefore and teach all nations or teaching them to keep all things whatsoever I have commanded you and according to the exhortation of S. Jude to the Church in his time That ye earnestly endeavour for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints Ep. Iude v. 3. Nor can you be probably assured that you have the faith once delivered to the Saints the whole faith which the Apostles taught all nations but by examining according to your ability the pleas for it on both sides seeing it is granted by all that the Roman Faith was the true and perfect faith as the Apostle himselfe by consequence confesseth where he saith I thank my God that your faith is published throughout the whole world Rom. 1.8 And if the Church of Rome have not changed her faith as in this Treatise is proved then you that differ and separate from her must be accused of novelty and change in forsaking her doctrine and communion which formerly in your predecessors you held Your return unto both which must be the meanes in the first place to deliver you from eternity of torments and advance you to the glorious liberty and felicity of the sonnes of God And that you may do so shall be the daily prayer and endeavour of From Paris August 4. 1648. Your humble servant in Christ Iesus THO. VANE A LOST SHEEP RETURNED HOME OR The motives of the Conversion to the Catholike Faith OF THOMAS VANE CHAP. I. The introduction And that the knowledge of the meanes to arrive unto eternall life is not otherwise attaineable then by Faith grounded on the Word of God § 1. SAINT Peter the Prince of the Apostles doth thus comfort encourage and command us 1 Pet. 3.14.15 But and if you suffer for righteousnesse sake happy are ye But be not affraid of their fear neither be troubled But sanctifie the Lord God in your hearts ready alwaies to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meeknesse and fear § 2. This happinesse and comfort of suffering for a good cause is remarkably expressed by our Saviour in the fift of S. Matthew where the blessings of other vertues are placed in the future time that they that mourne shall be comforted they that are mercifull shall obtain mercy and so of the rest but of the poore in spirit and of the poore absolutely as S. Luke hath it ch 6.20 and of those that suffer for righteousnesse sake it is affirmed in the present time that theirs is the Kingdome of God Mat. 5.10 the other Beatitudes are but in reversion but this in present possession § 3. And this by the mercy of God I feele in my selfe for heaven is more the joy then the place and this joy because God thinks it not fit as yet to call me to it he hath sent to mee so that I can say with S. Paul Rom. 5.3 I glory in tribulation The Apostles encouragement to abandon feare and to sanctifie the Lord I will by his grace daily put in practice But my present undertaking is the Apostles command to give an answer to every one that asketh me a reason of the hope and faith from whence the hope springs that is in mee and this with the enjoyned circumstances of meeknesse towards men and the feare of God § 4. And as some men here have asked me a reason so if I were in England I assure my selfe many more would do so and having heard of my change do aske one another and that with as much wonder and sorrow as beliefe thereof To these therefore and to all other both Catholiques and Protestants I give this ensuing answer for satisfaction To Catholiques that they may quit all feare of my recoyling to Protestants that they may be invited to follow my example which though it be founded in an unworthy person yet in so glorious an action as coming to the bosome of the Catholike Church they have no reason to disdaine to follow me § 5. In this affaire it is much more easie to find an entrance then an end For what time since the beginning of Christian Religion what place what thing doth not bear witnesse to the Catholike Faith Solomon saith Cant. 4.4 that the neck of the Spouse the Church is like the Tower of David builded for an armory whereon there hang a thousand shields a thousand arguments of defence of the Catholike Doctrines which the many excellent bookes of controversie written both by those of our own and other Nations doe most abundantly declare It shall therefore suffice me to say only so much as may witnesse that I did not make this change without sufficient Motives wherein I will make choice of a little of much and say as much as I can in a little § 6. Entring then into a serious consideration of the end for which I and all men were created to wit the glory of God and our owne eternall happinesse and of the knowledge of the meanes to attaine thereunto I found that by the consent of all Christians this was not to be gotten by cleer evident sight nor by humane discourse founded on the principles of reason nor by reliance upon authority meerly humane but only by Faith grounded on the word of God revealing unto men things that are otherwise only known to his infinite wisedome Secondly that God revealed all these things to Jesus Christ and he to his Apostles as he saith John 15.15 All things which I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you and this partly by word of mouth but principally by the immediate teaching of the holy Spirit to the end that they should deliver them unto mankind to be received believed and obeyed over the whole world even to the end thereof as he saith Math. 28.19 Goe teach all nations Thirdly that the Apostles did accordingly preach to all nations as S. Mark saith Chap. 16.20 They going forth preached everywhere And planted an universall Christian company charging them to keepe inviolably and to deliver unto their posterity what they had received of them the first messengers of the Gospel as S. Paul saith to Timothy 2 Tim. 2.2 The things that thou hast heard of me amongst many witnesses the same commit thou to faithfull men who may instruct others Fourthly that
and divers other points but only because they seem repugnant unto reason And in these horrible opinions do these reasonably unreasonable men fall by just consequence from their owne principles For if as they say there be no Christian Church assisted with Infallibility fit to teach any man even such Articles as they count fundamentall and necessary to salvation but that in every particular even one may and must follow the direction of his owne reason be he never so unlearned what will follow but an unhappy liberty yea necessity for men to reject the highest and most divine mysteries of Christian faith unlesse they can compose all repugnancies after an intelligible manner as he speaks even to every ignorant and simple person which is impossible or els say that it is reasonable for men to believe contradictions at the same time which as he saith is very unreasonable For doubtlesse in true Philosophy the objections which may be made against the mystery of the Blessed Trinity and the Incarnation of God are much more difficult than any that can be brought against Transubstantiation he then that will follow these new principles must if he deny the one deny the other also which as yet the greatest part of Protestants will not do in time perhaps they may or which is much better observing the impiety of this opinion confesse both § 3. This I conceive was the reason why S. Paul saith 1. Cor. 1.23 that the Apostles did preach foolishnesse in the opinion of the Grecians namely because they sought wisdome and what was that wisdome but humane the dictates of naturall reason which the mysteries of the Gospell exceeding they counted them foolishnesse but to those that were called it was the power of God and the wisdome of God By which it appears that the wisdome of God and the wisdome of the Grecians which was humane wisdome the light of naturall reason and discourse were very different wherein the Apostle gives as it is meet these wise men should do the preheminence to God for that which seems foolish in God is wiser than whatsoever is in men and so the mysteries of faith which seem so contrary to humane reason have more wisdome in them than their reasons have that oppose them who do therefore but prove themselves cum ratione insanire to be mad with reason This doctrine also of giving reason the tribunall in matters of faith and that as it is in every particular man is an inlet for every man to be of a severall Religion by differing from others in what points soever according to the direction of his own reason yea possibly to be of no Christian Religion at all For what makes the Jew to continue such but only because he sees no reason to believe the New Testament and if a Christian should chance to be indued with the same reason that a Jew is he must then become a Jew or if of a Heathen he must become a Heathen And for the ignorant and unlearned people to whom this is a rule as well as to others what pitifull absurd Religions or none at all will be amongst them who have so small abilities of reason as the world knowes they have § 4. Though reason be in its owne nature the same and as it proceeds from God the author thereof in whose mind the universall idaea thereof is placed yet as it exerciseth it selfe in severall men since the ruine thereof in Adams fall it is of severall dimensions according to their naturall constitution morall education and industry whence it must needs follow that according to the different latitude of mens understandings they must embrace more or lesse of divine truths and so be every one of a larger or stricter belief and of as many several Religions as they are of different degrees of understanding Yet notwithstanding this admirable variety of Religion charitable Chillingworth doth not doubt but that God considering humane frailty and the power of education which instils in us many false apprehensions and that hereby excellent judgements are corrupted will not condemne men for such errors as by reason of the former circumstances were unavoidable but conceives that they are in a Religion whatsoever it be in which they may attaine salvation So that by consequence any man may be saved following but the direction of his owne reason although that reason direct him to deny not only one point but even all the Christian faith thus Jew Turk or Heathen may by this platform be saved § 5. And truely if a man do not believe upon this one and virtually all reason to wit that the Church is to be believed he according to my reason should be a Heathen rather than any thing else because their Religion ariseth only from the principles of reason implanted in man by Gods Commissary Nature wherein all men whose understandings are not by accident eclipsed do agree as that there is a God that he is to be worshiped that we must do as we would be done unto with the like but all other Religions depend upon testimony as the Jewes and Turkes and their testimony far inferiour to that of the Christians so that if I were not a Catholique according to the direction of my reason I ought to bee a Heathen But if I will be a Christian I ought to be such a one as will according to our Saviours command deny himselfe Math. 16.24 And a mans understanding is a chiefe part of himselfe even the chiefest according to most mens account as we may perceive in that they do more abhorre to be counted fools which is a defect contrary to the understanding than to be counted vicious which is a defect contrary to the will yet this must be denied and is by all good Christians who submit to that which as the Apostle saith brings into captivity all understandings to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 § 6. Besides whatsoever Religion any of them that are guided by this principle is of for the present no man is sure nor he himselfe that he shall hold it to morrow for if his reason howsoever deluded with false apparitions guide him to the belief of any thing contrary to that which he now holdeth he is presently obliged to follow it though it be to the deniall of his whole present faith and to change his purpose in matters of Religion as oft as he doth his apparell and so float in a giddy irresolution and inconstancy led by the ignis fatuus the foolish fire of his owne reason untill at last he sink into the depth of Atheisme and damnation Now how sutable this doctrine is to the peace and tranquillity of Common-Wealths and Kingdomes wherin every man is left to his own liberty in the choice and change of Religion though it be to Arrianisme to the Heresie of the Macedonians Manicheans or to any the most blasphemous absurd or turbulent and that with impunity as he challengeth they that sit at the helme of
government can best determine § 7. Lastly if any of these fore-mentioned waies of Protestants for the knowledge of the Word of God the guide to eternall life were sufficient what need were there of preaching and instructing of the people at least of them that can read but let them take the Bible and let nature work which in the co-operation of their owne wise fancies will hatch a goodly Religion no doubt borne like Minerva of the brain of Jupiter and be as comely as a Chymera of many seuerall shapes tackt together and to them instead of the ancient heathens houshold-Gods which every one must adore as his private God within himselfe O sacras gentes quibus haec nascuntur in ipsis Numina Who prove the truth of this saying in themselves that He that is Schoole-master to himself is Scholler to a fool § 8. Observing thus the weaknesse and absurdity of all the Protestants alledged in proof that the Scripture is the Word of God easie to be understood at least in all things necessary to salvation and that it is to be interpreted by it self or by the Spirit to everie particular man so making way for as much variety in Religion as there may be diversity of opinion I saw that although some probable arguments may be drawn from the Scriptures to prove them to be of God yet there was no other infallible way to know what is the true Word of God first taught by the Apostles and their hearers but by the testimony of some sure certain and agreeing witnesses and what is the meaning of this Word of God in case there should be any important difference about it thereby to give a period to all controversies but by some society of men renowned for their wisdome And this I conceived in common prudence a far better way than for a man to rely upon himselfe But though this were a better way than those of the Protestants yet if this society of men were not in these matters free from error although it is more likely they should tell truth than the Protestants yet I could not have an immovable foundation for my saith but it would be subject to wavering and inconstancy and so there could be no prudent setlednesse in Religion nor any well-built hope of the end thereof eternall life I saw then that it was needfull that there should be a faithfull witnesse a wise judge and so wise and faithfull that he should not be subject to falshood or error otherwise it seemed to me that God had not contrived a competent way to his own glory or mans salvation which to be wanting in is neither sutable to his wisdome nor his goodnesse I therefore concluded that there was some society of men who must instruct us in the premises and that this society in reason ought to be infallible and that none could with any colour pretend to be this society but that which we call the Catholique Church which all Christians professe to believe according to the Creed of the Apostles But before I could proceed any further I was cast upon the examination of the sense of the words Church and Catholique finding therein much difference amongst the pretenders to these titles CHAP. V. Of the meaning of these words Church and Catholique and that neither of them belong to Protestants § 1. THere were seven Cities that strove for the body of Homer And very many societies of Christians there are that lay claime to the body of Christ which is his Church And as when Telesius a young Grecian having won the prize in the Pythian games was to be led in triumph there arose such a dispute between the severall Nations there present every one being covetous to have him for their owne that one drawing one way another another instead of receiving the honour that was prepared for him he was torne in pieces even by those who seemed most ambitious to honour him So happens it to the Church all those that beare the name of Christians avow that to her only appertaines the victory over hell and that whosoever will have part in the prize and glory of this triumph must serve under her Ensigne but when they come to debate about the body of this society then every Sect desirous to draw her to themselves they rend and teare her in pieces and instead of embracing the Church which consists in unity they embrace Schism and Division which is the death and ruin of the Church § 2. The Protestants do somtimes give a strict definition of a Church somtimes a large somtimes they restraine her to the number of the predestinate only somtimes they enlarge her so far that they imbrace within her compasse because they will be sure not to leave out themselves all the variety of Christians whatsoever But by all the former they exclude the visibility of the Church which is an inseperable companion thereof as I shall shew hereafter for the predistinate are not knowne to any body nor ordinary unto themselves But those that are so presumptuous as very many are to assume unto themselves the assurance of their predestination do easily lay hold on this tenure which they do the more boldly by how much it is more difficult for another to disprove but as it is not easie for another to disprove so it is as hard for them to prove and concludes nothing therefore in the behalf of the Churches description in generall or of their share in particular Beside the word Ecclesia Church is derived from a verb which signifies to call not to predestinate And the Church is a society but the predestinate are a multitude and there is this difference between a societie and a multitude that a society hath a certain form and vertue whereby they communicate together which the other without this association have not Now predestinaton as it is meere predestination establisheth nothing in the predestinate nor is it made in them but in God only and by consequence doth not make them actuall parts of the society called the Church It is not the union of predestination but of vocation that builds men into a Church By the later definition of a Church they deny the very being of Heresie and Schisme for if the whole Masse of Christians be the Church notwithstanding the errors in faith which some of them hold or separation in communion which they make then there are none that can be called Heretiques or Schismatiques or else which is equally absurd all Heretiques and Schismatiques are of the Church and this destroyes the holinesse of the Church in doctrine which is another inseparable ornament thereof Others which are some of the subdivisions of sects amongst the Protestants as Brownists Anabaptists and the like say each sect for it selfe that that is the Church excluding all others from that title even their fellow Protestants but this excludes the universality of the Church another inseparable companion thereof at least after the Apostles had
power thereof to be extinguished by permitting damnable errors in the whole Church and that soon after his departure as some Protestants say and not to recover light for twelve or fourteen hundred years together especially considering there was no possible meanes for any man to know the contrary there was no society of men that taught otherwise and if at any time there started up any they were condemned of error by all their fellow Christians and in processe of time melted from the face of the earth The Scripture if that were the means as Protestants pretend not being printed the invention of Printing not being in the world till about two hundred years ago and the Bibles that were written being but few by reason of the great labour of writing them and those that were not purchaseable but by few because of their price nor legible but by fewer because they were not printed but written and lastly not to be knowne to be the Word of God as I have shewed before but by the testimony of those men who they say were corrupted who having corrupted the doctrine might with much more ease have extinguished or corrupted the Text and made them speak what they pleased it being known to far fewer than the doctrine was it being difficult to obtaine uncertain whether it were right and very obscure in its meaning so that if they had been guilty of changing the Apostles doctrine they could easily have razed out all those places which Protestants urge against them and so have prevented the strange and notable discovery that the Protestants think they have made of their errors And if they say that God by his providence preserved the Scripture both from extinction and corruption may not we much more reasonably say having warrant for it out of the Scripture also whereas they have no warrant for the preservation of the Text that God by the same providence did and will alwaies preserve his Church from corruption which is a thing much more easily known than the Scripture consisting of a living multitude can expresse it self more plainly This infallibility in the mouth and Tradition of the Church the Prophet assureth Esa 59.21 My Spirit which is upon thee and the words which I have put into thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth nor out of the mouth of thy seed nor out of the mouth of thy seeds seed from hence forth for ever And therfore S. Augustine saith Aug. Ep. 118. that to dispute against the whole Church is insolent madnesse § 4. To know divine and supernaturall truth by the light and lustre of the doctrine belongs to the Church triumphant Inward assurance without an externall infallible ground is proper to Prophets and Apostles the first publishers of Religion and seeing that God doth not now instruct either of these waies as I have shewed but by an externall infallible ground and this being the Tradition of the Church it followes that he must preserve it from error and likewise render the Church it selfe alwaies conspicuous that it may be discerned by sensible markes of which we shall speake anon And he is also bound by his providence to assist men in the finding out of this Church when they apply their best diligence thereunto that so they be not deceived And whereas some of the more learned Protestants say that though they have no infallible ground besides the teaching of the Spirit yet they are not taught immediatly by propheticall manner because they are also taught by an externall probable though not infallible motive to wit the Churches tradition I conceive that except they assigne an externall infallible meanes besides Gods inward teaching they cannot avoid the challenging of immediate revelation For whosoever knowes things assuredly by the inward teaching of the Spirit without an externall infallible motive unto which he doth adhere is assured prophetically though he have some externall probable motives to direct his belief S. Peter had some come conjecturall signes of Symon Magus his preversenesse and incorrigible malice yet seeing he knew it assuredly we believe he knew it by the light of prophecy because beside inward assurance he had no externall infallible ground If one see a man give almes publiquely though he see probable signes and tokens that he doth it out of vaine glory yet cannot he be sure thereof but by the light of immediate revelation because the other tokens are not grounds sufficient to make him certain For if a man be sure and have no certain ground of this assurance out of his own heart it is cleer that he is assured immediately and only by Gods inward inspiration Wherefore Protestants if they will disclaime immediate revelation in deed not in words only they must either grant Tradition to be infallible or else assigne some externall infallible ground besides Tradition whereby they are taught what Scriptures the Apostles delivered Lastly I was perswaded of the Churches infallibility in her Traditions and Doctrines because she is endowed with the power of miracles which wheresoere they are which I shall hereafter examine do both prove that that society of Christians is the true Church and that that Church is infallible in all that she proposes as the Word of God And the reason is because God who is truth it self cannot set his hand and seal that is miracles and works proper to himself to warrant and authorize a falshood invented by men Against which * Feild lib. 3. cap 15. Whites Reply p 216. Protestants object and say that miracles are only probable and not sufficient testimonies of divine doctrine alleadging Bellarmine who saith we cannot know evidently that miracles are true for if we did we should know evidently that our faith is true and so it should not be faith To which may be answered that such evidence as doth exclude the necessity of pious affection and reverence to Gods Word evidence that considering the imperfection of humane understanding may enforce men to believe cannot stand with true faith If we know by Mathematicall or Metaphysicall evidence that the miracles done in the Church were true this evidence would compell men to believe and to overcome the naturall obscurity and seeming impossibility of the Catholique Doctrine therefore as Bellarmine saith we cannot be Mathematically and altogether infallibly sure by the light of nature that miracles are true Notwithstanding it cannot be denied in reason what our Saviour affirmes that miracles are a sufficient testimony binding men to believe the very works that I do do bear witnesse of me that the Father hath sent me Joh. 5.36 and consequently that we may know them to be true by Physicall evidence as we are sure of things we see with our eyes and handle with our hands as S. John saith 1 Epist 1.1 what we have seen with our eyes what we have beheld and our hands have handled of the word of life Or we may be as sure of Miracles as we are of such things as
are fundamentall others not that is some points are to be believed explicitely and distinctly others not and more points are to bee believed explicitely by some than by others as I have shewed before speaking of points necessary to salvation But in regard of the formall object and motive for which we believe namely the truth of God revealing it by his Church there is no distinction of points of faith we being equally bound to believe all that is sufficiently proposed unto us as revealed by God whether the matter be great or small and whether the points be fundamentall in their matter or no yet they are proposed unto us by the same authority therefore we are bound equally with the same firmenesse of faith to believe every one as any one For example the Creed of the Apostles containes divers fundamentall points as the Diety Trinity of Persons Incarnation Passion and Resurrection of our Saviour it containes also some points for their matter and nature in themselves not fundamentall as under what judge he suffered that he was buried and the circumstance of time when he rose againe to wit the third day Now whosoever knowes these to be contained in the Apostles Creed is bound to believe them as firmely as the other and the denyall of any one of them is a fundamentall and damnable errour a giving of God the lie For the nature of faith doth not arise from the greatnesse or smalnesse of the thing believed for then there should be as many different faiths as there are points to be believed but from the motive for which a man believes which is Gods revelation testified by the Church which being alike for all objects it is manifest that they that in things equally revealed by God do grant one thing and deny another do forsake the very formall motive of faith Gods revelation and so have no true divine faith at all § 7. Moreover if the Churches infallibility be tied to a certain matter in Religion then it is meet we should know that first that so we may accordingly apply our belief if it be fundamentall then without doubt to imbrace it if not to exercise our liberty and believe it so far as we see cause but then we must know the matter wherein she is infallible distinctly and particularly as also infallibly or else we may mistake and believe when we need not and disbelieve when we ought not Now from whence shall we have this knowledge God hath no where revealed it and it ought to have been revealed together with the Commission given to the Church to teach or else shee might have deceived us before the caution came but the Church it selfe hath told us no such matter we have no such Tradition therefore we must have this most fundamentall point of all the rest which is to know what is fundamentall and what not either by inspiration or by the strength of reason both which are ridiculous or by some authority coequall to the Churches and yet not hers which is most absurd And in this businesse the Protestants seemed unto me to deal as obscurely and deceiptfully as did once Richard the second King of England who in a return to peace betwixt him and his subjects granted pardon to all except fifteen but would not declare what their names were but if at any time he had a mind out of some new displeasure to cut off any man he would say he was one of the fifteen whom he excepted from the benefit of his pardon In like manner the Protestants say we will believe the Church in all points but those that are not fundamentall not expressing what they are and when they have a wanton disposition to deny their belief to something that the Church hath declared they shelter their denyall under the protection of this unlimited distinction and say it is a point not fundamentall And if on the other side they find it for their advantage to close with other Churches they say they are all one Church with them because forsooth they agree in they know not what that is in their inexplicable fundamentalls § 8. But Chillingworth hath undertaken to give us though not a catalogue yet a description as he supposes by which we may discern between fundamentalls not fundamentalls or circumstantialls as he calls them pag. 137. sect 20. The former being such as are revealed by God and commanded to be preached to all and beleived by all The later such as though God hath revealed them yet the Pastors of the Church are not bound under paine of damnation particularly to teach them unto all and the people may securely be ignorant of them And this is even the same obscurity in more words for what is to be preached to all and believed by all and what the Pastors may forbear to preach and the people may be ignorant of especially seeing the same degree of ignorance is not secure to all people alike but receives infinite variety according to their meanes of knowledge is as undeterminable as what is fundamentall and what not But suppose the Pastors doe preach more than they are bound to preach and reveal that truth which if it had not been revealed the people might safely have been ignorant of may they be ignorant or unbelieving now it is revealed to them If they be then they deny that very authority upon which they believed the most fundamentall points which is the ground of all belief and by consequence deny the whole faith From whence wee may see that the Pastors teaching is not to be stinted by the things the people ought necessarily to believe but the peoples necessity of believing ought to be enlarged according to the measure of the Pastors preaching The Church is not confined to the teaching of fundamentalls only for the matter but whatsoever shee teacheth is fundamentall for the forme and motive of beliefe The circumstantialls are as he confesseth revealed by God to the Church and if the Church reveal them to the people the people must either believe them or deny to believe God And though common people and others also may safely be ignorant before they have been instructed yet they may not be so after nor hath God confined the Pastors instructing of the people to any certain matter to fundamentalls only for Christ bids his Apostles teach all nations to observe all things whatsoever he commanded them Matth. 28.20 And though common people may safely be ignorant of many things yet they must not be unbelieving of any thing but by an implicite faith at the least believe all that the Church believes by adhering and resigning themselves to her being prepared to believe explicitly what and when shee shall declare it to them Which faith is originally and fundamentally built upon the Word of God not as written but as delivered by the Tradition of the Church successively from the Apostles upon the authority whereof we believe that both Scriptures and all other Articles of
faith were delivered to them by the Apostles to the Apostles by Christ to Christ by God the fountain of all truth CHAP. IX That there is and ever shall be a visible Church upon earth And that this Church is one holy Catholique and Apostolique § 1. NOw considering all that hath been said before the summe whereof is this That we have no meanes to know certainly the doctrines of the Apostles but only the Tradition of the Church and that that Tradition is and ought to be infallible hence I conceived that this consequence was necessary that there should be and is alwaies a visible Church in the world to whose Traditions men might cleave and that this Church is one universall Apostolicall Holy First there is alwaies a true Church of Christ in the world for if there be no meanes for men to know that Scriptures and all other Articles came from Christ and his Apostles and so consequently from God but the Tradition of the Church then there must needs be in all ages a Church receiving and delivering these Traditions else men in some age since Christ should have been destitute of the ordinary meanes of salvation because they had no meanes to know assuredly the doctrines of Christianity without assured faith whereof no man can be saved And although a false Church may deliver the true Word of God as it is contained in the Scripture and the Creed yea even a Jew or Heathen may do so for this is but casuall yet none but a true Church can deliver the Word of God with assurance to the receiver that the text is incorrupt thereby binding him to the belief thereof Now it is necessary that men have the true Scripture not only casually but they must be sure the Text thereof be uncorrupt therefore there must be a true unerring Church whose authority is so aut hentique that it is a sufficient warrant for men to believe the doctrine shee delivers to come from the Apostles Secondly this Church must be alwaies visible and conspicuous For the Traditions of the Church must ever be famous and most notoriously known in the world that a Christian may truly say with S. Augustine De utilit Cred. c. 14. I believe nothing but the consent of Nations and Countries and most celebrious fame Now if the Church were at any time invisible or very secret and hidden then could not her Traditions be famously known nor could men that were willing to submit themselves to her directions know where to find her out of whose communion they cannot attain salvation Thirdly this Church is Apostolicall that is derived from the Apostolicall Sea by the succession of Bishops and Pastors for else how can we be assured that we have the Apostles doctrine It must be one generation that must certifie another and if there should be any interruption in that time all might be lost and changed And how could the Tradition of Christian Doctrine be notoriously Apostolicall if the Church delivering the same hath not a manifest and conspicuous pedigree and derivation from the Apostles Which is a convincing argument used by S. Augustine Epist 48. circa med How doe we trust out of the divine writings that we have manifestly received Christ if we have not also from thence manifestly received his Church The Church that hath a lineall succession of Bishops from the Apostles famous and illustrious whereof not one hath been opposite in Religion to his immediate predecessor proves evidently that this Church hath the Doctrine of the Apostles For as in the rank of three hundred stones ranged in order if no two stones be found in that line of different colour then if the first be white the second is white and so the rest unto the last even so if there be a succession of three hundred Bishops all of the same Religion if the first have the Religion of the Apostles and S. Peter the second hath and so the rest even unto the last Fourthly this Church is one that is all the Pastors and Preachers deliver and consequently all her Disciples and children believe one and the same Faith For if the Preachers and Pastors of the Church disagree about matters which they preach as necessary points of Faith they lose all their credit and authority for who will believe witnesses on their own words if they disagree in their testimony Fifthly I infer that this Church is universall spread over all Nations that she may be said to be every where morally speaking that is according to common humane account by which a thing diffused over a great part of the world and famously knowne is said to be every where In this manner the Apostle said that the faith of the Romans was renowned in the whole world Rom. 1.12 that so the whole world may take notice of her as of a worthy and credible witnesse of Christian Tradition howsoever her outward glory and splendour peace and tranquillity in some places and at some times be more or lesse eclipsed and shee be not alwaies in all places at once And the reason of this perpetuall visible universality is because the Tradition of the Church is the sole ordinary meanes of faith toward the Word of God This Tradition therefore must be so delivered as that it may be known to all men seeing God will have all men without exception of any nation to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth 1. Tim. 2.4 which they cannot do unlesse the Church be so diffused in the world that all known nations may take notice of her And Gods will that all men should be saved though it be but an antecedent will as Schoolemen call it yet it inferreth two things which some Protestants deny first the salvation of all men secondly the meanes of their salvation In respect of the meanes the will of God is absolute that all men in some sort or other have sufficient meanes of salvation In respect of the end to wit the salvation of all men the will of God is not absolute but as Schoolemen say virtually conditionall that is God hath a will that all men be saved as much as lies in him if the course of his providence be not intercepted and men will cooperate with his grace And the reason why some Nations hear not the Gospell and Word of God is not the defect of his Church but the want of working in the naturall causes to discover such Countries which defect God will not ever miraculously supply But if the Church were invisible to the world and hoarded up her Religion to her selfe either not daring or not willing to professe and preach the same unto others Nations may be knowne and yet the Word of God not known to them If therefore this Church should be hidden for a long time mens souls should perish not through defect in the naturall causes but only through the hiddennesse obscurity and wretchednesse of the supernaturall meanes to wit of the Church not
and Apostolique Church THese premises considered I look'd round about to see amongst al the societies of the world professing the name of Christ to which of them the title and dignity of the Church might most justly be applyed and I found that the Roman Church that is the multitude of Christians spred over the face of the known world adhering to the doctrine of the Church of Rome is the One Holy Catholique and Apostolique Church The vulgar objection against the title of Catholique Roman that is say they universall and yet but particular seemed very childish the one title being applyed in regard of the doctrine and the extent thereof which is universall the other of the discipline and the fountaine and head thereof which is particular from the Bishop of Rome For the word Catholique is taken three waies to wit formally causally and participatively Formally the universall Church only that is to say the society of all the true particular Churches united in one selfesame Communion is called Catholique Causally the Roman Church is called Catholique for as much as shee infuseth universality into all the whole body of the Catholique Church For to constitute universality there must be two things one that may be instead of matter thereto to wit the multitude and the other instead of form thereto to wit unity for a multitude without unity doe not properly make universality Take away vnity from the multitude saith S. Augustine and it is a tumult De verb. Dom. sceundum Luc. Serm. 26. but bring in unity and it is a people Therefore the Roman Church which as the center and beginning of the Ecclesiasticall Communion infuseth unity which is the forme of universality into the Catholique Church may be called Catholique causally though in her own being shee be particular Even as the chief Captaine of an army on whom all the inferiour Captaines Officers and common Souldiers have their dependency and with whom they hold correspondency is called The Generall though he be but one particular man because it is he that by the relation that all others have to him gives unity to the whole body of the Army And thirdly particular Churches are called Catholique participatively because they agree and participate in doctrine and Communion with the Catholique Church § 2. Now I was induced to believe that the Roman Church is the only true Catholike Church by these ensuing reasons First God being the Prime Verity revealing truth cannot suffer the knowledg of saving doctrine to be impossible but it is impossible if it be hidden or if a false meanes of knowledge thereof be so drest with the marks of the true as that the true become undiscernable from it And if the Roman be not the true Catholique Church and Tradition then the true Catholique Church and Tradition is hidden and a false Church hath the marks of the true so cleerly that no other can with any colour pretend to be Catholique rather than it that is to have doctrine delivered from the Apostles by whole worlds of Christian Fathers to whole worlds of Christian children Hence either there is no meanes left assuredly to know the saving truth or else it must be inward teaching by immediate revelation without any externall infallible meanes or the Scripture known to be the Word of God and truly interpreted by the light and evidence of the things or by the force of naturall reason the vanity and falshood whereof I have already shewed for knowledge of supernaturall truth by the light and lustre of the doctrine is proper to the Church triumphant inward assurance without an externall infallible ground is proper unto Prophets and the first publishers of Religion Hence it may be concluded that if God be the Prime Verity teaching Christian Religion darkely without making men see the light of things believed and mediatly by some externall infallible meanes upon which inward assurance must rely then he must ever conserve the Catholique Church and Tradition visible and conspicuous that the same may be by sensible marks discerned And if any object that the senses of men in this search may be deceived through naturall invincible fallibility of their organs and so be no ground of faith that is altogether infallible I answer that evidence had by sense being but the private sense of one man is not ordinarily fallible but when the same is also publique generall that is when a whole world of men concur with him then his evidence is altogether infallible Besides seeing God will not teach men immediatly but will have them cleave to an externall infallible means and to find out this means by the sensible evidence of the thing he is in a manner bound by the perfection of his veracity to assist mens senses with his providence that therein they be not deceived when they use such diligence as men ordinarily use that they be not deceived by their senses Now what greater evidence can one have that he is not deceived in this matter of sense that the Roman doctrine is the Catholique that is doctrine delivered from the Apostles by worlds of Christian Ancestors unanimous amongst themselves in all matters of faith what greater assurance I say can one have that herein he sees aright than a whole world of men professing to see the same that he doth And surely this was the meaning of God by the Prophet Esay when speaking of the Church of Christ he calls it a direct way so that fools cannot erre therein Esa 35.8 which cannot be but by following a world of Ancestors going before them in the same Tract Otherwise it is not only possible for fools but even for them that seem to be wisest to erre yea in this case it is impossible to be otherwise And if it be further objected that I believe the Catholique Church is an Article of Faith and Faith is the argument of things not seen I answer an Article of Faith may be visible according to the substance of the thing and yet invisible according to the manner it is believed in the Creed The third Article He suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified dead and buried according to the substance of the thing was evident to sense and seen of the Jewes and is now believed of their posterity but according to the manner that it is believed in the Creed to wit that herein the Word of God by his Prophets was fulfilled and that it was done for the salvation of man in this manner this visible Article is invisible and so it is believed in the Creed In like manner that there is in the world a Catholike Church and that the Romane is this Catholique Church Pagans Jewes and Heretiques if they shut not their eyes against the light do clearly behold but that herein the Word of God concerning the perpetuall amplitude of his Church is accomplished that this is an effect of Gods varacity to the end that the meanes to learn saving truth may not be hidden this is a
for many hundred years an universall Apostacy over-spread the whole face of the earth so that our Protestant Church was not then visible to the world Fulk saith * Treatise ag Stapleton Martiall p. 25. the Pope hath blinded the world these many hundred years some say 900. some 1000. some 1200. And * On the Revelat. p 64. Napier saith The Antichristian and Papisticall reign began about the year three hundred and sixteen after Christ which is now above 1300. years ago raigning universally without debateable contradiction Gods true Church abiding certainly hidden and latent Secondly Protestants cannot tell the time when the Church of Rome began to change and swerve from the Apostolicall doctrine therefore doubtlesse she hath never changed her faith Now that doctrines universally received although they be not written are Doctrines derived from the Apostles is affirmed by * De Baptis lib. 5. c. 23. S. Augustine and allowed by * D. sence p. 351. 352. D. Whitguift Archbishop of Canterbury who in his book against Puritanes citing divers Protestants as concurring in opinion with him saith whatsoever opinions are not knowne to have begun since the Apostles time the same are not new or secundary but received their originall from the Apostles But because this principle of Christian divinity brings in as Cartwright the Puritan there alledged speaks all Popery in the judgement of all men I will further demonstrate it though of it selfe it be cleer enough Christ by his Spirit being still present with his Church cannot permit errors in Faith so to creep into the Church as that by the very principles of Christianity they become unreformable but if errors so creep into the Church as that their beginning cannot be knowne and their progresse become universall then do they so enter and prevaile that by the principles of Christianity they are past reformation and that because whosoever undertakes to reform them is to be condemned as an Heretique for he that will undertake to reform Doctrines universally received by the Church opposeth himself against the whole Church and is therefore by a knowne and received Principle of Christianity and Christs owne precept to be accounted as a Heathen and a Publican Mat. 18.17 Epist 118. And as S. Augustine saith To dispute against the whole Church is insolent madnesse For the Church by Christ is appointed the Judge and corrector of all others as our Saviour saith Tell the Church and therefore is not to be judged nor corrected by any he that hath the high presumption to doe so presently pulls on himself the censure of a Heathen And justly too for like the Giants amongst the Poets who waged war against the Gods he doth not only oppose the present Church but the Church of all ages even the Apostles themselves and who is sufficient for these things And he begins a new course of Christianity seeking to overthrow that Doctrine which is universally received and cannot be proved by any Tradition of Ancestors to be otherwise planted in the world than by the Apostles themselves through the power of innumerable miracles Wherefore these Doctrines if they be errors are errors whose reformation no man by the principles of Christianity ought to attempt And seeing it is impossible there should be any such errors the Principle of S. Augustine stands firm That Doctrines received universally in the Church without any known beginning are truly Apostolicall and of this kind are the Roman Doctrines from which Protestants have revolted But some Protestants object that the errors of the Pharisees were universally received in the Jewish Church yet reformed by our Saviour To which may be answered that Protestants out of their desire to make Catholiques seem like the Pharisees make themselves seem as if they did not any whit understand the Gospell For the Traditions of the Pharisees were not universall Traditions but certaine practises of piety invented by themselves and deducted by their skill from Scripture whereby they would seem singularly religions and not as other men Secondly Christ Jesus proving himselfe to be true God might reforme errors universally received and the Church of the Jewes falling erect a new Church of Christians as he did which is not lawfull for any one else to doe For Christian Religion must continue to the worlds end by vertue of the first Tradition thereof and must never be interrupted without extraordinary and propheticall beginning by immediate revelation and Miracles If therefore errors be delivered by the full consent of Christian Tradition they are irreformable Again some Protestants say that one may oppose the whole Church and confute her errors by Scripture not be as an Heathen or Heretique for not every one that opposeth the Church is to be accounted an Heathen Whites Reply p. 136. but only such as inordinately and without just cause oppose it And who I pray shall judge of the justnesse of the cause By this doctrine every man is made an examiner and judge of the whole Church hellish confusion brought in thereby For if against the sentence of perpetual universal Tradition a private man may without the guilt of heresie pretend Scripture and stand obstinately therein though the Church do give seeming and appearing answers as some of them confesse to his Scripture yet condemne her answers saying they are sophisticall as some of them do what can be more disorderly or what is Hereticall obstinacy if this be not Wherefore S. Augustine saith absolutely Epist 48. it is impossible men should have just cause to depart from impugn the whole Christian Church And why but because it is a ruled case in Christianity he that heareth not the Church is an Heretike Yet notwithstanding this the Protestants doe charge the Church of Rome DE FACTO to have falne into errors and to have changed her faith and that because points of doctrine undefined about which Doctors have disputed and held different opinions have been afterwards defined by the Church so that it was not lawfull for any after that to make doubt thereof the Church by this meanes hath held in later ages that to be DE FIDE a matter of faith which the former ages did not and so say they hath changed the faith and believes and delivers more than shee received from the Apostles But this I found to be no change of faith but only a declaration of some point explicitly which was implicitly and involvedly believed before For all the Articles of faith were immediately re-revealed by Christ to his Apostles and by them againe delivered to their posterity so that since there have been no new and particular revelations but the first being laid up in the treasury of the Church for which cause S. Paul calls it a depositum a stock or pawn other truths have been deduced from thence as occasion hath required For when any one endeavours to corrupt the doctrine delivered by the Apostles the Church calls her Pastors and Doctors to
have been eye-witnesses of the severall Countreys thereof wherein though the publike profession thereof be Hereticall Mahometicall or Heathenish yet even there hath the Romane Catholique Church both Fathers and children Pastors and people And like the Sea what she loseth in one place she wins in another what she hath lost by the falling away of the Protestants in Europe she hath gained with increase by the propagation of her faith in the East and West Indies where whole Kingdomes are converted thereunto as a Protestant Author confesseth saying Simon Lythus in respons altera ad alteram Gretseri Apologiam p. 333. The Jesuites within the compasse of a few years not content with the bounds of Europe have filled Asia Africa and America with their Idols And thus shee was Catholique by Napier a Protestant Writers confession forementioned and others for 12. or 1300. yeares ago and ever since And whereas Protestants say that this universality is no true mark of the Church because it is appliable to Turkes and Pagans it is doubtlesse a very poor objection for the markes of the Church are not given her by God to distinguish her from all sorts of Religions but only from those that are contained equivocally under the same next kind and may be supposed and taken for Churches that is to say from other Christian societies to wit from Hereticall and Shismaticall Sects which challenge by false markes the title of the true Church To which purpose S. Augustine saith disputing with the Donatists Thou askest of a stranger whether he be a Pagan or a Christian he answers thee a Christian thou askest him whether he be a catechumene Aug de Pastor c. 13. or one of the faithfull he answers thee one of the faithfull thou askest him of what communion he is he answers thee a Christian Catholique Besides the Roman Church hath this forme of universality beyond all Religions of the world even Turkes or Heathens That there is no place of the known world where there are not Roman Catholiques propagating their Religion by converting the people of the land whosoever they are which is manifestly wanting to all other Religions and is therefore in this regard also more universally spread over the face of the earth than any other Others say that this universall spreading of the Church is antidated by Roman Catholiques with application to themselves for that it was not to take beginning but from the time of Luther because some places of Scripture which speak of the largenesse of the Church say it shall be in the later daies But it is manifest that by later daies is meant all the space of time from Chirst to the end of the world as S. Peter interpreting a prophecie of Joel which saith that it shall come to passe in the last daies that God will powre his Spirit upon all flesh Acts 2.17 by which is intended the amplitude of the Church applies it to that present time when the holy Ghost descended upon the Apostles Nor can any reasonable man imagine that it can sort with the goodnesse of God and his tender love to mankind to suffer the light of his truth in the not spreading of his Church to be eclipsed for 14. or 1500. years seeing that according to the opinion of some learned men grounded upon fair probabilities the world is likely to last but 2000. yeares after Christ. Howsoever this universality of the Protestant Religion is but begun it is not perfected for the Roman Church is yet actually exceeding larger and Protestants that allow this for a mark of the true Church now begin hopefully to apply it to themselves are bound to be of the Roman till they see their expectation satisfied in the Protestant Churches exceeding her in latitude which I dare boldly say will not be as long as they live and therefore they ought to die in the Roman Faith § 3. But if we examine the matter a little more strictly we shall find that the Protestants plea for universality wil be cut very short when we consider that though they make themselves all of one Church when they would vie for multitude with the Roman Church yet compared with one another we shall find that they are very many Churches not distinguished by nation only but by doctrine and points of faith and that there are many Churches in one Nation as in England for example and will be many more if the desired Independency be advanced Now it is not sufficient that the Protestant Religion in generall be enlarged but it must be the true Protestant Religion which every particular Sect thinking it self to be of and denying it the most of them to the rest the universality of the Religion wil be mightily abated Indeed when they muster their strengths together and make boast of their greatnesse then they rake all into the title of Protestantisme who have revolted from the Roman Church count them on their side as if the definition of a Protestant were one that is opposite to the Church of Rome So that if there were a thousand sorts of Heretiques in the world they would in this case account them but one Church But the word Catholique being a note of Communion as I have shewed already as the Roman Church calls none a Catholique that doth not communicate with her so cannot the Protestant Church of Engl. count any to be of her Religion thereby by inlarging of her bounds to prove her selfe Catholique unlesse they will communicate with her which the Grecian Churches wil not the Lutheran Churhes will not many of the Sects within the Kingdom will not as Presbyterians Antinomians Anabaptists Brownists Familists Erastians Socinians Arminians Seekers Adamites Shakers Independents with many others These I say will not communicate with the Protestant Church of England nor will they communicate each with other but have at least most frequently their Congregations as they call them separate and apart so that these are all to be accounted severall Churches and Religions and no one is further universall than the communion thereof doth spread which is so litle a way that none of them is nay though they were al united together would they be able to stand in competition with the Roman Church under whose Communion are many entire Kingdoms and in all known parts of the world an infinity of people even in Asia Africa and America where the name of Protestant much more any particular Sect thereof is altogether unknowne Besides all the Christian Churches which are now separated from the Roman were once united to her both in faith and communion and then either she was the Catholique Church or there was none in the world which is impossible therefore they that departed from her departing from the Catholique Church became Schismatiques and departing from the faith they received from her become Heretiques § 4 Lastly the very possession of the name Catholique is a proof that it doth belong to her seeing no sort of Christians
third mark of the Church And of the vanity of Protestants supposition that the true Church is sometimes invisible That Protestant Churches have not alwaies been visible § 1. The third mark we will seek the true Church by is Visibility which was foretold by the Prophet Esay 2.2 Micah 4.1 It shall come to passe in the last daies that the mountaine of the Lords house shall be established in the top of the mountaines and shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow unto it Also Ezek. 37.28 The nations shall know that I am the sanctifier of Israel when my sanctification shall be in the middle of them for ever And S. Augustine resembles it according to the saying of our Saviour Matth. 5.14 A city placed on a hil that cannot be hid And he hath placed his tabernacle in the sun Psal 18.6 that is in open view c. his tabernacle his Church is placed in the Sun not in the night but in the day Tom. 9. in Epist Jo. Tract 2. And further saith of the Church that e Cont. Petil. l. 2. c. 104. she hath this most certain marke that she cannot be hid she is then known to all Nations the sect of Donatus is unknown to many Nations that then cannot be she To the children of the Church it is appointed by Christ that for the redresse of their grievances they tell the Church Mat. 81.17 which were a delusion unlesse the Church were alwaies visible who did also forewarn us against all obscure congregations saying If therefore they shall say unto you behold he is in the desert go you not forth behold he is in secret places believe it not Mat. 24.26 Now according to these assurances I found that the Roman Church was alwaies and eminently visible but the Protestant never eminent and for the most part not visible at all Concerning the visibility of the Church of Rome it is proved before by those testimonies which shew the antiquity perpetuall continuance thereof which cannot be proved but with the granting of her visibility Nor have I found the Protestants denying it the thing being so visible that it leaves no place for objections But they think to wipe out this mark by saying that it is not necessary to a true Church to be alwaies visible but others disliking that assertion by reason of the absurdity thereof do affirme to counterpoize the Roman that the Protestant Church hath been alwaies visible § 2. And first they that hold that the Church hath been invisible and that therefore visibility is not a certain mark of the Church indeavour to prove it by the example of the Church of the Jewes in the daies of Elias 3 King 19.10.18 who complained that the Prophets were slaine and he only was left alive and God answered that there were left seven thousand that had not bowed the knee to Baal To which objection I found the answer of Catholiques very true namely that this complaint of Elias was uttered with relation to the Kingdome of Israel onely wherein Elias then was and was persecuted by King Ahab but in the Kingdome of Judah the Church did florish and was sufficiently known to him and all men under the reigns of Asa and Joshaphat 3 Kings 22.41 who reigned in Judah when Achab reigned in Israel As what time the number of true believers was so great 2 Chron. 17.14 15 16 17 18 19. that the men of war only did amount to many hundred thousands And whereas M. Meade makes reply to this answer saying that the Church was invisible in the Kingdome of Iudah also in the daies of Manasses because it is said 2 Chron. 33. that Manasses set up Idolatry committed all impiety and caused Judah and Jerusalem to erre I answer that this comes short of a proof for though the Kings example in all cases though never so bad have a mighty influence on the people yet this proves not but that the Kingdome or an eminent part or at least a visible part both of Priests and people was still untainted even as it was in the daies of the persecution of Antiochus against the Jewes who set up the Abomination of desolation the Idoll of Olympick Jupiter in the Temple and compelled men to worship it Besides if it were as he would have it the case is much different between a very short time of the invisibility of the Church of the Jewes for we read in the same Chapter that Manasses quickly repented and amended all and the invisibility of the Protestant Church which by their own confessions was above a thousand years Also the comparison between the Church of the Jewes and Christians is not equall the New Testament being established in better promises Heb. 8.6 and therefore that may be incident to the one which is not to the other Moreover if there had been this totall eclipse it had relation but to the Nation of the Jewes only besides which were many other faithfull people in all ages as appears by the examples of Melchizedek Job c. in the Old Testament and in the New of Cornelius and the Eunuch to the Queen of Candace amongst which the Church might be visible though amongst the Jewes invisible § 3. Others I have heard say that by Catholikes own confession in the daies of Antichrist the Church shall be invisible But I never have read any Catholique that said so yet on the contrary I have found Protestants affirm a Bullinger in Apoc. 20. Fulk against Rhē in Thes 2. sect 5. the visibility of the Church and that universally even all the daies of Antichrist which makes against themselves if they account the Pope Antichrist as most of them do and themselves the Church Yet Doctor White contrary to his brethren saith that b F. VVhites Reply p. 61. lin 15. 26. in time of persecution the true Church may be reputed an impious Sect by the multitude and so not be known by the notion of true and holy nor can her truth be discerned by sense and common reason To which I answer that as there are four properties of Church-doctrine so there are foure notions of the Church The first is to bee Mistresse of saving truth and according to this notion the Church is invisible to the naturall understanding both of men and Angells for God only and his Blessed see our Religion to be the truth The second is to be Mistresse of Doctrine truly revealed by secret inspiration according to this notion ordinarily speaking the Church is invisible to almost all men that are or ever were the Apostles and Prophets only excepted The third to be Mistresse of the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles by their preaching and miracles planted in the world according to this notion the Church was visible to the first and Primitive times but now is not The fourth is to be Mistresse of Catholique doctrine that is of Doctrine delivered received by full Tradition and profession all the
adversaries thereof that are under the title of Christian being divided amongst themselves and notorious changers and according to this notion the Church is ever visible and sensible to all men even to her enemies Otherwise there is no ordinary meanes left for men to know what the Apostles taught nor consequently what God by inspiration revealed to them And if she and the light of truth she carries with her should be hidden and lost we must begin again anew from a second fountain of immediate revelation from God and build upon the new planting thereof with Miracles in the world by some new Apostles And if this be absurd then there must ever be in the world a Church visible whose Traditions are famously Catholique and consequently shewing themselves to be the Apostles to all men that will not be obstinate And that the Church shall be universally visible even in the daies of Antichrist may be gathered out of the Scripture Rev. 20.8 For she shall then be every where persecuted which could not be unlesse she were visible and conspicuous even to the wicked And even during the first 300. years after Christ wherein the Church indured incomparably more universall and raging persecutions than ever were yet the a Magd. cent 1 2 3. Fulke cont Stapleton de success Eccl. p. 246. Century-writers and sundry others do take certain and particular notice of the Catholique Bishops and Pastors by name in those very ages of their administration of the Word and Sacraments and their open impugning of Heresies And surely our Lord himself had been which is blasphemy to think of him who is the eternall wisdome of the Father the most imprudent of all Law-makers to have a Law so obscure and exposed to so many suppositions depravations and false expositions whereto the malice of the Heretiques of all ages hath subjected it without leaving a depository to keep it and a judge to interpret it or to leave it to such a keeper and such a judge as should be invisible § 4. Other Protestants I have observed who though they confesse the invisibility of their Church yet professe the being thereof and assigne the place for it to be in the Roman Church mixed like a great deal of ore with a very little pure gold so that it was not discernable But this assignation of their Church seemed to me very unreasonable for either those Protestants did professe their owne faith or they did not if they did then doubtlesse they were visible and the Roman Church would soon have taken notice of them as she did in all ages of such though it were but one man that differed from her If they did not make profession of their faith what wretched sonnes of fear were they that to preserve their temporall security durst not publiquely avow their own Religion but comply in all things with a Religion in their opinion false and impious and dissemblingly do all the externall acts thereof and this all their lives for many generations successively This was not the part of a true Church or of any true member thereof who will surely die rather than deny his Saviour as he doth who believing himselfe to be of the true Religion makes profession of that which he deemes to be false Nor did they fulfill the Prophesie of Esay concerning the true Church which saith I have set watchmen upon thy walls which shall never hold their peace day nor night Esay 62.6 But Doctor Feild hath a new fancy of his owne which I never observed in any but himselfe who saith to this purpose that before the separation of the Protestants from the Church of Rome the Church of Rome it selfe was the Protestant Church and that the Papists were but a faction of the Court of Rome an assertion so grosly false that all the world is a witnesse against it yea even I think all other Protestants themselves and needs no confutation § 5. Others taking all these Pleas for insufficient do affirm that their Church was in being and in sight also in all ages but that through the injury of later times no testimony thereof is now remaining but that all their records through the violence of the Pope and his Clergie have been utterly suppressed Of which vaine conceipt there is no proof at all and if the assertion without proof will serve their turne it may serve also for any other Religion Christian or not Christian who if they please may say the same thing but are never like to be believed by any man of common understanding Besides it thwarteth all experience as appeares by the example of Husse and Wickliffe whose writings are yet extant of Charlemaines pretended Book against Images and Bertrams concerning the Sacrament Also by the decrees of Catholique Councells and the large writings of Catholique Doctors reciting and condemning all opinions contrary to the Roman faith Lastly by the Ecclesiasticall Historiographers of every age who make this the argument of their writings yea even from them the Protestant * Centurists of Magdeburg Cent. Madg. Osiand Ep. Illyricus Catol VVhitak cont Duraeum pag. 276. 469. and others do recite the opinions mentioned and condemned in every age by the Church of Rome of which some were the very same that have since been revived by Protestants So that the Church of Rome hath been so far from extinguishing their records that she hath been the chief recorder of them and their doctrines § 6. The last and most valiant attempt of Protestants is to affirme that as the Church must be allwaies visible so theirs hath been in persons distinct from the Roman Church and thereby invite us to * A Protestants book so entituled look beyond Luther Which barren endeavour of theirs hath been like Peters fishing all night and catching nothing For they whom the Protestants claime for their predecessors were neither of their Religion nor yet alwaies visible there happening huge gaps betwixt them nor can the Protestants by any art or industry bring both ends together First they were not of the same Religion for to be of the same Religion or Church with another imports an agreement in all points of faith for the truth of doctrine being of the essence of the Church whosoever erres in any little thereof he ceaseth to participate of the soule of the Church which is the Spirit of truth and is but a dead member one equivocally and in name but not in truth We see that the Arrians Macedonians and many other Heretiques were accounted and are so by many Protestants not of the Catholique Church for one single error against faith now the Protestants disagreeing in many points not only from one another at this present but from all that went before them and that in points which they believe to be revealed in the Scripture their only rule are neither one Church amongst themselves at this present nor any one of them one with any society that hath gone before In particular the Grecians whom
they court to their faction are no Protestants for they hold damnable errors in the judgment of Protestants to wit Invocation of Saints Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion in one kind for the sick with many others So that Protestants are in great penury of professors of their Religion before Luther that are forced to call the Grecians in as Protestants in essence for they may even as well name the Pope himselfe As for John Husse and his followers who brake out about the year 1400. and are claimed to be Predecessors in the Protestant Religion it is certaine that they were no Protestants but held such Doctrines that if they were now in England they should suffer as Papists For they held a p. 216. seven Sacraments b p. 209. Transubstantiation c p. 217. art 7 8. the Popes primacy and the d Luther in Colloq Ger. c. de Missa Masse it self as Fox in his Acts and Monuments acknowledgeth No greater title have they to Wickliffe who appeared about the year 1370. in whom some Protestants say their visibility was maintained for he did visibly maintain Popery as e Wiclerus de blasphemia c. 17. holy water the f Idem de Eucharist c. 9. worship of Reliques and Images the g Idem in Ser. de assumpt Mariae intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary h Idem de apostosia c. 18. the Rites and ceremonies of the Masse all the i Idem in postil sup c. 15. Marci 7. Sacraments with all the points of Catholique doctrine now in question Moreover he held errors in the condemnation wherof both Catholiques and Protestants do agree as that k Acts Mon. p. 96. a. art 4. if a Bishop or Priest be in mortall sinne he doth not order consecrate or baptize l Idem p. 96 fine That Ecclesiasticall Ministers should not have temporall possessions He m Osiand Epit. hist Eccl. p. 459 art 43. condemned lawfull oathes with the Anabaptists and held many other pernicious doctrines Let any man then judge whether this man and his followers were Protestants or no. Then they ascend higher and claim on Waldo a merchant of Lions who brake out of the Sheepfold about the year 1220. with his followers as men in whom the Protestant Church was visible But these men were no more of kin to them than the former For they held the n In Ep. 244. p. 450. reall presence in the B. Sacrament for which they are reproved by Calvin who therfore understood them in the Catholique sense not in the Protestant And the most essentiall Doctrine of the Waldenses was their extolling of the merit of * Illiriâ—us Catolog Test p. 1498. voluntary poverty affirming all Ministers to be damned that had rents and possessions and that the Church perished under Pope Silvester and the Emperour Constantine through the poyson of temporall goods which Clergy-men began then to enjoy as they said against the Law of God Surely Protestants do not account this an Article of their faith Moreover the Waldenses held * Idem Catol Test p. 1502. these Anabaptisticall Errors That children are not to be baptized That there is no difference betweene a Bishop and a Priest a Priest and a Lay man That the Apostles were Lay-men and that every Lay-man that is vertuous is a Priest may preach and administer Sacraments That a woman pronouncing the words of consecration in the vulgar tongue doth consecrate yea transubstantiate bread into the body of Christ That it is a mortall sin to swear in any case That Magistrates being in mortall sin do lose in their office and no man is to obey them with many other absurdities too tedious to be recited The like may be said of the Albigenses and also of Beringarius who broached his Heresie about the yeare 1048. who was a Protestant but onely in the point against Transubstantiation which he also recanted and died a Catholique And what do any of these or all these together availe the Protestants every one of them extending but to some part of time between this and the Primitive Church and is also but the example of some one or other private man in whom the revolt first began who was first a Catholike and beginning afterwards to hold some one or few points of the Protestant faith continued in all other matters of controversie a Catholique By all which it appeares that none of these were Protestants and that therefore in them the visibility of the Protestant Church is not maintained And that if it were yet seeing they lived at severall times ununited by a line of time one to another but jumping over severall ages against the Law of nature which non facit saltum and that therfore in the between-spaces there was an invisibility of the Protestant Church the main question of their Churches perpetuall visibility is yet unsatisfied Especially when we consider that for about a thousand yeares which was the time betwixt Beringarius and the Apostles the Protestants pretend to no predecessors As for the most Primitive Fathers whom they affirm to maintain the Protestant Doctrine I have in brief shewed it to be false already and they that will search shall more largely find it so Also they all died members of the Roman Church So that the Protestants have not in them to wit the Fathers a visible Church distinct from the Roman nor was the Roman theirs From whence it is manifest that there is not any one Protestant Church in the world that can shew her visibility in any Kingdome city poor countrey village or particular person from the Apostles time to Luther the truth wherof M. Wotton is not ashamed to confesse where he saith in his answer to a Popish Pamphlet p. 11. You will say shew us where the faith religion you professe were held Nay prove you they were held no where c. and what if it could not be shewed yet we know by the Articles of our Creed that there hath been alwaies a Church in which we say this Religion we now professe must of necessity be held with us it is no inconvenience to have the true Church hid This stands you upon to disprove which when you attempt to do by any particular records you shal have particular answer Than which saying what more ridiculous To presume that their Church was alwaies visible in the land of Vtopia sure where no man ever saw it because it is the true Church wheras they should prove it the true Church because it hath been alwaies visible the knowledge of her visibility being much more easie than of her truth which is the main thing in controversie And to require of Catholiques proof that they were not visible by particular records is extreme foolish records being memorialls of things that were not of things that were not § 7. All which considerations shaking the confidence of many Protestants in the visibility of their Church before Luther
not prove it shewes the interruption of their succession and while they affirm it shewes that they believe their succession and calling insufficient unlesse they derive it from the Church of Rome thereby acknowledging the Church of Rome the true Church which they in their Doctrine and dependence have forsaken and there can be no reason to forsake the true Church upon what pretence soever For the errors of the Church of Rome are but supposed and their Reformation neither is but supposed they being infallibily sure of nothing since they hold their Church may erre and so for ought ought they certainly know it did in accu and forsaking the Church of Rome and in their own imaginary amendment and instead of Christ have chosen Barrabas And what can be more inconsiderate than to forsake the true Church by their own confession upon pretences of whose truth they are by their own confession also uncertain For he that confesseth he may erre in that wherin he may erre being an object of the understanding not of the sense cannot be sure that he doth not erre And so they are altogether at a losse and a ground not infallibly no nor prudently sure of the least tittle they affirm They cannot be infallibly sure because they may erre as themselves confesse they cannot be prudently sure seeing there is a hundred voyces and judgements of men for the Roman Church to one for any Protestant Church They had therefore done much more wisely to have followed the admonition of S. Paul to Timothy DEPOSITUM CUSTODI keep that which is committed to thy charge 1. Tim. 6.20 and what is that saith Vincentius Lirinensis He answereth Comomnit advers haer c. 27. It is that which thou art trusted with not that which is found out by thee that which thou hast received not which thou hast devised a thing not of wit that is of thine own fancy but of learning that is which thou hast learnt not of private usurpation but of publique Tradition a thing brought to thee not brought forth by thee wherein thou oughtest to be not the Author but the keeper not a Master but a Scholler not a leader but a follower § 2. As for their assertion who say that Roman Catholiques and Protestants are all one Church it is both false foolish False it is because the differing in any one point of faith proposed by the Church makes one party not to be of the true Church it is certain that the Church of Rome and England differ in many Doth not the Church of England account the four grand Heretiques who were condemned in the first four Generall Councells to be out of the Church and not one with her that condemned them and they held each of them but some one or very few points different from the Church of Rome So that either they must confesse themselves also not to be one with the Roman Church or else that all Hretiques are of it which is absurd and contrarie to the mind of d De fide Symbolo c. 10. S. Augustine who saith that neither Heretiques nor Schismatiques are of the Church If Protestants say that they that were condemned in those Councells did indeed hold Heresies and so were not the Church but their own are truths and amendments of the Doctrine of the Church I answer so did those Heretiques also say yea and prove it by Scriptures and Fathers in their own sense and did believe their Doctrines to be the pure Word of God as confidently as any Protestants in the world do theirs who cannot say more for themselves than they did and they were some of them as numerous and as learned as Protestants are nor was there more authority against them than against the Protestants which is The Catholique Roman Church guided by the Spirit of God and the Word of God written unwritten Moreover they were the parties accused so are the Protestants it is not fit therefore that they should be the Judges If they say that they also accuse the Church of Rome of errors and therefore it is not fit that she should be Judge I answer some body must if ever we will have an end of controversie and then whether the whole society of Christians or some one or few men for so all Heresies began and so did the Protestant Religion in one Luther let any indifferent man judge Moreover God hath made the Church the Judge saying tell the Church and that is the Church of Rome as those Protestants must grant who say they are one with it and that it was the Church when they revolted from her And to consider the matter according to reason seen in the practise of all societies and bodies whether Ecclesiasticalll or Civill if any one or few members break the law and rule of the whole who shall judge whether it be well or ill done Surely either the head or the head and whole representative body together And this was the proceeding against Luther and the Protestants in a Generall Councell by which they were condemned and cast out of the Church Which judgement if it be not sufficient but that the condemned party justifying himself by his own bare affirmation or interpretation of the Law according to his own particular fancy contrary to the whole body whereof he is or was a member may be admitted what Heretique or Rebell will ever be found guilty or will not in despite of all mankind be accounted a true Christian and loyall subject and the soundest member of the whole body Secondly it is both poore and absurd for Protestants to seeke for shelter and countenance under that Church which they have abandoned disgraced and cruelly wounded though to their owne destruction thereby also abusively perswading many people to keep still in the Protestant Church while they think they are of the Roman they being as their new Masters teach them both but one Church § 3. But Catholiques whose consent it is very fit should be taken in this matter acknowledge no such union of Churches betwixt themselves and Protestants for Catholiques doe not allow their Ordination and Consecration of Bishops and Priests for good which appeares in that if a Priest of the Roman Church revolt to the Protestant party he is allowed by them to be a lawfull Priest but not so if a Protestant Minister returne to the Roman Church Also some Protestants grant that Roman Catholiques may be saved in their Religion but Catholiques doe not grant the like to Protestants which they would doe surely if they thought they were all one Church Besides the denying to communicate with each other is a proof that in the opinion of both they are not all one Church And whereas Protestants magnifie their own charity in this kind conceit of theirs and accuse Catholiques of the want therof it is very idle for the controversie about the meanes of salvation and the Church wherein it is to be had is not to be determined by
the judgement of charity but of discretion Catholiques judge no particular man to be damned because they know not the operations of God upon his soule in his latest minutes but they judge that all men out of the Roman Catholique Church are out of the road of salvation because they are assured thereof by the word of God And if to grant the possibility of salvation to others be such a testimony of charity as they conceive then surely Origen was of all men most charitable who held that at the last even the devills themselves should be saved and yet I find no man agreeing with him in this charitable opinion But the truth is as I conceive that Protestants are thus kind to Catholiques for their own ends which are to provoke Catholiques to shew the same favour to them that so they may have the better security in their way by the concurrent opinions of others and also for feare lest by denying salvation to the Church of Rome they cut off the hope thereof from themselves who acknowledge no lawfull ministry by consequence no Church and by consequence no salvation but that which they derive from the Church of Rome Which seeing they do indeed want they are neither united with her nor can justly hope for salvation without her CHAP. XV. Of the fifth Mark of the true Church viz. Unity in doctrine And of horrible dissentions among Protestants § 1. A Fifth Mark of the Church is unity in doctrine of which it is said by S. Paul I beseech you that all speak one thing be ye knit together in one mind and one judgement 1. Cor. 1.10 endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Ephes 4.3 Continue in one Spirit and one mind Philip. 1.27 of one accord and one judgement Philip 2.2 Thus in the first times were the multitude of them that believed of one heart and one soule Acts 4.32 Thus our Saviour prayeth and no doubt was heard that they may be one John 17.11 and the effect of that prayer we see in the Church of Rome and no where else Thus also the Holy Ghost describes the Church of Christ saying my dove is one Cant. 6.8 And the want of this unity is so improper to God that he is therefore termed the God not of dissention but of peace 1 Cor. 14.33 And it is such an assured meanes to shorten continuance that the Scripture saith if you bite and devoure one another take heed that you be not consumed one of another Galat. 5.15 and that a kingdome divided against it self shall perish Luc. 11.17 And by the want of this mark of unity did the antient Fathers discover the Heretiques of their times S. Crysostome saith Op. imperfect in Math. Hom. 20. All infidells that are under the devill are not united nor hold the same things but are dispersed by divers opinions one saith so and another so c. in the same manner are the falshoods of Heretiques who never hold the same things but have so many opinions as there are persons To the same purpose speakes Jrenaeus Tertullian and others Iren. l. 1. c. 5. Tertull. de praesc advers haer 42. And this unity I found apparently in the Church of Rome and the contrary as apparent amongst Protestants Thus the antient writers do wonderfully agree in all matters of faith so also do all the decrees of all lawfull Councells and Popes though they were men living in severall ages in severall countries and wrote in severall languages And now also all Catholiques in the world howsoever otherwise divided by country language particular interest civill dissentions or war yet agree exactly in all points of faith And this because they have a certaine compasse to steere by to wit the generall Tradition of the Church and the decrees of Generall Councells who they have reason to believe doe preserve that which was delivered by the Apostles and if any doubt arise about the sense of Scripture are better able to interpret it than any other persons to which therefore they doe modestly and wisely submit their judgements But no such agreement was ever found or ever can bee found amongst Protestants or any sort of Heretiques S. Irenaeus lib. 1. cap. 21. saith of Simon Magus his Heresie that it was divided into severall sects S. Augustine of the Donatists lib. 1. de Bapt. c. 6. that in his time it was cut into small threds And particularly the same is happened to Protestants who soon after their separation from the Church of Rome were divided amongst themselves and have ever since so continued multiplying daily in their divisions insomuch that even in the one Kingdome of England and even in the one City of London there are very many And in many particular houses there are some different Sects of Religion each pretending to be the true Protestant and denying that title to the other Nor is there any meanes to reconcile their differences but they are rather likely to grow more and greater as wee see at this day For no Sect will acknowledge another its superiour in matter of Religion nor stand to its judgment except it be by force no not any one particular person thinks himself obliged to submit to the whole world therefore they use to say that they will not pin their faith upon another mans sleeve but all pretend to be guided by the Word of God which each one will interpret for himselfe and accuse all others of error so far as they dissent from him And though Sects and Heresies do first arise out of the Catholique Church as the Apostle saith There must be Heresies 1 Cor. 11.19 yet the Church doth not lose her unity hereby because she having a certain Touch-stone whereby to try them namely the judgement of the Church if they will not submit to that they are excommunicated and by judiciall sentence cut off from that body from which they first cut themselves by mis-belief as the Apostle saith an hereticall man after the first and second admonition avoid Tit. 3.10 whereby they preserve the rest of the body intire and at unity within it self So that the Heresies do not arise from the Doctrine of the Church but from the malice of the Devill But amongst Protestants the liberty of reading and interpreting Scripture and the examining and judging the Preachers Doctrine thereby being given to every silly soul as Doctor Bilson saith c True difference part 2. p. 353. The people are discerners and judges of that which is taught as with good reason they ought for it was upon this ground that they first separated from the Church of Rome undertaking to be judges of her Doctrine and if the present Clergie should not continue this liberty to the people against themselves who are no more infallible than the other nor can pretend to it they would play very foule play with the people and instead of giving them liberty of conscience which they promised only translate them from
directions only not obligations Therefore in England many both of the people and Clergie also doe deny some one some another particular according to their pleasure and yet the Generall Church of Protestants and the particular of England doth suffer men teaching and professing contrary doctrines as points of faith to abide in her communion and passe under the name of Protestants And seeing that of contrary doctrines one side must needs be false while the Protestant Church permits both sides to be preached as matter of faith and the Word of God she knowingly suffers the profession of false doctrine and so is the mother of falshood as much as truth and therefore cannot be the true Church The Church of Rome doth not so but if any preach or professe contrary to that which is decreed she shuts them out of her Communion and disinherits them of the title of Catholique As for other points which are without the compasse of her decrees wherein there is a mighty latitude according to the extent of mens reasons she permits every man to hold as his particular understanding shall direct him The Puritanes will have all governed by the written word of God The Chillingworthians will have all guided by particular reason and both sorts differ amongst themselves The Church of Rome more wisely in matters of faith and Religion is directed by the Word of God either written or unwritten and therein her children never differ or if they do are renounced In Schoole points and things undefined her children are guided by their particular reason and herein they do and may differ yet without disunion as well as in points of Philosophie For Schoole points are not points of Religion properly religion being derived à RELIGANDO from binding but in School points men are not bound to the belief of either side but have free liberty to hold or change as they think they have cause untill it be otherwise determined by a Councell And this may be done without the just imputation of division as S. Augustine De Bapt. cont Donat. l. 1. c. 18. l. 2. c. 4. saith Divers men be of divers judgements without breach of peace untill a generall Councell allow some one part for pure and cleer Thus doth he excuse S. Cyprians disagreement and error concerning the baptizing of such as were baptized by Heretiques saying that himselfe durst not have condemned the same unlesse I had been strengthened with the most agreable authority of the Catholique Church to which Cyprian himselfe no doubt would have yeelded if at that time the truth of the question had been made cleer and manifest by a generall Councell Which some refusing to doe after that that opinion of Cyprians was by a Councell condemned to shew the difference of holding against a point defined and not defined Vincentius Lyrinensis chap. 9. thus breakes out O admirable change the authors of one self opinion are called Catholiques and the followers of it heretiques Secondly there is in doctrines a difference between the conclusion or point of faith it selfe and the reason or manner thereof in the former of these unity is required and is performed most axactly amongst Catholiques but in the later which concernes but the reason of that conclusion which reason is for the most part reduced to some Scholasticall subtilty learned men have in all ages and may without breach of unity maintaine their difference For although all men be bound to the decree'd point of faith yet they are not so to the reason and manner thereof unlesse the same also be defined by the Church And hereby are answered all the objections of Protestants concerning the disagreement of Catholiques as of the Thomists and Scotists concerning the Conception of our Blessed Lady of the Dominicans and Jesuites about the concurrence of Grace and Freewill with such like in which the Church hath not yet interposed her Decree And some Protestants affirm out of their profound politicall insight that she never will and that because forsooth she dares not out of fear to displease so mighty a party as each opinion hath And yet they know that the Church was not afraid to decree against the opinions of Luther and his brood notwithstanding she lost some Kings and much people thereby but the losse was not only hers but theirs much more she lost some incurable members but they lost themselves And doubtlesse when she sees it meet to determine any of the controversies amongst the learned shee will doe it without any fear but of God In the mean time we see that their differences of opinions breed no more disturbance in the Church nor rancor amongst themselves than their different colours and shapes of apparrell Brotherly charity is not violated amongst them they will all goe to the same Church they will communicate together and confesse to one another nor is there any of them but if he be asked will say that he will stand to a Generall Councell in any of the points of difference amongst them and submit his judgement to hers But Protestants have no Councells nor any authority to call a Councell out of the extent of their temporall dominions the Articles of Religion which they have agreed upon apart are very different one from another as may be seen in their Harmony of Confessions nor in the same Dominion will they stand to any determination of Convocation Synod or Assembly further than it decrees according to the Word of God of which every one will be a judge for himfelfe And in the mean time they violate brotherly charity make schisms and separations one from another refuse to goe to Church or communicate together and in defence of their differences wage war one against another So that their Harmony of Confessions may more truly be called the confusion of Confessions and their Churches the tumults of Religion The greatest unity they have is not in believing but in not believing though therein they are not exact as I have shewed before their faith as they call it being for the most part negative consisting in denying what Catholiques affirme as denying and not believing the infallibility of the Church the Reall Corporall presence seven Sacraments Invocation of Saints Purgatory and Prayer for the dead with many other abating their positive faith almost to nothing now not-believing is not believing and their profession and union in the most is not of faith but of infidelity And for their positive belief I think it consists in two Articles only That there is a God and that Jesus Christ died for the sinnes of the world and whosoever affirmes more than this it will be no hard matter to find some other Protestants that will deny it what union then is there amongst them but that which was betwixt Symeon and Levi to be brethren in evill and in writing the Articles of their Religion as Draco did his lawes in blood For what nation is there where the Protestant Religion hath settled her foot where they did
Saint is kept with great veneration and frequent Miracles wrought thereby and there was he made perfectly whole and thereupon abjured the Religion wherein his father brought him up and became a Roman Catholique § 3. Now for the Miracles that are said to be done in the Roman Church we have as high humane Testimony as can be imagined So that Protestants may with as much reason deny all humane story as that there were Henries and Edwards Kings of England whom they never saw yea they may as justly deny or doubt of the truth of their owne names which they doe not know but by report and mens calling them so and the poor record of a Church-book but Miracles have much more famous Records and more people that believe them And can they prudently imagine all Christians but themselves so stupid and foolish to believe these things without sufficient proof who in all other matters they must without the help of modesty acknowledg more wise and learned then themselves What did Christ and his Apostles doe more than the Roman Church hath since done and what can Protestants say more against her than the unbelieving Jewes or Gentiles might say against them And because some feigned Miracles are sometimes discovered from thence to charge all with the same accusation as it is unjust so it is absurd and destroies all humane faith they may as well deny all that is or hath been done in the world whereof they have not been eye-witnesses because some of those reports have been false Therefore as they believe Catholiques when they say some were feigned so in justice they ought to believe them when they say others are not so Otherwise by the same way of reasoning they may say that the Miracles of Moses were not true because the Magitians were counterfeit or that the new Testament is not the word of God because there were many Gospells Epistles counterfeited under the names of the Apostles And surely Catholiques would never endeavour to discover feigned Miracles if they were not sure that some were true but rather by one act condemn all that have been since the Apostles that are or shall be for false and counterfeit as Protestants in effect doe when they say that Miracles are ceased Moreover to affirme that Miracles are Antichristian as some Protestants doe is improper first because it is yet in question betwixt us whether Antichrist be come or no which Protestants have not proved nor never will with reference to the Pope Secondly it is granted on both sides that Antichrist shall doe no Miracles properly but only some signes and wonders not exceeding the power of nature and the devills art whereof one is to cause fire to come down from heaven Apoc. 13.13 which never any Pope did but the Miracles done in the Church doe exceed all created power And lastly many Miracles were done in the Roman Church before the time or times for they agree not in their reckoning that Protestants say Antichrist did first appear as at the reliques of d Chrysost in lib. cont Gentiles Babylas e Nazian in Cyprian Cyprian f Ieron in vita Hilar. Hilarion and many others So that all Catholiques may say with Richardus de Sancto Victore not with doubt or feare of being deceived but with assurance to the contrary g Lib. 1. de Trinit c. 2. O Lord if it be error that we believe we are deceived by thee for thou hast confirmed these things to us with signes and wonders which could not be done but by thee CHAP. XVII Of the seventh Mark of the true Church viz. Conversion of Kingdomes and Monarchs § 1. ANother Mark of the true Church is the conversion of Kingdomes and Nations from Heathenisme to the faith of Christ As the Prophet Esay saith Kings shall bee thy nursing-Fathers and Queens thy Mothers Esay 49.23 thou shalt suck the milke of the Gentiles and the brests of Kings Esay 60.61 Their Kings shall minister to thee and thy gates shall be continually open that men may bring to thee the riches of the Gentiles and that their Kings may be brought c. Esay 60.10 11. And the English Bible printed Anno 1576. upon the 49. of Esay vers 23. saith The meaning is that Kings shall be converted to the Gospell and bestow their power and authority for the preservation of the Church And this Mark I found on the Roman Catholike but not upon the Protestant Church The first three hundred years after Christ being a time of great persecution there were few or no Kings converted to Christianity and from Constantine to Boniface the third which was almost 300. years more there were few Kings converted except the Emperours of the East and West and they were converted to the Roman Catholique not to the Protstant Faith as Napier in his Treatise on the Rev. p. 145. confesseth saying After the year of God 300. the Emperour Constantine subdued all Christian Churches to Pope Sylvester from which time till these our daies the Pope and his Clergie hath possessed the outward and visible Church Now since the yeare 600. these Prophesies have been accomplishing and they have been done by the Roman Church not by the Protestant Churches which were untill Luthers daies under hatches and invisible by their owne confession before mentioned And if wee look upon the conversion of Kings and Nations in these later times since their ignis fatuus which they call the glorious light of the Gospell hath appeared we shall find it performed not by Protestants but by Roman Catholiques in the remote and divided parts of the m Joan. Petrus Maffeus hist Indicarum 16. East and n Jos Acosta de natur novi orbis West Indies and of o Hartwell of Congo Epist to Reader Africa as by sufficient testimony appears In so much that Simon Lythus a Protestant before alledged saith The Jesuites within the space of a few years have filled Asia Africa America with their Idolls And whereas it is objected that the Gothes were converted to the Christian Religion by the Arrians first p Cap. 22. de not Eccl. Bellarmine proves it to be false secondly if it were true yet it is of no moment to prove the power of any other Religion but the Roman Catholique for the converting of nations and the fulfilling of the large Prophesies of the Scripture therein seeing they that are pretended to be converted by the Arrians were but the lesser part of the Gothes most of them having been Catholiques before Thirdly this example doth rather make for the Roman faith in that of all the world converted to Christian Religion there is but one poor half example of conversion and that false too wrought by any other Religion Which when it is observed that this pretended conversion was wrought by Arrians who even in the opinion of most Protestants were Heretiques it will turne to the shame and reproach of Protestants who pretending to be the true
understood word by word by every one of the vulgar assistants neither doth the end of the publike Service require it As for those Sects that use no Liturgie at all but in their Church-meetings do only make an extemporall prayer before after Sermon as the custome is now for the most part in England that the people may pray with them they do as they ought in using the vulgar tongue Catholiques if they used such exercise no doubt would do it in like manner § 2. As for the comfort more plentifull edification of the understanding which some few want in that they do not so perfectly understand all the particulars of divine Service it may by other means abundantly be supplied without turning the publike Liturgie into innumerable vulgar languages which would bring great confusion into the Christian Church For first the Church could not be able to judge of the Liturgie of every country when differences arose about the translation thereof and so divers errors heresies might creep into particular countries and the whole Church never able to take notice thereof Secondly particular countries could not be certain that they had the parts of the Scripture used in the Liturgie truly translated for they can have no other assured proof thereof than the Churches approbation nor can she approve what she her self doth not understand Thirdly if there were as many translations of the Liturgie as there be severall languages in the world it could not be avoided but that some would in many places be ridiculous incongruous and full of mistaking to the great prejudice of souls especially in languages that have no great extent nor many learned men that naturally speak them Fourthly the Liturgie must of necessity be often changed together with the language which doth much alter in every age as is very well knowne Fifthly in the same country by reason of different dialects some provinces understand not one another and in the Island of Japonia as some write there is one language for men another for women one language for Gentlemen another for rusticks into what language then should the Liturgie of Japonia be translated So that it is cleer that the inconveniences of divine Service translated in all vulgar languages are insuperable the commodity is but to the most ignorant part and that but in part and to be recompenced by other means and is so by prayer books and other instructions in abundance in the vulgar tongue In so much that I dare boldly say for I have been an eye-witnesse that in the cities of Paris and Rome there is five times as much preaching and ten times as much catechising of youth and ignorant people as is in London so that blindnesse ignorance to Catholiques is ignorantly blindly objected Lastly we cannot imagine that if S. Paul had intended that which the Protestants labour to enforce out of the above-named chapter to the Corinthians that both he and his fellow Apostles would have practised the contrary at the writing thereof and all their lives after for we doe not find that they or any after them did use any Liturgie but in one of the learned languages which though they were vulgar to some people in those times yet but to a small part in comparison of all the nations of the world amongst whom they celebrated Masse § 3. As for private prayer the Catholique Church permits all men whether out of the Churches or in them to pray in what language they please yea the Pater the Ave and the Creed are commanded by divers Councells to be learned in the vulgar tongue and divers bookes of prayers in the vulgar tongue are published and used in all Catholique Countries Yet those Catholiques that do pray or sing Psalmes in Latin which they doe not understand either by choice or obligation are not to be condemned For either they understand the prayer in the whole masse thereof as the PATER NOSTER for example though they know not perhaps whether PATER signifie our and NOSTER father or the contrary yet saying this prayer with due devotion and knowing that it is our Lords prayer which they can very well repeat in their mother tongue no man I suppose can be so absurd to think this prayer is not acceptable to God though the pious thoughts be not measured geometrically to the words Or else they understand only more generally that such or such a prayer or Psalme for example MISERERE is a Psalme full of penitent affections and this they say with much inward sorrow and contrition for their sinnes and who can deny that this pious affection is pleasing to God though the thoughts and words doe not mathematically correspond the one to the other I am sure the Apostle approved the like saying in the 17. verse of the forementioned chapter Thou verily givest thanks well And to conclude he doth absolutely allow it in the 28. verse saying But if there be no interpreter let him keepe silence in the Church and let him speak to God and himselfe And in this matter as well as the rest the Protestants also may keep silence unlesse they could speak more to the purpose § 4. These points all other I examined with diligence and found that Protestants ordinarily did not truly apprehend many of the Catholique doctrines nor justly oppose any of them But I have only touched these few particulars to let the unlearned Protestant Reader see that the Catholique doctrines are not such monstrous things as they ordinarily conceive them but rather that it is monstrous in them not to believe them And to awaken the further diligence of all Protestants to search into the truth of all points so far as they are able either by themselves or others if they will not at the first cast themselves upon the infallibility of the Church which I conceive I have sufficiently proved in the former part of this Treatise and is the shortest and surest way and to read the Bookes of Catholiques set forth to this purpose not to exercise an implicite faith to the Protestant Religion and even against the rule of it to their hurt seeing they will not yet do it to the Catholique Religion to their advantage In which Catholique books they shall find all the Pleas for Protestancy all their objections against Catholique doctrine answered with that learning and solidity with that cleernesse and fullnesse that were not faith also required which is the gift of God only to the apprehension of those things which the Church teaches it were impossible in my judgement impossible I say that any reasonable man should continue in his judgement a Protestant Yet many there are I fear who though they be in belief and judgement Catholiques yet in outward profession are Protestants Who like the inferiour spheares which are moved one way by the PRIMUM MOBILE and a contrary way by their owne peculiar motion So they are moved to believe the Catholique verities by the influence of
to the direct meaning thereof and so either in those things become Popish themselves or accuse their teachers of Popery § 5. Another fraud I have observed amongst the Canonical Protestants which is that when they dispute against Catholikes they have recourse to the Scripture and wil be tried by that only but when they dispute against the Puritanes and other Sects amongst them who deal with them at their own weapon of Scripture only then they have recourse to the Fathers and the Tradition of the Church and use the same arguments against Sectaries that Catholiques do against them and particularly in the points of baptizing of Infants against the Anabaptists and the keeping of the first day of the week holy against the Sabbatarians who would have Saturday for either of which there is not any command in Scripture And shall Tradition serve them in those cases and not in others Or shall Scripture with them prove all other points and not those And this shift is such a one as S. Augustine in Psal 80. witnesses to be common to Foxes and Heretiques For as Foxes have two holes to save themselves by one when they are driven from the other so Heretiques whom the Scripture figures out by Foxes when the Spouse saith Let us take the young Foxes that destroy the vines Cant. 2.15 have a double passage to save themselves by the one when they are assaulted by the other so that he that will catch them must set his nets before both issues and besiege both passages as the excellent Catholique Writers have done and have left them neither Tradition nor Scripture wherby to escape For although the Scripture do not teach all in direct and particular terms that Caliques do yet it teaches nothing that Protestants do in the things they differ from Catholiques And in generall the Scripture teaches all that Catholiques do by referring us to Tradition And this is sufficient for it is not required that all that we believe or do be expresly set downe in Scripture it is enough that there be no Scripture against it for what is not forbidden is lawfull as the Apostle saith where there is no law there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 If then there be no law of Scripture against it it is lawfull especially if it be warranted by the Tradition of the Church to which the Scripture referres us and is to us more evident to come from God than the Scripture is which we do not know to do so but by the Churches testimony So that I found the Protestants were like to the Giant Procustus mentioned by Plutarch who having a great iron bed fit for himself all strangers that he took he layed therein and if they were too long for the bed he cut off so much of their leggs if too short he stretched them out till they came even So the Protestants having built a Religion after the modell of their owne fancy doe examine Scriptures Councells Fathers and all authority by it whereof some they cut off as being too long in affirming more than they do and others being too short for their purpose they miserably serue tenter and rack till they come to the length they desire And had I the wicked ambition by impiety to make my selfe famous I believe I could conjure up new opinions which laying aside the authority of the Church I could varnish with as much reason and Scripture as any they professe Whose attempts have had no better successe then Achelous had in fighting with Hercules who took upon him severall shapes hopeing in one or other to overcome him but was by Hercules beaten through all his shapes and forced at last to take his owne proper shape and yeeld So Protestants fighting against Catholiques are by them beaten through all their changes and formes and shifts through which they wander and are forced at last to take the true forme of Protestancy which is obstinatly to deny the plaine and manifest truth But I heartily pray that it would please God to bring them to the true form which they ought to have which is of Roman Catholique untill which they will like the blinded Sodomites perpetually roule wander and grope in the darknesse of uncertainty and instability till eternall darknesse seize upon them For by embarquing themselves in such an enterprize as is the boarding of the Ship of Peter they are like to arrive at no other port but ruine and destruction § 6. Moreover I found this proceeding of the Protestants to be most uneasonable and full of pride in that they being but few in number especially in their beginning yea but one one infinitely audacious Luther once a child of the Roman Church should presume to correct or reforme the whole Christian world a thing which no man would admit in the private regiment of his own family that a sonne or servant should presume to find fault with and change the customs of the house against the consent of the Father Master and all the rest and assume to himselfe alone to be judge of the cause One earnestly desiring Lycurgus to establish a popular State in Lacedemon that the basest might have as great authority as the highest answered Begin to doe so first in thine owne house which he refused and thereby saw the injustice of his own demand So these men that will not admit within themselves either in matters Ecclesiasticall or civill that they whose duty it is to obey should command they whose duty it is to learne should teach withwhat face can they defend the practise thereof in the Church which is the house of God of which our predecessors were guilty in the first attempt and this present generation in the continuance of their Rebellion Nor let them think that their having of the Bible in the Mother-tongue will save them as if it were like the Palladium to the Trojans a thing dropt down from heaven no man knowes how with this condition annexed that while they kept it in their city they should never perish while in the mean time they extreamly pollute it with two things their interpretation and their conversation whereas the Church of Rome hath not only the word but the meaning of God also as the Apostle saith we have the sense of Christ 1 Cor. 2.16 both proved by never-erring authority And lastly weighing all the Protestants arguments with all impartiality or if there were any inclination of the ballance it was to their side with whose doctrines I had been from my childhood seasoned and had been a teacher of others for the space of neere twenty yeares and to whom to receive contrary impressions I knew must prove extreamly prejudiciall who therefore addrest my selfe to this enquiry with the disposition of a jealous husband seeking that which I was most loath to find yet all this notwithstanding I found that all their pleas and pretences and their answers to Catholiques were weake sleight false or impertinent and like to a certain fish called Sleve
to cure all our maladies And thereceipts for these cures contriv'd with wondrous art for as bodily evills are cured either with things of the same quality or the contrary so here For wounds given by the world here is a cure by giving the world away in almes For wounds received from the flesh a cure by mortifying the flesh with fasting and other austerities A cure for the fiery darts of the devill by the darts of prayers shot up to heaven And when we depart this life for this warfare must not alwaies last here is precious oile to embalme our soules with grace which like the oyle to the antient Roman wrastlers makes us nimble agile in our latest wrastlings with the devill that we may slip out of his hands and be presented rendering a sweet smelling savour unto God And that this holy Church may continue in succession untill her royall Bridegroom call her up to his own throne here is Holy Sacramentall Matrimony both to represent that union and by grace to encrease it And that this multitude may not beget confusion here are holy Orders by vertue whereof they that are ordained do govern this society as spirituall Magistrates and conduct it as spirituall Captaines through the wildernesse of this world to the land of Canaan the heavenly Jerusalem which is above Here is the true Communion of Saints both of those in heaven in earth and under the earth by the participations of each others Prayers Merits and Satisfactions Here is as in all well-governed Common-Wealths Justice both commutative and distributive Commutative betwixt God and Christ who payed a ransome for us and purchased an estate for us and we take possession upon the conditions required distributive in rendring rewards and punishments according to the geometricall proportion of mens merits or offences § 8. Here are the Arcana imperii high and mysterious things such as are worthy the wisedome and contrivance of God Things to be believed by the world thought incredible things done by God and to be done by us by the world thought impossible things to be suffered by the world thought intolerable and they are believed done and suffered which could not be effected but by a power omnipotent And because they are so difficult none but God could subdue mortalls to the belief and practise of them and therefore even because they are such they prove him only to be their author For who can imagine that Confession a thing so much against the bias of flesh and bloud or the belief of Transubstantiation a thing so far above the reach of humane reason could have got such possession in the soules of Christian mankind and that without any externall violence had not the finger of God writ it on mens hearts In doctrines of this Church that will admit the use of reason for their proportionablenesse no things seem more reasonable and where they are above reason nothing can be more sublime and befitting God the Author of this Religion and Christ Jesus the husband of this Church God who is the God of reason of which that small portion which man is Master of which yet ennobles him above all bodily creatures is but a ray from the splendor of his all-seeing sun-light a spark from his celestiall fire worketh all things according to the counsell of his will Ephes 1.11 which counsell implies prudence and reason in his actions according to the type of that eternall law whereby he workes himselfe and commands all his creatures to work And by this character the doctrines and the discipline of the Catholique Church proclaim him for their Author and are not therefore to be disgraced as they are by Protestants by the ill-sensed name of policy giving to the vertue of highest wisedome the superscription of deceitfull cunning And the knowledge of those things which in the government of this noblest Kingdome of Christ surmount the reach of present reason are reserv'd for a reward of our humble belief in the life to come when our faith shall be happily turned into sight and we shall cleerly see and be fully and eternally satisfied with the reason of al those things which now our short understandings have not line enough to fathom Excellent things are spoken of thee thou city of God Psal 86.3 And as it is written of Alexander the Great that his body was of such an excellent composition that it sent forth sweet vapours that perfumed all his clothes and our Saviour we know had such abundant vertue flowing from him that it cured such as touched him such is the body of the Church of so rare so holy and so rationall a composure that vertue goes out of her and sanctifies and wisedome and makes reasonable all her garments all her utensils and whatsoever appertaines to her the smell of thy garment is like the smell of Frankincense Cant. 4.11 And if any third party that were neither of the Roman nor of any Protestant Church should observe the admirable frame of this Church both in regard of the doctrine discipline he would surely say as the Apostle to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 14.25 God is truly in you and with the Patriarch Jacob How dreadfull is this place this is no other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven Gen. 28.17 and as in the Canticles 6.10 this is she that goeth forth like the springing morn faire as the moon choice as the sun terrible as an army in battel aray But looking on the Churches of Protestants or any sort of Heretiques he should see a body without a head or which is as monstrous an hydra a beast with many heads and that possibly may have as many more if Kingdomes should be lessened and encreased having a law without a Judge but every one that is a party claiming that power in his owne cause Where they have no assurance that their law is uncorrupt but by the testimony of those they account their adversaries and the greatest lyars and seducers of the world Who have amongst them no faith but opinion no charity but humanity no hope fitly tempered with fear but bold presumption and pretended assurance for which they that are the most confident have the least cause of any men in the world Where there is no beauty comelinesse or order worthy the Bride of Christ not yet of the design or owning of any generous or wise and prudent man But as some Philosophers hold that the world was made by the accidentall concourse of Atomes So they seem to be made by chance and by chance to come together not being united by any internall form but only in a politicall opposition of her who is their Mother and Mistresse The Senate of Rome having chosen three men to go on an Embassie whereof the one had his head full of cuts and gashes the other was a fool and the third had the Gout Cato laughing said that the Senâ—â— had sent an Embassadour which had neither head heart
endewed with so much zeal and courage as to professe her Religion and to propagate it in the world which cannot be Therefore it is impossible that the true Church should not be ever universall and famously known Sixthly this Church is holy both in life and Doctrine Holy for life shining in all admirable sanctity the rayes whereof do overcome the hearts of the beholders such as the Holy Apostles gave example of as of poverty chastitie obedience charity in undergoing all forms of labour and danger for the safety of soules patience invincible in the rough handling of themselves by wonderfull fastings and all kind of austerities fortitude heroicall in suffering martyrdome not onely with patience but with joy though given them in all the most hideous shapes that mans imagination steeled with malice could invent And although this kind of sanctity does not shine in all the members of the Church but in the more eminent professors and principally in the Pastors yet if this kind of sanctity together with Miracles were wanting she could not be so sufficient a witnesse to Infidells who ordinarily are not won to the affection and admiration of Christianity but by beholding such wonders of power and sanctity in the Professors thereof Holy shee is also for doctrine in regard her traditions are divine and holy without commixture of error for if the Church could deliver any one or few errors intermingled with many truths her Traditions even of the truth were questionable and could not be believed upon her word Even as if we admit in Scripture any error in smaller matters we cannot be sure of its infallibility in matters of greatest moment as he that shall say Gods written word is false or uncertaine when it tells him that S. Paul left his cloake at Troas may also say with as much reason that it is false or uncertain when it tells him that Christ was borne of the Virgin Mary Even so he that grants that some part of Traditions or the Word of God unwritten may be false inferrs by consequence that every part thereof may be so and that because we have no antecedent ground or touch-stone to try Traditions by but they must be believed for their own sakes being therein more fundamentall than the Scripures which are not known to be Apostolicall but by Tradition whereas perpetuall Tradition is knowne to come from the Apostles by its own light for what can be more evident then that that is from the Apostles which is delivered as Apostolicall by perpetuall succession of Priests and people affirming and believing the same § 2. But against this truth that if the Church may erre in one thing neither wee nor shee can be sure that shee speakes truth in any thing Chillingworth makes these in my judgement impertinent interrogations A Judge may possibly erre in Judgement can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A travayler may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtfull whether I am in the right way from my hall to my chamber pag. 117. sect 106. In which he weakly falls into comparison betwixt matters which are the object of the sense or of the understanding and of faith which in this case have no proportion betwixt them For the doctrines of faith as they are of faith being altogether and all equally without the reach of our knowledge we have no way to attaine to but by the help of others whom we must absolutely believe and if we know that they may deliver that which is false to us wee can never be sure that any thing they deliver to us is not false unlesse we had some superiour rule to try and examine their Traditions by which certainly we have not Nor can the Church it selfe if shee may erre in the delivery of one thing be sure that shee doth not erre in every thing because shee hath no infallible rule to examine her doctrines by out of her selfe who if shee be assisted by the Holy Ghost cannot erre in any thing if not for ought shee knowes shee doth in all things Now that the Church is assisted by God and that mans reason cannot be the highest judge to whom the last appeal is made in matters of faith which descend from God I have shewed before As for a humane Judge as he may erre through ignorance wilfulnesse or negligence which to conceive of the Church is absurd yea blasphemous shee having Christ for her Head and the Holy Ghost for her Spirit so he cannot bee more certaine of the truth of his judgement than his reason can make him which will not reach to an absolute infallibility And as a travayler may mistake his way in one journey so he may in another if he have no more certainty nor better guide of the one way than of the other which is the Churches case in propounding and believing matters of faith revealed to her by God which like the Circumference from the Center are all equally distant from our knowledge and the Church hath an equall Prerogative of infallibility by the guidance of the Holy Ghost in all who therefore can erre in nothing or in all things which she saith she so receives and delivers Yet Chillingworth saith that his consequences are as like the other as an egge to an egge or milk to milk but more truly they are as like as an egge to an oyster or milk to ink § 3. And lest any Protestant who honours the Scriptures much with his lips though he be far removed with his heart should think that I am injurious to the Scripture in saying that Tradition is more fundamentall than Scripture it selfe I desire him to take notice that Tradition and Scripture according to different comparisons are equall and superior the one to the other Compare them in respect of certainty of truth they are equall both being the Word of God the one written the other unwritten and so both infinitely certain Compare them in respect of depth of sublimity and variety of doctrine the Scripture is far superiour to Tradition Tradition being plaine and easie doctrine concerning the common capitall and practicall Articles of Christianity whereas the Scripture is full of high hidden senses and furnished with great variety of examples discourses and all manner of learning Compare them in respect of antiquity and evidence of being the Apostles the Scripture is inferiour to Tradition in time and knowledge and cannot be proved directly to be the Apostles and therefore Gods but by Tradition As Philosophy is more perfect than Logicke and Rhetoricke than Grammar in respect of high and excellent knowledge yet Logicke is more prime originall and fundamentall than Philosophy Grammar than Rhetorique without the rules and principles whereof they cannot be learned Even so Tradition is more prime and originall than Scripture though Scripture in respect of depth and sublimity of discourse be more excellent then Tradition CHAP. X. That the Roman is that one holy Catholique
Majesty is on my side so that I doe not care though a thousand Augustines a thousand Cyprians a thousand Henricane Churches stood against me And in his defence of his Translation of the new Testament he saith If thy Papist wil prattle concerning this word alone which he added to the text where it is said that we are justified by faith presently answer Doctor Martin Luther will have it so and saith a Papist and an asse are the same So I will so I command my will be a law For wee will not be the schollers of the Papists but the Masters and Judges And Sleydan his deare Scholer l. 3. fol. 29. b. initio l. 2. fol. 22. a. doth report that he himselfe acknowledged his profession not to be of life or manners but of doctrine wishing that he were removed from the office of preaching because his manners and life did not answer his profession In so much that it gained the place of a Proverb amongst the Protestants of those daies to expresse their riot and intemperance by saying c Morgensterne in â—ra de Eccl. p. 225. HODIE LUTHERANICE VIVEMUS to day we will live like Lutherans His impudent railing his foule filthy and Bedlam-like expressions have bred a stench through all his writings and it is no wonder for who would look for better language or beter life from one who was such a darling of the devill Luther in Conc. Dom. Reminis fo 19. apud Cochleum Idem in Colloq Germ. fo 275. 281. that he knew him very well as he to his great credit confesses that he had eat more than one measure of salt with him and that the devill slept with him oftner than his wife Katherine Concerning Calvin that admired Apostle of Protestants it is affirmed by Conradus Schlusselburg in Theol. Calvinistar l. 2. fol. 72. a man of eminence in the Protestant Church and certainly a great enemy to the Church of Rome that God in the rod of his fury visiting Calvin did horribly punish him before the fearfull houre of his unhappy death for he so struck this Heretique with his mighty hand that being in despaire and calling upon the Devill he gave up his wicked soul swearing cursing and blaspheming He died of the disease of lice and worms increasing in a most loathsome ulcer about his privy parts so as none present could indure the stench These things are declared concerning his lasciviousnesse his sundry abominable vices and Sodomiticall lusts for which he was by the Magistrate under whom he lived branded on the shoulder with a hot burning iron unto which I yet see not any sound and clear refutation made Thus far he Of Beza also another Father of the Protestant Religion many foul and impious things are recorded his odious conspiracies and seditious books are mentioned by Bolseck in his book of Beza's life and by Bancroft in his Survey pag. 127. 54. 59. 219. 220. By whom also he is taxed of insolency pride and impudence in being too bold with the antient Fathers Lastly he wrote a Faius de vita obitu Beza p. 19. many lascivious Poems and that after he was turned Protestant and one Epigram amongst the rest most infamous wherein debating with himself whether he should prefer his lust with Candida his wench or Andebertus his boy in conclusion he prefers the later and of two evill doings both of which he ought to have avoided he doth deliberately choose one and that the most foul and unnaturall These things and much more to this purpose are recorded of these and others the supposed Apostles converters of the world and restorers of the purity of Evangelicall Doctrine of whom we may say as Josephs brethren did to Jacob of his Coat all smeered with blood VIDE UTRUM TUNICA FILII TUI SIT AN NON See whether it be thy sonnes coat or no Gen. 37.32 Judge whether these be the lives of the Sonnes of God sent to controule the world to reform and lead out of error the misguided sonnes of men Surely any prudent man will believe that either God never intended the change they have made or if he did he would have chosen other kind of men than these such as Moses and the Prophets who gave the Law unto the Jewes and Christ and his Apostles who brought the Gospell to the Gentiles As for the common multitude Luther to the credit of his Doctrine confesses Postill super Evang. Dominicae 1. Advent that the world grows daily worse men are now more revengefull covetous licentious then they were ever before in the Papacy And again he saith Domin 26. post Trin. before when we were seduced by the Pope every man did willingly follow good works and now every one neither saith nor knowes any thing but how to get all things to himself by exactions pillage theft lying usury c. And of those that have changed from the Catholique Roman to the Protestant Religion it is confessed by Luther in Serm. convivial Germ. fol. 55. Musculus Loc. Com. cap. de Decal in explanat 3. praecepti p. 62. circa med That they have changed their lives into worse Which made Paulus Eberus a Protestant writer of note complain saying in praefat Comment Philip. in Ep. ad Cor. which evills seeing every one doth behold with his proper eyes he doubts not without cause whether our Evangelicall congregation be the true Church Which also with the other reasons forementioned hath made me not at all to doubt thereof but to believe assuredly that it is not the true Church § 3. As for the recriminattion of the Protestants and charging the lives of some Popes and many of the Clergie and Religious with great impiety as it is not denied so far forth as it is true so it is in it self impertinent for what Church pretends to have every particular person though of the highest rank blamelesse Let them look upon the heads of their own Churches whosoever they be that they count so and see whether by their owne members they are accounted spotlesse particularly the first head of the Church of England King Henry the eight And upon their own Clergie of whom not I but Doctor King Bishop of London in Jonam Lecture 45. saith that scarce the tenth man of the Ministry is morally honest But howsoever the successors may faile yet it is a matter highly suspitious yea altogether convincing that they that pretend to be the first revealers or revivers of the forsaken truth of God if they be not of godly lives are counterfeit Messengers and false Prophets And the Protestants have no reason to make an inventory of the faults of Catholiques for so many hundred years as they confesse Catholiques have possessed the Church and that throughout the world and compare it with their own faults whose Church is little above one hundred year old and possessing but some corners of the world Nor is the sanctitie of the Church I confesse to be measured exactly
by the zealous complaints against sin on either side for zealous complaint is hyperbolicall even in holy Scripture But it is manifest that the Protestant Religion hath not that sanctity of life in it that the Catholique hath when neither the founders thereof had any at all nor the followers any more but much lesse than when they were Catholiques In fine compare the lives of Roman Catholiques and Protestants both Clergie and Laity and of the same Nation for that some Nations perhaps are addicted to vice in generall more than others and every Nation to some one or few particular vices more than another the best to the best and the major part to the major part we shall find so have I done and I have heard even Protestants themselves confesse that they are exceedingly overballanced by the Catholiques CHAP. XIX Of the tenth and last here mentioned Mark of the Church viz. That the true Church hath never been separated from any society of Christians more antient then her selfe § 1. THe last Mark of the Church which I will mention is her never going forth out of any visible society of Christians elder than her self of which going out as a note of error and falshood the Apostles say They went forth from us 1 Joh. 2.19 Certain that went forth from us Acts 15.14 Out of your selves shall arise men speaking perverse things Acts 20.30 These are they that separate themselves Jude vers 19. Certain it is that the true Church is most antient as truth it self is elder than falshood if therefore there have risen in the Church men of indifferent judgements or affections from the true Church they have presently made a separation gone out of the Church wherein they were and erected a new Church to themselves As S. Augustine saith Tract 3. in Ep. Joan. de Sym. ad cateth l. 1. c. 5. All Heretiques went out from us that is they go out of the Church and againe The Church Catholique fighting against all Heresies may be opposed but she cannot be overthrowne all heresies are come out from her as unprofitable branches out from the Vine but she remaines in her vine in her root in her charity A vain thing therefore it is for Protestants to charge the Church of Rome with departing from the Word of God and the Doctrine of the Apostles unlesse they can prove that she departed from some former Church that held other doctrine than she doth But certain it is that this cannot be proved seeing she was planted by the Apostles S. Peter and S. Paul and never separated her self from any precedent Church It is true indeed that there were Churches elder than she in time as she is a particular Church as the Church of Ierusalem where the Gospell was first preached and of Antioch where S. Peter was first Bishop with other Churches in Asia but these all agreed in the unity of Faith and were all subject to the Church of Rome after it was planted in union under the head thereof S. Peter and his successors as I shall shew by and by And the Church of Rome did never seperate from any of these but many of these from her in the Heresie of Arius and others as Protestants will not deny If then she did never separate from any elder Church so that men might say here is a Church and there is the Church of Rome once the same with her and now separated from her she must still be the first and true Church or there is none upon earth But certain it is on the contrary side that all the former Churches which Protestants themselves will call Heretiques as Arrians Macedonians Nestorians Entychians Donatists with many others did separate from the Church of Rome and she can tell when and why and no lesse certain is it that all that are now called Protestants and all the pedigree of their fore-fathers Waldo Wickliffe Husse Luther Calvin and all the Kingdomes wherein their followers are were once and first of the Roman Catholique Church and have forsaken her Communion and departed from her and have not joyned to any other Church more antient and subsistent apart from her by which shee was condemned of novelty and separation nor are they able to shew any such Church therefore the Roman must needs be the true Church Or else which is a most absurd and impossible imagination the true Church hath been utterly extinguished and revived againe and that not by the service of such men as proved their calling by miracles or sanctity of life as Roman Catholiques have done to all the nations they have converted but were men notable only for their wickednesse And these amongst many others which might be added and of which much more might be said are those infallible Markes that prove the Church of Rome and those that communicate with her to bee the one true holy Catholique and Apostolique Church That Church of whose infallible and never-erring Judgement the Scripture assures us calling it The ground and pillar of truth which hath the Spirit of God to lead it into all truth which is built upon a rock against which the gates of hell shal not prevaile wherein Christ placed Apostles Prophets Doctors and Pastors to the consummation and ful perfection of the whole body that in the mean time we be not carryed away with every blast of doctrine 1 Tim. 3.15 John 16.13 Mat. 16.18 Ephes 4.11.12 That Church which whatsoever it says God commands us to doe and he that will not is an heathen and a Publican which whatsoever shee shall bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatsoever shee shall loose one earth is loosed in heaven which is the spouse of Christ his body his lot Kingdome and inheritance given him in this world Math. 23.3 and 18.17.18 Of which S. Cyprian Epist 55. saith To S. Peters chaire and the principall Church infidelity or false faith cannot have accesse And S. Hierome Apol. advers Ruff. l. 3. c. 4. That the Roman faith commanded by the Apostles cannot be changed And S. Gregory Nazianzen Carm. de vita sua 'Old Rome from antient times hath the right faith and alwaies keepeth it as it becomes the city which over-rules the world Which being so what remaines to every man but laying aside endlesse dispute about particulars to cast himself into the armes of this Holy mother Church and wholly rely upon her infallible judgement wherein Christ Jesus her husband hath promised and hath reason to preserve her And to submit themselves to the visible head thereof the Pope of Rome of whose authority as I did my self particularly enquire and was moved thereby so I will briefly propound it to others CHAP. XX. That the Pope is the head of the Church § 1. THe Protestants doe usually blaspheme the Pope and Sea of Rome with the title of Antichrist of the Whore of Babylon of the Mother of Abominations of the Beast with seven heads and ten hornes and many other like courteous compellations