then apologize for me One Objection must needs be removed It may be asked how I doe charge the Iesuit as declyning to have the truth of Religion either examined by Scripture or Antiquity seeing he profers at lest to have one Controversie examined by Scripture Viz. concerning the number of Sacraments But let any rational person though a Romanist if he can but dispossesse his own mind of prejudice cognosce whether my Charge be just How disingenuous the Iesuit was in that seeming profer concerning the number of Sacraments is sufficiently discovered in my Reply to his tenth paper from page 236. to page 241. Now only let these few particulars be considered And 1. When did the Iesuit make this profer Only in his tenth or last paper imeÌ„diatly before his getting out of the nation Why did he it not sooner especially seeing we had been exchanging papers above a year before and he had been frequently appealed to a discusse of particular Controversies Did he not in former papers positively decline to have the truth of Religion examined either by Scripture or Antiquity By Scripture because as he affirmes paper 4. pag. 37. The letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrary senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture By Antiquity also because sayeth the Iesuit paper 5. page 61 This with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion Yea doth he not charge me as hatching a new Religion of my own because I appealed to the Fathers of the three first Centuries in his 9. paper page 178. Now what ingenuity or courage is manifested by such a seeming profer at such a time after so many declinaturs ingenuous Romanists may judge But secondly Had there not been weighty Controversies tabled before viz. Concerning the Infallibility of Popes and Councils the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scriptures Transubstantiation Adoration of Images Communion under one kinde Papal indulgences Apocrypha bookes the Popes Supremacie over the whole Catholick Church and his Jurisdiction over Princes Yea had it not been shewed as the breviry of missives would permit that the Church of Rome doth grosly erre in all these Yet never did he offer to Reply to any of these Let Romanists therefore againe judge whether he who passes over in silence all Arguments both from Scripture and Antiquity to prove the present Romish Religion erronious in all the foresaid particulars and only starts a new Question about the number of Sacraments doeth shew a through willingnesse to have the Truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity Thirdly If there he any Controversie tossed betwixt Rom mists and us where a cavilling Sophister may wrap himself up under Logomachies is not this it which the Iesuit hath pitched upon coÌ„cerning the number of Sacraments Must it not be acknowledged on all hands that as the word Sacrament is taken in a larger or stricter sense a man may affirme that ther be more or fewer Sacraments But of this you may see more at length in the Aâ—swere to the Jesuits tenth paper page 238. and 239. Let it be then considered how willing the Jesuit was of a Scriptural tryal who dates not adventure on the examination of other Controversies and only betaks himself to this wherein the Adversarie may shut himself up in a thicker of Logomachies But fourthly Doth the Jesuit really profer to have that on Controversie concerning the number of Sacraments betwixt Papists and us decyded by Scripture Or doth he bring Arguments from Scripture to prove a precise Septenary of proper Sacraments neither more nor fewer which is the Doctrine of the Present Romish Church Nor at all What then Only that he might seeme to say something he desires me to prove from Scripture that there be only two Sacraments or that there be no more then two which is in very deed to require me to prove the Negative while he himself declynes to prove the Affirmative viz. That there is not only more then two but compleatly seven Though the Iesuits demand be irrational I hope I have satisfied it in its own proper place But what though I had succumbed in proving that there were no more but two proper Sacraments Yet the question betwixt Romanists and us concerning the number of Sacraments were not decyded except it be proven that there be precisely seven neither more nor fewer If there be not a precise septenary one Article of the Romish faith falls to the ground Consequently the Iesuit never submits the Question concerning the number of Sacraments to a Scriptural tryal untill he offer to prove by Scripture a precise sepetenary of proper Sacraments which as yet he hath not done nor I believe will adventure to doe He will find need of the supplement of his unwriten traditions here But neither I suppose will these serve his turne But Fifthly what are all these ensuing papers but a demonstration of the Iesuits tergiversing humor In his first paper he proposed foure postulata like so many Oracles I discovered an egregious fallacy in one of them But to this day he never once endeavoured to vindicat himself He proposed in that paper an informal Syllogisme but could never thereafter adventure on a second which was retorted in better forme against the Popish Religion more wayes then one but these Retortions to this houre remaine unexamined I denyed the Assumption of that long studied Syllogisme but he could never be induced to undertake the probation thereof In that Assumption the Iesuit had said that the PROTESTANT Religion had no grounds to prove its conformity with the letter of Scripture To repell that bold allegeance I appealed him to produce any solid ground of conformity with Scripture which either the True Christian Religion hath or that the Popish Religion can pretend to which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wants But he could never be moved to produce any Sometimes he hinted at the Infallibility of the Propounders of the Articles of Faith but he durst neither adventure to tell whom he meant by these Infallible Propounders or to prove the Infallibility of Romish Propounders or to answere Arguments against their Infallibility At length being outwearied with his tergiversing I produced positive Grounds for proving the conformity of our Religion to the Scriptures and the disconformity of theirs viz. The Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie and Conformitie with the faith of the Ancient Church in the first three Centuries Hereupon he positively declyned both Scriptures and Fathers in these first three Centuries as a test to find out the Truth of Religion Therefore finding that still he shunned to come to particulars I pirched upon that much controverted Scripture which Romanists pretend to be as favourable to them as any viz Hoc est Corpus meum This is my Body and proved the sense which PROTESTANTS give thereof to be True and Genuine and the sense which Romanists impose to
PAPISMUS LUCIFUGUS OR A faithfull Copie of the Papers exchanged betwixt Mr. IOHN MENZEIS Professor of DIVINITY in the Marischal-Colledge of ABERDENE and Mr. Francis Dempster Iesuit otherwise Sirnamed Rin or Logan WHEREIN The Iesuit declines to have the truth of Religion examined either by Scripture or Antiquity though frequently appealed thereunto AS ALSO Sundry of the chief Points of the Popish Religion are demonstrated to be repugnant both to Scripture and Antiquity yea to the Ancient Romish-Church TO ALL WHICH Is premised in the Dedication a true Narration of a verball Conference with the same Iesuit Tit. 1.10.11 There are many unruly and vain Talkers and Deceivers Whos 's mouths must be stopped who subvert whole houses teaching things which they ought not for filthy Lucres sake Aug. lib. 2. de Bapt. con Don. cap. 6. Non afferamus stateras delosas ubi appendamus quod volumus quomodo volumus pro arbitriâ— nostro dicentes hoc grave hoc leve est Sed afferamus divinaâ—â— stateram de Scripturis sanctis tanquam de the sauris Dominicis in illa quid sit gravius appendamus Immo â—on appendamus sed a Domino appensa recognoscamus ABERDENE Printed by IOHN FORBES Younger Printer to the TOVVN Anno Dom. M.DC.LXVIII BON ACCORD Insignia Vrbis abredoniae Unto the Right Honorable M R. ROBERT PATRIE of PORTLETHEN Lord Provest Bailies ALEXAND R. ALEXANDER IOHN SCOT IOHN DUNCAN IOHN SMITH ANDREW SKENE Dean of Gild GILBERT BLACK Treasurer And to the rest of the honorable COUNCILL of ABERDENE RIGHT HONORABLE It was not any supposed Worth in these Papers which moved me to consent to the publishing of them But because our Romish Adversaries had the confidence openly to triumph in City and Country though I hope without ground as if their Champion Master Dempster had left not me only which had been no great matter but also the Religion of PROTESTANTS at a great losse and disadvantage Who Who am I the meanest of the thousands of ISRAEL that any infirmities of mine whether supposed or reall should be charged on so GLORIOUS a CAUSE which is the invincible Truth of the Most High GOD may bid a defyance to all the Goliahs and Hoasts of Romish Philistins Hath not the Reformed Religion stood as an impregnable Rock against all the assaults both of Speculative and Pragmatick heads and bloody hands which have been kept at worke these many years in opposition thereto by the See of Rome Who then that is but one remove from madnesse can imagine that the insignificant scufle of this Iesuit should endanger it I freely confesse what I have said or can say is infinitly below the dignity of the CAUSE which I mantaine yea and exceedingly short of what eminent Lights in the Reformed Churches have said and can further say in behalfe of our Religion Must it not argue either height of prejudice or pitifull shallowness to impute whatsoever deficiencies of such an one as Me to Religion it self Wherefore Reverend Learned Pious Iudicious Persons with whome I did communicate all these Papers when they were exchanged have judged it sit that all should be faithfully published that the World might have a new demonstration on how small grounds to say no worse our clamorous Romanists can triumph as if they were more then conquerours Well may that saying of Austin in Psalm 32. Be accommodated to them Non remanet iis nisi sola infirmitas animositatis quae tanto est languidior quanto se majores vires habere aestimat There only support is the infirmity of an high or overweening stomach which is so much the more feeble as it overvalueth its own strength It hath been the usuall artifice of Hereticks when they could not conquer Truth by their captious argueings to load the assertors thereof with reproaches Austin complained of such dealing both from Pascentius a champion of the Arrians tom 2. Epist. 174. As also from the Donatists tom 7. in Epist ad Donatist post collat What wonder then though Romanists who are so Hereticall in their Doctrines be Acted by the same Calumniating Genius Learned Doctor Prideaux lect 9. de visib Eccles § 11. Hath been at the paines to present his Reader with a multitude of instances of most impudent Calumnies wherewith Romanists have aspersed faithfull witnesses of truth I will not rake in that dung-hil Only let me remember you that Romish practises of this nature were long agoe so known to the World that learned Doctor Featly before that he and Doctor Francis Whyte engaged in their disput with Fisher and Sweet two Iesuits could easily presage and foretell to the pitcher of the field that whatever were the issue of that combat and at whatever disadvantage the Iesuits should be left yet he and his Colegue Doctor Whyte should be conquered in effigie and led in triumph in many a Pageant at Doway Bruxels Rhemes and Rome as afterwards fell out Yea so impudent were the Romanists that Doctor Weston told at Sainct Omers to a Protestant Lord who had been present at the disput viz. to the Earle of Warwick that the two Iesuits had acquitted themselves so admirably well and with so much advantage to the Romish interest that two Earles and an hundreth Auditors were gained to the Church of Rome and of these Earles this noble Lord to whom the Doctor spake was affirmed to be one who could not but smyle as these ludibrious Legends For the Earle well knew there were not near an hunder persons present at the Conference nor one PROTESTANT staggered thereby Yea the person for whose satisfaction that conference was principally intended though before he had his own doubts yet after the debate professed that he was fully resolved as to the Reformed Religion All this is testified by judicious Doctor Featly in the Relation of that Conference Should it then seem strange to any that the tristing debate wherein I have been lately engaged with this Iesuit hath been so grosly misrepresented by men of these principles Who could have expected any thing else Doe men gather grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Yet as to my own particular interest I could have borne all their reproaches remembring that of the Ancient Quisquis volens detrahit famae meae nolens addit mercedi meae But judicious Lovers of Truth finding Religion it self to be thrust at through my sides laid bonds upon me to give the World a faithfull account of that whole transaction though otherwise I could willingly have destined these poor Papers so farre as they concerned me to perpetuall silence Since therefore Very Honorable this scufle with Mr. Dempster fell out under the intuition of your Authority I judged it incumbent to me to present you with this brief ensuing account thereof As you in your Civil Capacity and we your Ministers in our Ecclesiastick Lyne travelled to suppresse Error and Vngodlynesse in this CITY We had frequent opportunity to deal with Persons of a Popish perswasion When we
flesh to compound a soveraigne Triacle I am sorrie that as your Paper began with a falshood in matter of fact you must excuse my plainnesse so it should be shut up with another Sic respondent Ultima Primis You may not expect that I will trifle away more time in answering your frivolous unsubscrived Tautologies Either therefore leave your repetitions and doe the worke of an Opponent seriously or else you will constraine me to give a publick account to the World of your trifling and tergiversation Turpe est difficiles habere nugas Aberdene May 9. 1666. John Menzeis The Iesuits fourth Paper Answere to a third Paper of Mr. JOHN MENZEIS whereby he labours of new to perswade that the Grounds which he produces for the truth of the Protestant Religion were not meere shifts and evasions 28. of May 1666. This Paper was not delivered to Mr. IOHN MENZEIS till Iune 2. YOVR third Paper bearing the date of the ninth of May Did not come to my hands before the twenty seventh of May. Neither know I wherefore it hath been so long keept up Since as I am informed you did first dyt it to your Scholers who out of zeal to the reputation of their Master did use all diligence to disperse many copies of it and although it be not authentick and subscrived with your hand with the solemuities used in your former paper yet for the ordinarie straine of digressions not making to the purpose I doe acknowledge it for yours And it is pleasant that you say that you marvell that I passe over in silence and does not answere But how can you marvell at this since I have alwayes protested to you and protest to you againe that I would closse misken and take no notice of any thing that is out of the way and which does not concern the decision of the present controversie to wit Whether the Protestant Religion can be shown to be a True Religion by any ground or principle which may not serve with as great Reason to prove any false Religion to be a True Religion And so soone as you who hath bragingly undertaken to prove the truth of your Religion shall produce any such ground whereby it may appear that you put your self at least in the way either to give some satisfactory answere or at least to confesse ingenuously that you have no such ground for your Religion I oblige my self and shall finde you Surtie that I shall answere at length to all your Digressions to all your Retorsions and likewise shall disput with you at great leasure about the rules of Logick and shew how groslie you are mistaken in confounding Objective negations with formall negations as if a formall affirmation might not fall upon objective negations united be an objective affirming Copula As for your injurious and undervaluing words both in Greek and Latine wherewith your paper is stuffed calling all things brought against you Tantologies Battologies Insipid and Childish things and Non-sense c. I told you before that any man that hath a tongue may heap up and utter injurious words even against GOD himself And this way of proceeding would be thought by the judicious to be a clear testimony of a deserted cause and that since by sufficient reason you cannot propt the tottering truth of your Religion at least by Digressions Injurious words and other practises you will shoulder and hold up your reputation before simple people who adjudges the Victorie to him who rails most As if the means to try a True Religion from a false were not of such high concernment it self alone as did deserve to confine both your thoughts and penne within the gyre of it So that without wrouging the weightines of the matter ye cannot decline to squable about other things before it be fully ended Laying then aside as before all other things as out of the rod this is laid againe before you that the Protestant Religion cannot be the true Religion nor the Religion to which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever armes at eternall happinesse after this life or intends to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and betake himself to a diligent search for the True Religion prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting for the present is this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This point is proven at before by this Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a true Religion which hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God But the Protestant Religion hath no speciall Ground or Principle whereby it can prove it self to be a true Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the Letter of the Word of God Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a true Religion Though you leave off to call this Syllogisme a Crambe recocta being conscious to your self not to be able to produce sufficient heat to dissolve and digest it yet you call it a poor and naked Syllogisme which if it be as you say it beggs this favour of you that you will cloath and cover the nakednesse of it with some fitting answere Only be pleased to remember that since you deny the subsumption and so puts your self in obligation to produce grounds for the proofe of your Religion that the grounds you produce must have this propertie that they cannot serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be a True Religion As the grounds which serves to prove one to be an honest man must have this propertie that they cannot serve to prove a knave to be an honest man Neither doe you satisfie in saying that Honestie consists in a conformity of actions with the Law as Knaverie in a deformity of actions to the Law this I say does not help you because this is onely to explicat the terms and to draw the lineaments not filling up the fields and vacuities For the present controversie is not wherein consists objective Honestie or objective Knaverie nor wherein consists objective truth of Religion or objective falshood of Religion but suppoining the one to consist in a conformity or difformity of actions to the Law and the other to consist in a conformity or difformity with the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD it remains to shew by some speciall ground wherefore of one man is verified this objective Honestie and not of the other and wherefore of one Religion is affirmed this obiective truth and not of the other To this you answere that this is easily known be applying and comparing onely the actions of both with the Law and the tenets of both with the word of GOD as the obliquity and crookednesse of a rule is presently known by applying it to a straight and even rule and with this popular discourse you think to have cleared and exhausted
intriâ—secal quality or extriusecal assistance did expyre and was extinguished in the end of The third Centurie inclusive so that it did not passe to the Fourth Centurie nor to none afterwards Wherein I expect likewise some Blasphemy out of your mouth to wit that Christ dispenses the protection promised to his Church that manner of way that natural Agents doth dispense their activity within a certaine Sphere Uniformiter Difformiter produceing more in parts near and lesse in the parts more remote But since Christ hath promised to be with His Church to the end of the world and that the portes of hell shall not prevail against her then the dogmes and doctrine of the Church in the fifteenth Centurie when Luther and Calvin leap out were as pure and as free from all error as they were in the first three Centuries and the one may be called as-much in question as the other since both are equally founded upon Christs promise haveing no shorter Sphere and terme then the end of the world I cannot omit by the way to marr and disturb a little the complesance and contentment that you seeme to take in dealing with your own shadow fancying Contradictions upon my part which are all founded upon your misapprehendings mistakeing one thing for another For you suppone that the knowledge of the ability and assistance in him who propones matters to be beleeved because it is prerequired to all Acts of divine faith that therefore it is in it self an Object of divine faith and so you confound the Evident assent and judgement of credibilitie with the Obscure Act of faith and the motive of the one with the motive of the other For though the Act or assent of divine faith cannot be had except this other preceed yet faith existent hath its own proper formal motive distinct from the motive of that other Act and judgement prerequired to it As likewise out of the fear of hel a Sinner may be induced to make an act of Contrition for his sinnes though his act of Contrition existent have no wayes for the motive of it the paines of hel Another contradiction you fancie to your self founded upon another ignorant mistakeing as if I had said that a point of Religion to be true and to be conforme to Scripture were two Synonims Since this was only said Ad Hominem and to oppugne you out of your own principles who holds that nothing can be a point of faith but that which is contained in Scripture or in the writen word of God and so in this you doe as other of your Champions hath done citeing for the assertions of scholasticks and fathers objections that they make against themselves Out of this appears how true it is that was told you that you show your self Altogether ignorant of the nature of divine and supernatural faith since that out of this that faith hath for the formal motive of it onely GODS word and revelation you infer that it may be obtained and exist though there not preceed a knowledge that GOD speaks by the mouth of the Propounder Yea in this you show your self also altogether ignorant of the nature of our intellect and understanding who as it cannot but assent when the object propounded is in it self evident so it cannot assent by faith whether divine or humane except it know the authority of him that speakes or propones and according as the hearer knowes him that speakes to be of lesse or more authority he adheres with more or lesse firmnes to the thing that is spoken because otherwise our intellect might assent to a thing though there were nothing to induce him since here there interveins nothing to induce one to beleeve but onely the authority of the speaker And what makes it to the purpose the instance which you bring against this to wit That sometimes a more skilful Iudge and Doctor may give a wrong sense of a Law and a weaker may give the true sense Since it may be likewise that an Old Wife give the true sense of a text of Scripture and you though both a Minister and a Teacher of Divinity give a false sense And yet it doth not follow but the understanding of the hearer will be inclined more to adhere and assent to your sense though false then to hers though true supponing that there interveene no other thing to move save onely your authority and hers Because that which induces immediatly the understanding to assent is not the objective truths of things in themselves but onely as they appeare according to that saying of Aristotle that oftentimes false things are more likely then true You can never end one of your Papers without some bragging and you end this persuading your self that your Papers containes such pregnant and convincing reasons against Popery that if they were revised by impartial Iudges they would turne backe to you againe with this superscription Desperata causa papatus But this must be beleeved because you say it and you your self must be of a sweet temper who can solace your self with such dreams Mr. JOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Jesuits seventh Paper An Answere to Master Dempster the Jesuit his seventh Paper wherein he declines to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity IT appears to be a true character which an old acquaintance of yours as I hear giveth of you that if you be put from your Common place you signify nothing And therefore you consume a great part of all your Papers in repeating In terminis your first Paralogisme together with some cunned scurvie preambles thereunto You seeme displeased that I should have termed you an Effronted calumniator c. If these names be so unpleasing to you why tooke you such pleasure to practise the crimes expressed thereby Why did you put a necessity upon me either to brand you with such a black character or to take with your false accusations which no man but he whose fore-head cannot blush would have uttered Did I not instance the particular Calumnies Falshoods and Prevarications whereof you are guilty If you were innocent why did you not vindicat your self But who can lesse endure the name of a Whoore then the veryest strumpet What integrity is in that person who hates Non Crimen sed criminis nomen not the crime but the name of the crime You have the boldnesse againe to demand from me Ten lines to the purpose Must all these my Papers be condemned as impertinent and histrionick digressions so civil are you in your complements because your dull and lethargick head hath not been able to examine The tenth line of them yea not one to purpose Did I not tel you from the beginning that I needed not Ten words let be Ten lines to answere all that you have said but onely these Two words Nego Minorem Now I give other two which likewise might suffice Nego Conclusionent I deny the conclusion in regard of the informalitie of the
did demonstrate to them that the present Romish Religion was False Impious Idolatrous yea and notwithstanding all its high pretences to Catholicism grosly Schismatical These poor straying Soules being nuzled up in ignorance by their Romish Guides under a pretence of the Implicit Colliar Faith could make little other Reply then that though they could not answere us yet there Priests and Learned Men could argue the matter to the full We often in compassion to these misled Persons told them that not the Priest only but the People also should be ready to render a reason of the hope which is in them with meekness and fear 1. Pet. 3.15 That though the seduceing Priest shall receive a larger measure of Damnation yet misled Soules who wilfully persist in their Error when truth is convincingly proposed will also Dye in their sins Ezech. 3.18 Matt. 15.14 And therefore that it highly concerned them to examine the proposalls of their Priests We did adde likewise and I hope without vanity that had we opportunity of speaking with these Learned Men of whom they talked so bigly we should be ready to give a rationall account of the Truth which we professe and of the Falshood of Popery Hereupon as we have since been credibly informed after many Consultations betwixt the chief persons of the Romish profession in this Place and traffiquing Missionaries Mr. Dempster was chosen as the Champion who should encounter the Ministers of ABERDENE whom they concluded to assault by a supprizall When the Popish Party are about this secret contrivance it fell out that as I was preaching upon the Doctrine of Repentance from Acts 17.30.31 I gave this transient advertisement to my hearers That the Popish Doctors had not only corrupted the dogmaticalls of Christianity as we had frequently demonstrated but many of the Practicalls also I did instance from the Subject matter which I was handling that many of their great Doctors doe teach That when a man hath sinned haynously he is not bound to repent presently in so much that their great Cardinal de Lugo tract de paenit disp 7. sect 11. § 1. num 169. speaking of this Doctrine sayes that it is Sententia verior communis jam omnibus Theologis uno vel altero recentiore excepto That this Doctrine is now received by all their Divines except one or two Neoterieks Nay great Doctors among them as their famous Vasquez tom 4. in 3. part quaest 86. dub 6. Mantaine That the precept of Repentance binds only per se in articulo mortis In the article of Death I shall not here mention other of their absurd Positions in that matter whereof I have given some account in my Reply to the Iesuits eight Paper page 158. 159. c. The discovery of this their Doctrine concerning Repentance which hath so direct a tendencie to Ungodlynesse seemed to have such a reflexion on their Popish Religion that a Gentle-Man of that Profession whom I doe very greatly honour and whose Conversion I sincerely wish judged himself concerned to send a challenge to Me by a friend Shewing That he wondered why I should thus wrong their Doctors yea he was so confident of my mistake that the Messenger said that he promised to turne PROTESTANT if I would make good what I had asserted I told the Messenger that I was sure of a Convert if the Gentle-Man would stand to his word and if he would be pleased to come to my Study his own eyes should be judges whether I had wronged their Authors Within a few dayes hereafter when the Secret contrivance as seemes was ryp and Master Dempster with much study had put his Syllogisme into its goodly frame and committed it to writing only the misery was that he forgot to study the Confirmation of either of the Propositions thereof the Gentle-Man of whom I was lately speaking accompanyed by another of that Profession was pleased on the 18. of Aprile 1666 to make Me a visit my Reverend Learned Colegue Mr. GEORGE MELDRUM being then with Me. He did bespeake us both to this purpose You may remember said he that you have said in conference with persons of our Profession that you would not shunne to argue the Controversies of Religion with any of our Learned Men and now you may have opportunity of a free communing with a Catholick Scholer so the Iesuit was designed at my Lodging if you be pleased to goe along with Me. We answered that we were not unmindful of what we said and should be as ready through the help of GOD to performe whensoever occasion did offer But I behoved first to answere another challenge sent by him to Me some dayes befor as if I had wronged Popish Authours coÌ„cerning the Doctrine of Repentance And therefore I offered presently to make good what I had affirmed as to that thing by produceing their own Authours But he would not so much as speake to that particular Only he insisted upon the other Proposition Whereupon we told that we should never decline a communing either upon that particular or any other Question of Religion with any person whatsoever But because such Conferences might be exceedingly misrepresented it were â—â—edâ—ul that Circumstances were cautiously ordered It was therefore agreed upon by mutual consent that there should be none present but six of either side and all to be silent except the Disputants Yea the six which should be of the Popish side were by name expressed The day being now farre spent and the advertiseing of our Friends requiring a time it was also condescended that our meeting should be to morrow in the afternoon at this Gentle-Mans Lodging When we had given notice to some discreet Persons of Our Religion concerning this challenge they looked upon the place as unfit upon many accounts Wherefore I wrote a letter desiring the meeting might be at some other place especially where bookes might be at hand if any testimony which we cited should be denyed But when we were so far from obtaining this that our desire was interpreted as if we were declyning the Conference and distrusting our CAUSE We resolved to goe to the Gentle-Mans house upon whatsoever disadvantage takeing along with us no more then the definit number of Persons eondescended upon When we came into the Lodging we found contrary to promise a great multitude of both Sexes The Champion whom we afterwards understood to be Mr. Dempster Iesuit being set in a great Chair at the head of the Table and a Popish Youth who had been educated at the Scots College in Paris at his elbow as a Scrivener who was none of the Persons communed upon we complained of violation of promise in bringing us to such a publick Convention which in the end proved tumultuary The clamours of the Excommunicated Women being louder then the Iesuits Arguments The Iesuit answered that was but a circumstance But it was replyed to him that PROTESTANTS had too many dear bought experiences of the Perfidy of Papists If
found in it Yet what scurrilous and dung-hil eloquence the Iesuit useth in his next Paper vvithout any provocatioÌ„ is obvious to any Reader But next I appeale to all rationall Persons vvho shall peruse these Papers vvhether he gives not just cause for smart Language by his nauseating Repetitions shameful Preteritions and impudent Calumnies for vvhat I knovv vvithout a parrallel In so much that sometimes he vvould inscribe his Papers vvith a splendid Calumny affirming that I had disovvned all vvhich I had said before So he did in his sixth Paper When these his Papers were disseminated among the Popish Proselyts without my Answeres who tooke all the Iesuits bold Assertions for Oracles and were ready thereupon to clamour through the Country would not such dealing have moved the Choler of a Person of ordinary Meeknesse It was the saying of a great Iurist Non irasci ob eas causas I ob quas irasci oporteat stultoruâ—â— est Yea Aristotle affirmes it to be an Act of meeknesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And Plutarch was not afraid to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Yet if either Master Dempster or any for him will hereafter prosecut this Debate in a Rationall and Civill way they may be assured of as Courteous and Civil Entertainment as they shall give But leaving these things I have made bold to superscribe your HONOURS NAMES to these Papers Your known Affection to the True Reformed RELIGION and your zeale for promoting the wel-fare of this Famoâ—â— CITY the Happynesse whereof is more wrapt up in the Interest of Religion then in any Earthly concerne suffer me not once to doubt of your Willingnesse to undertake the Patrociny of the Truths herein asserted The Obligations are so many and so great which ly upon me from this CITY and from the MAGISTRATS and COUNCIL'L thereof especially these twenty and one yeares last bygone wherein I have been through Mercy officiating though weakly in the publick Ministry of the Gospel among you beside the Personall respects which I owe to your selves who at present doe possess the Chair that you may justly challenge a Proprietie in all my performances It is therefore become a Probleme with me whether this poor Present which I humbly tender to you ought not more properly to be termed the Payment of a just Debt then a SYMBOL of GRATITUD But under whatsoever notion you shall be pleased to accept of it I shall surely be the more deeply addebted to you I adde no more only the GOD of all Grace and Truth rebuke a Spirit of Errour Prophanesse and Idolatry which hath Alas fermented too too many in this Place That this City may become a City of Righteousnes a Faithful City wherein Mercy and Truth may meet together Righteousnes and Peace may kisse each other and the Cognizance thereof may be IEHOVAH SH AMM AH The LORD is there I conclude with that Apostolical supplication in behalf of you our Governours The very GOD of Peace sanctifie you wholly I pray GOD your whole Spirit Soul and Boâ—â—â—e preserved blamelesse unto the comming of our LORD IESVS CHRIST So prayeth he who is YOVR HONOVRS In all humble observance Iohn Menzeis To the Impartial READER BEside the historical account of this affair given in the Dedication I have yet some few things whereof to advertise thee Know therefore that necessity and not choyse did put â—e upon this whole undertaking I was provoked by solemne challenges first to a vocal debate then to exchange of Papers and lastly by insolent clamours to the publishing of all I believe no discreet Person will ascribe this appearance in Print to vanity For I acknowledge the debate is inglorious the Papers which I had to examine being so very insignificant I may indeed be blamed for wasting Oyle and Paines to confute such tristes But Mr. Dempster and what dropped from his mouth or pen how frivolous so ever were so admired I had almost said adored by our Romish Apostats that had I not answered him and published both his Papers and mine I should have been judged by many as wanting in duty to the PROTESTANT Interest Who in such an exigence would not rather submit to have his labour censured as unnecessary then to be deemed unfaithful to the Truth T 's true on whose worke had been only to state Controversies and to argue pro and con might have said more in a very few sheets for the satisfaction of an ingenuous lover of truth then is said in all these Papers But I have been constrained to follow the anomalous motion of a tautologizing Iesuits Who could never be induced to speake to any particular Controversie Sundry times I stated Controversies and hinted at impugnations of Romish Doctrines but could prosecute nothing unlesse I would fight with my own shadow for the Adversary had not the confidence to speake to any particular And besides these Papers were not at first designed for the presse but as privat missives to give a check to a petulant Caviller Many things may passe in privat missives which are hardly tolerable in tractats designed at the first contrivance for publick use So true is that saying Aliud est uni scribere aliud omnibus More of my worke stood in discovering the prevarications of the Iesuit then in canvasing his Arguments This readily will not have so savoury a rellish with thee yet I hope it will be judged excusable in me when the circumstantiated case wherein I stood is considered However to compense this losse I intended by way of an Appendix to have added some Arguments against the Popish Religion As First from its direct Contrariety to cleare Scriptures in many weighty points 2. From its Novelty and Dissonancy from the faith of the Ancient Church notwithstanding the vain and deceitful pretences of Romanists to Antiquity 3. From the manifold and grosse Idolatry established thereby 4. From its Contrariety to Catholick Vnity and the Schismatical constitution of the present Romish Church though Romanists have the confidence to glory as if they were the only Catholicks 5. From the Impious reproaches which Romanists and the Present Romish Religion doe throw upon the Holy Scriptures 6. Because the Popish Religion is greatly injurious to the Satisfaction and Merits of our Blessed REDEEMER the LORD IESVS CHRIST 7. Because Poperie overturnes all certainty of divine faith or rather to use the expression of learned Mr. Pool who hath given a blow at the root of the Romish Church because of the Nullitie of divine faith in the Romish Religion 8. Because many of the Principles of Popery have a manifest tendency to practical ungodlynesse and particularly Iesuits who are as it were the soul of the present Court and Church of Rome and the chief Emissaries for promoting the Romish Interest doe mantain principles opposit to sound Christianity and Mordlity Yea there is scarce one Command in the Decalogue whereof grosse and impious â—olations are not justifyed by these Men I whereof a considerable account is
given to the World by many learned Authours both PROTESTANT and Popish 9. Because of the sinful means whereby the Popish interest is supported and propagated 10. Not to mention more at present because Popish principles at lest as improven by the Iesuited party are highly injurious to the Soveraigne authority of Princes I purposed with-all to have examined some of the most Popular Sophlsms wherewith Romish Missionaries assault unstedsast people But finding that these Papers had swelled to such a bignesse I thought fit to wave the foresaid particulars at the time and the rather all these being judiciously handled by Persons of eminent Learning and Piety Yet if I be providentially drawn to a further prosecution of this debate I may then perhaps resume some thoughts of this nature I could willingly have deleted some smart expressions which the unhandsome dealing of the Iesuit extorted from me If I know my own genius I take no pleasure in Altercations I would rather contend with an Adversary in civilities It hath often been My desyre if at any time I should be engaged in a Polemick debate that it might be My lot to deale with an Ingenuous person who laying aside personal Criminations cowardly preteritions and Childish tautologies would fairly and yet vigorously prosecut the debate which would be both recreative to Disâ—â—tants and satisfying to the Reader But when I discerned My present Antagonist to be of a contrarie disposition as to all these it did not a little perplex me For should I have disdained to answere him Our Romanists would have cryed out that his papers had been unanswerable If I did bestow an Answere upon him it was easie to presage that I should wast more time and paper in chaslising him for his prevarications then in examining his Arguments This Diseâ—â—â—a troubled me more then all the Iesuits Argueings But now had any thing been expunged in these papers the clamorous Papists would exclaime that I had not published the papers which were exchanged betwixt us but had substituted new papers in their place and so I had lost my chief designe which was to give a real acount of what had passed Wherefore these unpolished lines must suffer the fate of going abroad in their Homelie and Native dresse as they first dropped from me currente calamo without Alteration Addition or Diminution so farre as could be attained by ordinary moral diligence I must adde this caution lest a Litigious Adversary should object to me any petty escape either of the presse or Amanuensis For other alteration they have suffered none I studyed such faithfulnesse in transcribing my papers that I have not so much as englished one sentence which was not englished in the original papers transmitted to the Iesuit Albeit the englishing of sundry testimonies would have rendered the papers more grateful and more useful to many Reader The like Iustice I have done to the Iesuits papers For what ever be the Tenet of Romanists De fide non servanda Haereticis yet we PROTESTANTS hold it a cryme to deale unjustly with an Enemy with an Heretick yea with a Iesuit There is no Alteration wittingly made upon either word or sentence of any of his papers safe only that the PRINTER hath been at the paines to correct many of the grosser trespasses in their Orthography He craves pardon for some few errours which have escaped him such as page 80. line 14 GGD for GOD and page 179. line 6. moir for mor. But for these two unwilling escapes and if there be any more of that kinde he hath corrected many more then fourty times two grosse errours which one would wonder how they had dropped from the penne of a professed Scholer The PRINTER judged not himself obliged to correct all So that sundry absurd errours doe yet remaine by which thou mayest guesse what papers thou should have had if no correction had been used I may sincerly say by this Edition I have neither bettered my own papers nor wronged the Iesuits Nay the Iesuits have received a considerable advantage by the correction of many Orthographick trespasses I am sensible of one disadvantage I stand at in regard the Iesuit could never be induced to signe any of his papers though ofter then once he was required to doe it I might justly have disdained to notice his papers as not carrying the Name of the Authour And the rather seeing Their Councal of Trent sess 4. decret 2. had prohibited the publishing or disseminating any papers on a Religious subject quosvis libros de rebus sacris sine nomine Authoris without the name of the Authour and that Sub paena Anathematts But such noyse was made here of the papers of this Iesuit as if some new Goliah had appeared or a new monstrous Sphinx for the unravelling of whose Riddles hardly the World could afford an OEdipus So that I was constrained to take some notice of them under whatsoever Irregularity they did appeare Yet now when the nakednesse of their Idol is discovered to the World perhaps Our Romanists may affirme that these are not the Iesuits papers or that they are interpolated or vitiated and so much the rather because they know that I have them not subscribed with the Iesuits hand This inconvenient I smelled how soon I received his First paper and signified so much to him in the close of My Answeres to his first second and third papers but by no meanes could he be drawn to subscribe any of them yea positively he declined it towards the end of his second and third papers But now should Our Romanists betake themselves to this subterfuge they will but discover more of their disingenuity For I sincerely professe I have given in the faithful Copies of the Iesuits papers to the Presse And in verification hereof I can produce the Authentick copies transmitted to me by the Iesuit to which these here exhibited in Print are conforme Though the papers sent to me be unsubscribed yet they were seen at the time of their transmission by Eminent Persons of Our Religion who can attest these to be the papers which I received I believe also they were comunicated by him to many Papists who if they will deale ingenuously cannot but acknowledge that these are the Faithful Copies of the Iesuits papers which are here set forth I am not so vain as to desire that any Romanist should insist in this debate I take no Complacency in Eristique debates further then the Interest of Truth and necessity on that account doe constraine me I wish there were no Controversies about Religion in Christendome I would reckon it a greater Mercy to be helped of GOD to contribut my poor mite for the healing of breaches were it possible then to write as vast voleums of Controversies as Bellarmine Stapleton Gretser c. Pax una triumphis Innumeris potior May I therefore earnestly obtest the more Moderat Romanists for I have no hope of prevailing with the Iesuited faction whose designe as appeares
be false and absurd And offered to doe the like concerning other controverted Scriptures such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matthew 16.18 Upon this Rocke I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of Truth c. This I did in the Answere to his seventh paper from page 126. to page 130. But all these he waves as tedious Digressions in his eight paper page 148. I resolved also to try his behaviour more particularly in reference to Antiquity and therefore in the Answere to the Iesuits eight paper from page 169. to page 173. I produced seven articles of the present Romish Religion which I briefly shew to be repugnant to the faith of the Ancient Romish Church viz. Their Adoration of Images Their Transubstantiation Their Communion under one kinde The Popes Supremacy Their mantaining the Apocryphal bookes to be Canonical Scriptures the Papes usurped Jurisdiction over Princes and their Indulgences for easing Soules under the paines of Purgatory But this is all the Answere which the tergiversing Jesuit makes to these particulars in his paper 9. page 176. What makes it to our purpose your digressions about Images about Transubstantiation about Communion under one kinde about the Popes supremacy about Apocryphal bookes about Indulgences Purgatory c. I gave likewise some account of their corrupting the Morals and Practicals of Christianity by their impious doctrine of Probables in the answere to his eight paper page 162. 163. c. But to this he answered Ne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quidem nothing at all The rest of his rergiversing Preteritions I must leave the Reader to collect by his own observation Did ever I pray an ill cause fall into the hands of a more unhappie Advocat Whether now my charge against the Iesuit as on that declynes to have the truth of Religion tryed either by Scripture or Antiquity be just let him who who ponders these particulars and peruseth all the Papers judge Had I tergiversed as the Iesuit hath done had I been left at such disadvantages as he would they not have made the World ring with it What ever answere shall be returned to me Our Popish Apostats will be ready to entertain it with Plaudire's as if the field were wone But I hope they who are judicious will hereafter lesse regard their clamours having such experience of their triumphing when their Champion had behaved himself in such a piteous fashion Our Romanists are pleased to boast that how soon these papers come abroad they shall have an Answere tripping upon their heels Indeed I have eased them of much labour by publishing all these papers Have they not had a good opportunity these six or seven moneths wherein they knew thir papers were at the Presse to prepare supplies for Mr. Dempsters omissions Have they not many hands and heads to furnish them materials little worke to divert them from scribling Yet they would take heed lest through preposterous hâ—ste they fall into Mr. Dempsters errour to leave the chiefe of their worke behind them My designe ever was rather to contend with them in solidity of reason then in Celerity of dispatch Diu apparandumest bellum ut vincas celerius If Romanists be as speedy in their Reply as they talke will it not discover that they apprehend some danger to their ill Cause from these papers If their speed be not answerable to their boasting will it not be an evidence that they are large as good at boasting as at argueing All the courtesie I crave from the ingenuous Reader is to allow me an equal hearing with the Adversary So as when he is to passe judgement betwixt us he consider an equal number of his papers and mine Here there be ten of either side presented If now Sentence should be past neither of us could complaine that we had not ben heard But if Romanists adde their eleventh paper then ought not any further sentence be suspended untill my Reply be heard The Iesuit having the first word doth not the last de jure appertaine to me Yet if the eleventh paper run in the same trifling and tautologizing strain with the former I plead no Suspension My heart bleeds for our straying Apostats some falling to rank Popish Idolatrie others to the delusions of Quakerism which if learned and judicious persons be not mistaken is but Popery under a disguise However O that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears to weep day and night over these deluded Soules under whatsoever Denomination they goe O that their eyes were opened to see the Sin the Scandal and Danger of their way It might be of some use to speak of the Causes of so great a Defection had not these Papers already swelled to such a bignes I shall therefore only transiently hint at a few And First There is alace an innate Principle of Levity and Instability in peoples hâ—arâ—s so that they are ready to be Tossed to and frolike Children with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 4.14 If the heart be not established by grace The 〈◊〉 siâ—eration of this should humble all and make us jealous our own hearts and watch unto Prayer lest we fall into temptation Secondly Seducers have usually a wonderfull insinuating faculty Rom 16.18 By good words and faire speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple By smooth words accommodated to the complexion of these with whom they deal they steal away their hearts as is said of Absolon Yet they in a manner fascinat and bewiâ—ch them as is the Apostles expression Gal. 3.1 And now these decenfull workers as they are termed 2 Cor. 11.13 have taken an unusuall boldness upon them to intrude into all companies where they have any hope of prevailing These therfore who would eschew their Contagion would shun their fellowship as they would shun Persons smitten with the Plague for the Words of Seducers doe eat as a Gangren 2. Tim. 2.17 The Apostle Iohn would not breath in the same aire with the Heretick Cerinthus but sprang out of the Bath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayeth Euseb lib. 3. hist Eccles cap. 25. How soon he perceived the Heretick to be there Thirdly As Hereticks are high and specious in their pretences so also bold and peremptory in their Asseverations The Romish Emissaries talk bigly of the Church as if none had an interest in the Catholick Church but these of their way The Quakers take us great a latitude to boast of the Light and Spirit God forbid that we should derogat from the necessity or efficacy of the Spirits working or from the due esteem to the Catholick Church nay I hope our hearers know we speak more to the just advantage of both then either Jesuit or Quaker But besides these vain and specious pretences these men are very confident in their Asseverations Though they cannot solidely prove any of their Erronious Positions yet they will affirme the truth of them boldly and be ready to Anathematize
Religion hath ex parte objecti intrinseck grounds and principles whereby it is constitute a True Religion though it hath not ex parte subjecti But this onely is to bring new obscure termes which put in good SCOTS signify onely the same which hath been said hitherto to wit that Protestant Religion hath intrinsecall and objective truths and conformitie with the true sense of the letter of the word of GO'D but is destitute of all speciall grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to have such intrinsecall and objective truth and conformity But I pray you what false Religion is there that may not with as good reason apply the same termes to themselves and say that their Religion is true ex parte objecti and hath intrinsecall and objective evidence truth and conformity with Scripture though they cannot shew this ex parte subjecti Likewise they have as great Reason as you to say that their Religion and the truth of it may be made evident if it encounter with an understanding well disposed though it cannot be made evident to fools So you are pleased civilly to call all those who have their understanding of such temper that they cannot see the truth of your Religion The other shife and evasion is that Religion is not one individual truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven at once or in one breath But what makes this to your purpose since that before you can prove any one of those particular truths to be conforme to the true sense of the text of such a Scripture you must first produce some speciall ground or principle to prove that your Clergie-men in Actu primo hath such assistance or hability as is prerequired in men that should give out to People the true sense of particular texts of Scriptures or else how can men be induced to beleeve that the sense which you give is the true sense since every false Religion might pretend with as great reason as you doe that they give the true sense though plaine contrane to the sense that you give In the end of your paper you desire me to subscrive and to put my name to the answere that I make as you have put to your name to yours but this your demand doth not seem rationall since your condition and mine are not alike for you are at home and as a Cock on your own midden and there must lurke some other thing under this demand since it can make nothing to your cause who proponeth the reasons against if they be pertinent and to the purpose Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Reply to the Iesuits second paper May 2. 1666. An Answere to a second paper from the traffiquing Romanist who commonly passeth under the name of Mr. Francis Dempster alias Logan YOur consident undertaking to impugne the Religion of PROTESTANTS made me once to expect great things But for what I can yet discerne Parturiunt montes c. I did truely nauseat to read this your raw and indigested paper in which you wholly passe by the most materiall points in my Answere and are pleased to reflect on them as unnecessarie excursions that so your Omissions might seeme lesse criminall A very easie subterfuge by which any faint disputant may decline to meddle with these difficulties which he sees would nettle him But that I may keep you closse to your work I must crave leave to reminde you of some of these omissions and yet to desire that first ye would cleare your self of that fallacie wherewith I charged the third proposition of your first paper Whether it were an impertinent excursion to discover an egregious fallacie in one of these propositions which ye laid down as a foundation of all your ensuing superflâ—â—cture the indifferent Reader may judge Secondly I desire you to answere directly to the retorsions whereby I inverted your Syllogisme against your self and your Romanists Is there any thing more ordinary in School debates then retorsion of Arguments or when the grand debate betwixt you and me is whether the PROTESTANT RELIGION or Popery be the True Religion was it untimely or impropper for me to shew that the weapons which ye bring against the Religion of PROTESTANTS doe strick at the very foundations of Popery And thirdly I desire you to prove the assumption of your Syllogisme denyed by me or else to refell the Arguments whereby I shew that though it be a Negative yet this is no sufficient ground to turne over the opponents office upon me If you doe not performe these things to all which ye are tyed by the rules of disputing I beleeve ye shall hardly escape from being censured by judicious Readers as an Ignoramus I shall not insist upon the evasion which ye have devised to cloak the informalitie of your Syllogisme ex omnibus negativis pretending that in one of the propositions you take the Negative Infinitanter not neganter Although you have not been pleased to tell in which of the propositions it is so taken and though there be no indifferent Reader but would look upon all the Propositions as simple Negatives neither could you in our Language expresse them more Negatively if you intended to affect the Copula with the Negation Yet I shall passe this seeing I have onely used this transient insinuation to admonish you to look better to the forme of your Syllogismes and withall did shew you a clear way how to have corrected your error without â—unning to these Termini infinitantes Onely you must remember that if your Nâ—gatio infinitans fall in the Minor then it becomes an Affirmative and so your pretence of liberating your self from being tyed to prove it doth wholly evanish There be diverse other things in your paper deserving severe castigation but they are truely so Iudibrious that it is irksome to me once to mention them Nay hardly shall any thing materiall be found in the whole paper beside the repetitions of what ye had said in your first Yet lest the wrapping up of all these in generall should give you occasion to say that my complaint were groundles I shall therefore branch forth two or three of the particulars And first Ye seeme to strengthen your Syllogisme with a Dilemma which yet upon the matter is nothing but Recocta crambe the same thing in a new dresse And thereupon you insult not without petulancie as if you hade nothing to doe but to triumph saying Hath the Religion of PROTESTANTS no principles whereby to prove it self Are they invisible or are you ashamed to produce them Soft I beseech you Is the Sun invisible because the blind Mole doth not see it Did I not tell you that the Religion of PROTESTANTS hade peculiar grounds and principles to prove it self to be a True Religion Did I not likewise declare wherein this chief Ground and Principle consisted Namely in its conformity to the Will of God revealed in the holy Scriptures Which neither Popery nor any false Religion hath or can
can prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme or not If you can give I pray you a specimen of your Acumen and tergiverse no longer If ye cannot then professe ingenuously as the truth is that ye have undertaken a work which ye cannot performe And it is no wonder that here you be at a Non-plus For if the Christian Religion revealed in Scripture hath grounds to prove it self to be the True Religion which none but a down right Infidell can deny then surely the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth not grounds to prove it self For the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the Christian Religion revealed in the holy Scriptures as I told you in the explication of the terms in my first Paper And consequently what ever solid grounds were brought either by these Ancient Apologists Iustin Martyr Tertullian Athenagoras Arnobius c. Or are held out in the moderne tractats of Morney Grotius Amyrald yea in your own Vives to prove the truth of the Christian Religion these also prove the truth of the Religion of PROTESTANTS Nay doe not you Romanists acknowledge the most of all our Positives So that the great question which remains is Whether you Papists have any evidence for your superadditions And is it not your concernment to shew this But when I think upon your Tautologizing way it calls to my minde the custome of children who when their memorie failes them in saying their lesson least they should seeme to say nothing they will needs ingeminate the last word Away then for shame with these childish unmanly and insipid repetitions You blot much paper needlesly with foure Synonima propositions But I might advertise you first that your discourse concerning them is wide from the purpose For it supposeth that I am now proving the Religion of PROTESTANTS to be the True Religion which is not at present my work But seeing ye have undertaken to impugne it my bussines is to cleat it from your cavills Secondly I doubt if ye can reconcile what ye have said of the Equipollencie of these foure Propositions with your Tridentine Faith For if it be the same thing for a Religion to be a True Religion and to be conforme to the Scriptures then it cannot be true which your Councill of Trent hath defined that Unwritten Traditions are to be received Pari pietatis affectu with equall devotion as the written Word of GOD. For if this Tridentin Canon be true the truth of Religion cannot stand adequatly in its conformity to the Scriptures but partly in its conformity with the Scriptures and partly in its conformity with unwritten traditions and consequently your fore-mentioned propositions cannot be adequatly Synomma's You may bethink your self whether ye or the Councill be in the Error But thirdly granting these propositions to be Synonima's that is to have an Objective identitie I pray by what Logick will ye prove that one of them cannot be brought to prove the other Is it not lawfull to argue á Definitione ad Definitum betwixt which there is an objective identity Doe not Logicians acknowledge an identity betwixt objective Premisses and the Conclusion And therefore though a True Religion be a Religion cōforme to the Scripturs yet there is no absurditie in proving the truth of Religiō by its cōformity to the Scripturs Even as to use your old example from which ye are fallen off as seems because it made so much against you An action to be honest and conforme to the Law are Synonima's and yet the best way of proving it to be honest is to prove its conformity to the Law By all this it appears that your plain Scots which ye are not ashamed againe to repeat is plaine Non-sense as I demonstrated in my last For the truth of Religion consisting in its conformity with the Scripture may be demonstrated by holding out its conformity with the Scripture An objective evidence of a Religion being nothing else but a ground whereby the truth of Religion may be demonstrated it is unconceivable how a Religion can have objective evidence and yet want a ground whereby to manifest it self to be a True Religion If here you but understood your own self I hope there would be no more controversie as to this betwixt us So that the matter is not obscured by my terms as you say but by your contradictory Non-sense As to your frivolous oft repeated cavill that a false Religion may pretend the like conformity and objective evidence it was confuted so fully in my last that I shall remit you to what was then said Though Anaxagoras and Hypochondriack Persons may mantaine Snow to be black Shall that make others who have their eyes in their head and the use of their Reason turne Sceptickes and question whether it be white or black Towards the close ye passe by many things as your coustome is which I hade said concerning the assistance of your Clergie men In actu primo to give the true sense of Scripture And ye only labour to extricat your self from that Contradiction wherein I shew you to be involved but all in vaine Nay ye involve your self the more by affirming That a proposition may have an universall obiect whereof it self is a part and yet that something may be affirmed of that universall object which cannot be affirmed of that part of the object A rare notion forsooth implying a manifest repugnancie But I am loath to digresse to a Philosophick debate with you Can any thing I pray you be affirmed of every man which cannot be affirmed of you and me As for that proposition of Davids All men are liars which you bring to illustrate your paradoxall notion How could you make use of it in your argueing with me untill first you proved your infallibility For if you may be beleeved I can take no sense of it from you untill you first prove your self infallible which I suppose you pretend not to But it is your ill luck to be still involved in contradictions Yet to speake more particularly of this example and not to take up time in enumerating the severall acceptions of this Syncategorematick particle All it may be evident that David did not take it Universally of all men in reference to all their sayings else he had not only convicted himself of a lie but also charged all the penne men of holy Scriptures as liars in all that they said Which I beleeve no rationall Person will affirme It must therefore be restricted to one of two Either to these who had said that DAVID should be King and if thus it was indeed an over-reaching and false assertion in DAVID For among these the Prophet Samuel was one And no wonder that DAVID did over-reach in this for he acknowledges he spake it in Festinatione in his haste Or secondly to which I rather encline it must be understood thus every meer man of his own nature is prone to lying and fallible as your Esthius and A Lapide upon Rom. 3.4 And many others doe
all the difficulty But good Sir give me leave to discover the shallownesse and superficialnesse of this answere You say objective Honestie is proven to agree to such a man because his actions are conforme to the Law But I ask you what if the letter of the Law with the which you compare the actions be capable of divers yea contrarie senses and the knave pretend that the actions of his Knaverie are conforme to the Law taking the letter of the Law in the sense that he give it In this case can one be proven to be an Honest man unlesse there be produced some speciall ground to show that his actions are conforme to the true sense of the letter of the Law and which cannot favour the Knave nor his actions Likewise since the letter of Scripture is capable of divers yea contrarie senses and there is no Religion so false but pretends that the tenets of it are conforme to the letter of Scripture taken up in the sense that they give it there rests no remedie to prove a Religion to be true or to be distinct from a false but by producing some speciall ground which is not applicable to a false Religion And hereby the way appears how easily simple people are gulled and at how easie a rate their favour and suffrages are obtained be a discourse smoothly and plausibly proponed and attempered to their capacity though in the mean time it be dest-tute-of all truth and soliditie Out of this you may see that since you have undertaken to prove the truth of your Religion and grants that the truth of a Religion cannot subsist without some speciall ground denying the subsumption that affirms the want of all grounds there results out of all these a necessity and obligation upon your part to produce some speciall grounds for the truth of your Religion whereby you may make appear that the objective truth or the objective grounds of a true Religion doth agree to your Religion and which cannot serve to prove that the objective truth or objective grounds of a true Religion agreeth to a false Religion Neither doth it exempt you from satisfying this obligation the pretext that you are the Defender and I the Impugner because to me as the Impugner belongs onely to presse you either to grant that you have no grounds or to produce them to be impugned Now let us come to the shifts and evasions which ye have produced in place of solid grounds The first was that your Religion hath objective truths or objective grounds of evidence though they be not alwise convincent by reason of the indisposition of the subject to whome they are proponed But it hath been told you that all thir are Synonims A Religion to be a true Religion A Religion to have objective grounds of truth and evidence A Religion to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD A Religion that is convincent if it encounter with an intellect well disposed And so thir being all Synonims and all equally in controversie one cannot be ground to prove one another but they must all be proven by some other thing And this was told you and is now repeated againe Neither doth it help you the answere that you insinuat in this paper that although they be all Synonims yet one of them may serve to prove another as it is lawfull to argue A Definitione ad Definitum though there be an objective identitie betwixt them as likewise betwixt objective premisses and the conclusion But in this as before you discover your shallownesse in touching onely the screofe not going deeper Because this way of arguing doth not hold when both the Definition and Definitum are in controversie whether they doe agree in such a thing for then they must be proven by some other ground Moreover may not all this with as great reason be assumed of a false Religion and which you your self acknowledge for a false Religion and why may they not say that their Religion hath objective grounds of truth and evidence and prove this be this other Synonime that their Religion is conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD Now all the answere that you alwayes give is that those that sees not the truth of your Religion have an intellect ill disposed and tempered are Fools Blinded and now you adde that they are to be esteemed for Hypochondriack persons But all this is as easily turned over upon your self since men that denyes and professes that they can see no truth in your Religion are in all other things as discursive and as sharp sighted as your self The other shift that you bring when you are pressed to produce some speciall ground whereby may be made manifest the truth of your Religion is That Relgion is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven altogether but successively one after another But who sees not this to be a meer shift in place of a difficulty to substitute a whole body of particular controversies which though they may now be begun yet requires years to bring them to an end And doth not Aristotle teah us that we should alwise begin Ab universalioribus before we descend to particulars least doing otherwise we be forced to repeat often the same things Likewise remember that the same shift with as great reason may be alleaged by any false Religion to decline the necessity that they have to give grounds to prove the truth of their Religion As for that in which you enlarge your self to shew an Contradiction in my discourse whereby I told you that before you can induce the people to beleeve that you propone the true sense of particular texts of Scripture you must first produce solid grounds that you are qualified with such assistance and such directions In actu primo to give out this true sense In this I told you before that you are fighting with your own shadow and putting up a faigned adversary to your self that afterward you may have a faigned pleasure in puting of him down For what contradiction can it be to say that the actuall operation or Actus secundus doth necessarly suppone Actum primum and if In actu secundo you give the true sense of the letter of Scripture then necessarly you must be furnished In actu primo with sufficient ability to give this true sense Or how can any exerce operations of Seeing Hearing Speakeing In actu secundo except he be supported to have In actu primo sufficient ability to doe thir operations And you must have great dominion over your intellect if you can perswade your self that this discourse involves a contradiction Now I request you to cloath this ragged Dilemma as you call it Either you can produce some speciall grounds whereby can be made manifest that your Clergie men are qualified In actu primo with sufficient ability and assistance to give the true sense of particular
texts of Scripture and let thir grounds be produced and shown that they cannot be assumed with as great reason to prove that the Clergie of a false Religion hath this ability In actu primo or else you are destitute of speciall grounds and then it is impossible that your Clergie can give the true sense of Scripture because it is impossible to doe any thing In actu secundo without a speciall ability In actu primo to doe it So that all the ability that your Clergie is furnished with In actu primo is onely to guesse at the true sense of Scripture and wherefore should people pay you Stipend for guessing since they are endued with sufficient ability themselves and without you to guesse at the true sense of Scripture In this your last Paper you adde a third shift to wit that all the grounds whereby Tertullian and other Fathers proved the truth of Christian Religion against Paganes proves likewise the truth of your PROTESTANT Religion But who will not laugh at this answere as if there were no Christian Religion but your PROTESTANT Religion And what Christian Religion is so false which may not with as great reasone assume this shift of yours As to that whereby you remitt me to the grounds which Morney Grotins and others of your own Authors brings I pray you since they are your own take all the help you can of them and either be distilling or squeezing all their writs Expresse me one solid ground to prove the truth of your Religion which may not with as great reason be applied to prove a false Religion to be a true Religion Mr. IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Iesuits fourth Paper An Answere to a fourth Paper from a traffiquing Papist commonly supposed to be Mr. Francis Dempster alias Rinne or Logan TO apologize for your long silence you alleage that my third Paper dated May ninth came not to your hands untill May twentyseventh and that it was unsubscrived and hade been first dictated to my Scholers To which it is answered that on the ninth of May I sent an authentick copie of that paper to the Gentle-man of your profession by whome the rest both of yours and mine were addressed If he hath neglected to deliver it to you untill the twentyseventh of May you may call him to an accompt and put him to Pennance at your next shriveing for being so negligent of the concernments of his Ghostly father Whereas you say it was unsubscrived I can hardly beleeve you yet if it be so it hath been a lapse of memorie But you are not In bona fide to object that omission to me who never had the confidence to signe any of your papers However Quod scripsi scripsis what I have written I have written And to give evidence that I am ready to mantaine what ever is in that Paper against all the fry of Jesuits transmit to me with a confident hand the copie which I sent and it shall be returned with my subscription manuall As to the alleagance that it was dyâ—ed to some Students before I sent it to be conveyed to you it is a grosse untruth For it was not communicated to them or to any else untill the week thereafter which I was the more easily inclined to doe hearing how busie your Romish proselyts were to disseminat your Papers and that with the addition of impudent calumnies But beleeve me I should not have accused you for your delay if at length you had supplied the omissions of your former Papers and done the work of an Opponent neatly and throughly as ye were required Sat cuò si sat benè But you must give me leave to give you a free Character of this Paper I finde it to be nothing but a Rapsodie of Railings Repetitions Tergiversations yea and shamefull flinching from your own principles So that if I mistake not it had been more for your credit utterly to have kept silence For Stultus est labor Ineptiarum By this time it appears that it is lost labour to presse you any further to make a Reply to the principall points of my former Papers For now you protest you will not doe it and you cloak your shamefull tergiversation with this pellucid excuse that these things in my Papers were out of the way That is if you may be beleeved impertinent But who beside you will say that it was impertinent for me to discover a fallacious Sophistication in the ground of all your discourse What ingenuous person would not have judged himself concerned to clear himself of such an imputation Yet though this hath been now foure times charged on you ye think it not pertinent to vindicat your self Who besides you but will acknowledge that it was pertinent for me to demonstrate that by your own discourse you had ensnared your self in Contradictions and had cut the sinews of your Romish and Tridentine faith What a poor Advocat then are you for the Romish cause and an unworthy Stipendiarie to your Master the Pope who have no more to say but that it is not pertinent for you now to speake to these things But what need I wonder at this Seeing you judge it impertinent to prove the Assumption of your own syllogisme which I had not onely requited you to doe but also condescended to demonstrate by many Mediums that you were tyed to doe it And yet it seems not pertinent to you either to prove it or to refell these my arguments Shall onely impertinencie be pertinent with you I doubt if that cowardly boast shall raise up your falling reputation that if I should answere according to the method which you prescribe that is if I would liberat you of the burthen of proving your Assumption then you would answere not only to all these my Digressions as for the salving of your credit you are pleased to terme them but also dispute at leasure with me about Logicall Rules and I know not what notionall whimsies concerning Formall and objective negations Quid dignum tante feret hic promissor hiatu When I compare your bigg but conditionall braging with your lean performances at present I remember of him in Plutarch who was termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Semper dicebat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nunquam dabat He was liberall in promises but nothing at all in performances If you be so able to expede your self in these particulars what mean you by all these shifts and dilatours Quinon est hodie cras minus aptus erit If you were once become so ingenuous as to acknowledge that you cannot prove your Assumption I would so farr commiserat you as to grant you an exemption But till then how can you expect courtesie at my hands Might not a man of your years have learned so much discretion as not to prescribe methods of answereing to his Adversarie Vaine debates for victorie and not for truth doe not become grave persons Yet I purpose never to decline to exchange a
Religion but your Prot estant Religion And then your choier is stirred that you should be remitted to our Authors Morney and Grotius I confesse smyling and silence are your best Topicks But laugh you fret you you must hear truth Are there I beseech you more true Christian Religions then one that you say As if there were no Christian Religion but your Protestant Religion Sayes not the Apostle Ephes 4.5 Una fides unum baptisma One faith one Baptisme We shall not therefore declyne this Iest Prove if you can our Religion not to be the Religion of the purest ancient primitive Church in the first three Centuries or that there is an essential difference betwixt their Religion and ours and I shal yeeld to you the Buckler and grant that our Religion is not the true Religion But you may sooner pull the Sun out of his Orbe then performe this Nay if I were not resolved to keep you at the probation of your Assumption I might argue thus That Religion which in all its essentials agrees with the Religion of the purest and most primitive Antiquitie in the first three Centuries must be the true Religion But the Religion of PROTESTANTS in all the essentials thereof agrees with the Religion of the purest and most primitive Antiquitie in the first three Centuries Ergo the Religion of PROTESTANTS is the true Religion The Major you must admit or else condemne the primitive Church yea and Christianitie it self The Assumption is evident by comparing our Religion with the apologies of Tertullian Iustin Martyr Athenagoras Arnobius c. I appeal you out of all the authentick writings of the Fathers of these three Ages to produce one essential difference betwixt their Religion and ours But on the contrary it were easie from this same Principle to demonstrat that your Romish Religion is not the true Religion Thus If the Romish Religion differs in its essentials from the Ancient Christian Religion in the first three Centuries then the Romish Religion is not the true Religion But the Romish Religion differs in its essentials from the Ancient Christian Religion in the first three Centuries Ergo the Romish Religion is not the true Religion â— The Major is clear the true Christian Religion being but one For proofe of the Assumption I remit you to that Formula fidei or Romish Creed contrived by Pope Pius the fourth which is set down by Onuphrius in the life of the said Pope to which all the Bishops of your Church must solemnly swear In which after the Constantinopolitan Creed there be added many articles which never were either in the Apostolick Creed or in the Nicen. Or in the Athanasian or in the Constantinopolitan or in any other Christian Creed much above the space of three hundred years after Christ Nay in it all the articles defyned in the Councill of Trent are declared to be Fides vera Catholica extra quam neme salvus esse potest the true Catholick faith without which there can be no Salvation Now I appeal you to produce any evidence from the indubitat writings of the first three Centuries that this was the faith of the Catholick Church in these three Ages Which if you doe here under my hand I engage to become a Papist If you cannot as I am perswaded you are not able then confesse that your Religion is not the true Christian Religion Nay learned Divines amongst the rest Crakanthorp in his Defens Ecclesiae Anglicanae contra Spalat cap. 15. num 4. And long before him Bishop Iuell in a Sermon preached at London Anno One thousand five hundreth and sixtie appealed the Doctors of your Church to produce either Church Councills or Fathers for the space of six hundreth years after Christ who mantained all these Articles which now are concluded by the forementioned Formula fidei of Pope Pius the fourth to be necessarie to Salvation And yet to this day none of your men have been able to performe this Was it I pray you a point of faith necessary to Salvation in the first three Centuries I might goe much lower to acknowledge the Church of Rome the Mother and Mistris of all Churches Or the headship of the Bishop of Rome over the whole Catholick Church What meaned then the opposition made to Pope Victor by Polycrates and the Asiaticks or by Cyprian and the Africans to Pope Stephanus not to mention others Or was it a part of the Christian faith necessarie to Salvation in the first three hundreth years that Images were to be adored that there is a Purgatorie after this life That Bread and Wine are transubstantiated into the Body of Christ That the Communion ought to be given under one kynd abstracting the Cup from the people As to this last I shall present to you the testimonie of your own Cassander by which you may judge of the rest In Consult Art 22. Satis compertum est vniversalem Christi ecclesiam in hunc usê™ diem occidentalem vere seu Romanam mille amplius a Christe annis in solenn ordinaria hujus Sacramenti dispensatione utramê™ Panis Vinâ— speciem omnibus ecclesiia Chrsti membris exhibuisse id quod ex innumeris veterum Scriptorum tam Graecorum quam Latinorum testimoniis manifestum est You needed not to have offended that I remitted you to Morney and Grotius especially I having joined with them your own Vives and these Tractats not having been written in opposition to you Papists But against Jews Heathens and Mahumetans And it was but shallownesse in you to desire me to squeeze them for one ground to prove the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion seeing I did appeal to all the solid grounds that ever were made use of either by Ancients or Moderns either by these of the Eastern or Western Church either by PROTESTANTS or Papists to prove the Christian Religion against Heathens that it might be examined whether these did not likewise prove the PROTESTANT Religion to be true Squeeze you them all and if you find it not to be so Herbam dabo Onely I must adde that these last named Authors were Persons of such eminent learning that neither you nor I need to be ashamed to learn a lesson from them This much further I have written then once I intended to have done so long as you hold on in your trifling straine But untill you answere to all the particulars of this Paper and to these you have omitted in my former Papers know that I will looke upon any thing that comes from you as unworthie of a Reply I shall close with that saying of Cyprian Epist. 40. Qui mandatum Dei rejictunt et traditionem suam st atuere conantur Fortiter a vobis nobis et firmiter respuantur Aberdene June 9. 1666. John Menzeis The Jesuits fifth Paper An Answere to a fourth Paper of Mr. IOHN MENZEIS wherein he continues to perswade that the grounds which he produced for the truth of the Protestant Religion were not
meer shifts and evasions June 13. 1666. THIS your fourth Paper carying the date of the ninth of June came to my hands the twelth of June and in it you make a more ample muster of your ordinar digressions contumelies and misapplyed Eruditions though you know that the better sort esteems this weak-mens weapons and clear testimonies of a deserted cause but it seems all one to you if by this means you can uphold your reputation with the Vulgar sort who seeing you blot so much Paper remains in conceit that you retaine still your post If I had the qualities to render me worthie of your friendship I would in a homelie and friendly manner suggest to you a compendious way to spare Paper observing onely thir three omissions First that you omit all exeursions out of the way that is to say that you omit all these things without naming of the which the present controversie may be fully deeyded Secondly that you omit all contumelies and undervalueing words as more besetting a scolding Wife then a Scholer Thirdly that you omit all these things which cannot favour your Religion but with this inconvenient that in the same degree in the which it favours you it must favour and shelter a false Religion and which is holden by your selves for a false Religion And I hope that you will grant thir things to be very rationallie demanded of you since it is known that there is a great difference to be put betwixt the handling of a controversie in a Pulpit where one railes at randome having none to contradict him and the handling of it in a School way where you must foot your bowle and hold you within the score under the paine to be exploded Now if you will be pleased to observe thir three things which are so rationally demanded I oblige my self to make it good that you will not be able to put ten lines in Paper which shall be judged to make to the purpose in the present controversie And for proofe hereof you may be pleased to take all your foure Papers misaplyed as they are squeeze them and see if you expresse out of them thir ten lines taking first away thir three things to wit Digressions about other matters Contumelies and base flyting words and things that cannot favour your cause without favouring in the like degree a false Religion And since it is to be presumed that none can expresse more substance out of your own Papers nor your self it is expected of you that after you have taken the pains to blow away all this chaffe you will show that there remains greater quantity of solid corne upon the floore then can be contained in ten lines of Paper That it may appeare how farr you wander out of the way you must be content to have patience that the maine point be laid alway againe and againe before you which is the Protestant Religion cannot be the True Religion or the Religion to the which GOD hath tyed the promise of eternall life and consequently whosoever aimeâ— at eternall happinesse after this life or intends to save his soul is obliged to quit it and to betake himselfe to a diligent search for the true Religion prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting only for the present that the Protestant Religion is it not This is both a substantiall point and proponed in so clear terms that none can but understand it And it is proven by this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be a True Religion which hath no speciall grounds or principles to prove it self to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no speciall grounds or principles whereby it can prove it self to be a True Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion To this Syllogisme you answered first cavilling the forme of it as componed of two premisses negatives and so concluding nothing But in this you discover grosse ignorance confounding and calling negative propositions affirmative premisses of objective negations Next you come to deny the subsumption that is you deny that the Protestant Religion hath no speciall grounds to prove it self to be a True Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. And you adde that since the subsumption is denyed by you it is my part who is the Opponent to prove it Let it be so But hath it not been sufficiently proven first Because if it have any good grounds they are produceable but they are not produceable or else produce them Next hath it not been often inculcat and is now of new inculcat that the Protestant Religion hath no speciall grounds or principles to prove it self to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture but such that with as great reason may serve to prove a false Religion to be conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo it hath no true principles or grounds because a true principle is not of an indifferent nature but is so determinat to truth that it cannot protect nor shelter any error Now that it may appear that all the principles or grounds which you bring to prove the truth of your Religion are indifferent and consequently cannot be true principles we shall runne them over and lay them open to the view of all The first ground you produced is that your Religion hath objective truth and objective ground or evidence and can sufficiently show and prove it self to have this truth upon condition that it encounter with a well disposed intellect But all this may be assumed and is assumed by a false Religion or assigne some reason wherefore you have right to assume it and they not The second is that your Religion is easily known to be a true Religion by applying and confronting the tenets of it with the Word of God as a man is easily known to be an honest man be confronting his actions with the Law as likewise a line is easily known to be straight and not crooked by the conformity it is seen to have with a right rule But what false Religion is there that doth not apply all this to themselves with as great reason as you doe And though the letter of Scripture is of it self capable onely of one genuine sense to wit which was intended by the holy Ghost which is all the shift which you adde now in this last Paper But what makes this for you since you bring no reason whereby may appeare that the sense which you give to the letter of Scripture is that one genuine sense intended be the holy Ghost or that the sense which you give is that right rule by the which all crookednesse is to be known You think it is enough to say thir things without
any proofe as if a Religion which you your selves gives out for a false Religion did not with as great reasone pretend all this for themselves The third is that Religion is not an individuall truth but a complex of many truths which cannot be proven altogether but one after another As a man who hath a hundred pices of Gold and would prove whether they be upright Gold or not this proofe cannot be done but by bringing every one of them to the Touch-stone But this likewise may be assumed with as great reasone by a false Religion or assigne wherefore they may not use this shift as well as you when they are required to give some ground for the truth of their Religion The fourth is that the grounds which Tertullian and the holy Fathers brings to prove the truth of Christian Religion against Pagâ—nes proves likewise the truth of your Protestant Religion But this with as great reason may be assumed by any Christian false Religion or show wherefore not The fifth that you adde in this Paper now is this that the perspicuity of Scripture in all things necessarie to Salvation is a ground to prove the truth of the Protestant Religion But though this were true what makes it more for the truth of your Religion nor for the truth of a false Religion since they with as great reason as you may and does pretend that the tenets which they hold as necessar to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture Likewise you have been often pressed to produce grounds whereby might be showen that your Clergie hath In actu primo some peculiar assistance to give In actu secundo the true sense of texts of Scripture which doeth not prove the like assistance to the Clergie of a false Religion So that in handling of Scripture you are all one with them having no more assistance to handle it rightly then they have As to that which you adde now in this Paper that this sense which is given by a Doctor to a text of Scripture may be the true sense though neither he nor others reflect or know any thing of the habilitie that he hath In actu primo to give this true seuse for Spiritus ubi vult spirat But though this answer wer to the purpose may it not be assumed with as gryt reasone in favour of a false Religion Next you force me to discover the shallownesse of the discourse that you make here because it seems you onely intend to induce a plausable and glittering scroofe upon things to dazle the eyes of simple people not earing what stuffely under For the question is not whether a thing may be truelie such in it self though I doe not know it to be such nor knows any thing of the causes whereof the truth of it depends since things are such and such in themselves whether they be known or not known by us Neither is the question about matters of Science where objective evidence convicts the understanding to assent and that independently of all authority of the Proponer But the question is about matters of Faith where all the motive to induce one to beleeve a thing is reduced to the authority of the Speaker and according to the divers degrees that are found in the authority of these that speakes a thing so are the correspondent degrees of firmnes in the assents whereby the hearer beleeves such things and because the authority of GOD is a supreame authority and above all other authorities therefore the assent that is due to such authority when it speakes or reveals any thing must have a firmnes above the firmnes which other assents have and which we give to matters proponed onely by inferiour authorities Now I ask how can people be induced to exerce one Act of faith or to beleeve with that firmnes which is due onely when GOD speakes or reveals a thing if they be not first assured that GOD speakes by the mouth of such a man and consequently that such a man hath sufficient assistance and direction In actu primo that he cannot deceive nor speake one thing for another Now you are required to produce some speciall ground whereby the people may be assured that their Clergie who should instruct them in matters of faith hath this assistance In actu primo and which is necessar if they would beget superuaturall faith in their hearers that is to say Such a beleefe whereby the hearers doe adhere above all to the things that are proponed to them as revealed by GOD in such texts of Scripture otherwise it will follow that the assistance which you have does not exceed the assistance which the Clergie of a false Religion have and consequently that preach what you will and though you rune over the whole Bible you will never be able by your preaching to produce so much as an sol Act of supernaturall faith in your hearers Out of all this appears at what poor posture you have reduced the truth of your Religion notwithstanding that in the begining you did so bragingly undertake to mantaine the truth thereof before whomsoever against whomsoever and in whatsomever place And likewise to this effect have spent and blotted so much Paper since all ends in this that your Religion is indeed true but so that it cannot be shown wherein it differs from a false Religion as if one had taken in hand the defense of the honestie of a man and after long pleading at the barre and brought the matter to this passe that he were declared to be indeed an honest man but such an honest man that there were no seemable difference betwixt him and a knave Mr. JOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Jesuits fifth Paper Which was not delivered to Mr. John Menzeis till June 15. 1666. Some Animadversions on the Iesuits fifth Paper HOW forcible are right words but what doth your arguing reprove Job 6.25 You are pleased to censure the Prolixity of my Papers but you might have known that of Seueca Epist 48. Longiore mora opus est ut solvas quaestionem quam ut proponas You take the boldnesse also to asperse these lines with Impertinencie But were not you afrayed whom I had so oft convicted of manifold Impertinencies to have it reponed to you Calvus calve calvitium ne objiciat Is not the true cryme whereof these poore lines are guilty because they have touched you in the quick so as you are not able to answere and therefore they must be endyted of Impertinencie though you could not particularize one impertinent line But I shall be suretie for them that they shall not decline to have their Pertinencie examined by your Romish Inquisitors though your Pope like another Rhadamanthus presided in the Court Onely your Fathers would remember that we PROTESTANTS are not besotted with an Implicit faith as if there charres were made of Irish timber which cannot bear a Spider Wherefore they had need to be more cautious then you have been and not to
but commend yowr ingenuity in that yow confesse cleirly that all the things that yow have spoken hithertoo in so long lybells ar not true grounds but onely reasons to show that yow wer not obliged to produce grounds for the truth of yowr Religion and so yow Disowne and recant them all as taken under this formalitie But let them be called as yow please either grounds or shifts to disoblige yow from producing of grounds yet the mâ—ine point remains alwayes that they may be with as great reason assumed be an false Religion as be yow and so all this time yow have been pleading â—swell for an false Religion as for yowr own After yow have Disclaimed and recalled under the formalitie of grounds all things that yow so copionstie have spkoken of hithertoo Now you prodoce your Achilles in which yow professe that yow will own as a ground of the truth of yowr Religion to wit Scripture taken as containing perspicuously all things necessarie to Salvation So that Scripture taken under this formalitie is the onely ground distinctive of your Religion from all false Religion But let us goe on here sofilie that it may appeare better the juglings that lurbs under this answere and the labyrinth and obscuritie that yow have involved yowr self in For first by Scripture of which yow affirme that it is a distinctive of yowr Religion from all false Religion must be understood the letter of Scripture taken in the true and genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost So that to containe all things necessarie to Salvation with perspicuitie is affirmed of the letter of Scripture taken with this true sense as contradistinguished from all false sense Ergo it cannot serve for a distinctive ground of yowr Religion from all false Religions except first yow prove that the sense which yow give to the letter of Scripture is that true and genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost and that all other senses which doe not coincide with yours are false and erronious Because according to your self Scripture is not a ground to distinguish your Religion from a false Religion but in so farr as it is suppoued to containe and that with perspicuitie all things necessarie to Salvation and againe it does not containe this but so farr as it suppons and is taken for the letter of Scripture with the true and genuine sense Now I ask how can you assume the letter of Scripture taken with the true sense for a ground to prove your Religion to be true and to be distinguished by this from a false Religion Except first yow show with pregnant and convincing reasons that this sense which yow give to the letter of Scripture is that true genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost Neither does it avail yow that which yow now here infinuate that the sense which yow give must be the true sense For the conformitie it hath with the sense holden by the Church in the first three Centuries Because this claime to Amiquity is common to all Sexts And so yow cannot mak vse of it except first yow bring some solid reason to prove your claime to be more just then theirs Secondly I ask yow how can yow affirme so boldly that all things necessarie to Salvation ar contained and that perspicuously in Scripture except first yow draw up A list or a catalogue of all things that are necessarie to Salvation as contradistinguished from all other things not necessarie and whereof a great pairt ar likewise eleirly contained in Scripture and Scripture it self makes no mentione to distinguish the one from the other For according to the rules yow gave your self it cannot be but blindlings affirmed That all the peices of Gold that one hath in his purse ar upright Gold except they be all produced to be tryed Thirdly you say that all things necessarie to Salvation are perspicuously in Scripture but with this limitation and supposition That the means for the interpretation be duely used so that Scripture is not of it self alone so perspicuous in all things necessar to Salvation except there interveene the due use of certaine middes to attaine to the true sense of Scripture But heir againe yow plunge your self in a new labyrinth of obscuritie for I ask what ar thir means and what you mean by the due use of them And whether the people without your preaching can duely use thir means by the due use of them attaine to the knowledge of all things necessar to Salvation as well as your Clergie men can doe whether a false Religion and acknowledged by your self to be a false Religion may not use duely thir middes aswell as yow Now I know all thir things will be called by yow nonsense childish things and not worthie of the sublimitie of your understanding and such railing will be all the answere that I will get Likewise when you was asked whether a man can beleeve a thing to be true precisly for this motive because it is revealed and spoken by GOD unlesse he be assured that GOD speakes by the mouth of him that propons such a thing To this you answere here That a Preacher may propone and give the true sense of Scripture and the hearer may have sufficient ground to beleeve the thing proponed to him though he have no antecedent knowledge conifying him that the Proponer hath such assistance that he cannot propone a false revelation in place of a true as a Iudge may give the true sense of a municipall Law and the hearer may have sufficient ground to beleeve that the sense given is the true sense though he have no antecedent knowledge that the Judge hath infallible assistance But in this answere yow 〈◊〉 your self altogether Ignorant of the nature of supernaturall faith Since supernaturall faith is not everie sort of assent and adhesion but an assent above all things and an adhesion with such firmnes as can be given onlie to the supreame authoritie of GOD when he speakes a thing Now I aske how is it possible that the intellect who in matters of faith hes no other motive to induce it to assent bot the meer authoritie of the speaker can produce any assent whereby it adheres above all things and with all sort of firmnes to a thing which it knowes not otherwise to be true bot precislie because GOD hes spoken it and revealed it except there preceed a knowledge certifying that GGD speakes by the mouth of him that propones such a thing and that he cannot deceive him in saying GOD to have spoken a thing which he hes not spoken or else one would either suspend his assent or else not give it in that highe degree of firmnes and adhesion which is necessarly required to supernaturall faith and which he is oblidged to give in case he knew certaâ—nlie that GOD speakes by the mouth of such a man And the example which you bring of a Judge giving the sense of the law confirms manifestly that yow ar altogether Ignorant
at first I resolved But whether you terme it New light or Old yet such a light it seems to be that your eyes could not more looke upon it then if they were of the same constitution with the eyes of an Howl In vocal debates I acknowledge the challenging of many faults at once and putting the Opponent to the probation of more propositions then one might breed confusion but when matters are managed by writ there appears no inconveniencie therein However you should the more easily have obtained pardon for this trespas had you at length proven the Assumption which from the beginning was denyed and which in my last you were pressed to prove by a Dilemma which if you had adventured to examine would have constrained you either to professe your self a down right Atheist and Infidel or else to produce some peculiar ground of the true Religion by which both our Religion and yours might be examined But it appears that your whole designe is to decline a tryall Let the Reader here remarke that the Major Minor and the whole Structure of your Syllogisme hath been questioned and that the probation of both Major and Minor are utterly declined by you and to justifie the Forme you have no other evasion but to affirme Negations to be Affirmations Transmit if you will this your conclusion Ergo the PROTESTANT Religion cannot be the True Religion to your Universities of Doway Lovan Paris and Rome and set them judge whether it be an Affirmative or Negative After you had againe repeated that impudent Calumny that I had Recallid the grounds of Religion which I had formerly given You say that now I produce my Achilles namely the Scriptures as perspicuous in all things necessary to Salvation Where you insinuate two manifest Untruths The first is that Now as if never before I had given the Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie as the ground of our Religion The other is that this is given as my Onely ground which are both notorious falshoods in the matter of fact For neither was that the only ground I having also given another Viz. The conformitie of our Religion with the faith of the Christian Church in the first three Centuries from which I did demonstrate the falshood of the now Romish Religion because of its discrepancie from that Ancient Christian faith Neither was my last Paper the first time that I produced these grounds Have you made lies your refuge Had you no way to support your lying cause but by such manifest untruths Doe you not give occasion to your Reader to say Perîsse frontem de rebus As for that which you terme my onely ground namely The Scriptures as perspicuous in all things necessarie which by way of derision you terme my Achilles I have no cause to be ashamed of that ground Scripture hath proven against Atheists Infidels and Hereticks and will prove against you Romanists also to be a brasen wall You make the fashion of moving some Objections against the Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessarie But before you were in Bonâ fide to have objected against it both the termes should have been cleared and you should have examined the Authorities whereby I confirmed it from Chrysostome Austine Jrenaeus yea and from your own Aquinas and Sixtus Senensis But to let this passe Cum caeteris erroribus I proceed to the examination of your Objections which I hop I shall make appear to be nothing else but Jugling shifts to use your own termes to keep off from the examination of the maine controversie Onely that the state of the question betwixt us may be clear Let it be remembred first that we doe not affirme that all Scriptures are Perspicuous and clear as the Rhemists in their 1. Marginall Note on Luke cap. 6. And other Rhomists have traduced us Secondly That we doe not exclude means of interpretation as Bellar lib. 3. De verbo Dei cap. 1. Prateolus in Elench Haereseon lib. 17. cap. 20. And Sixtus Senensis Biblioth lib. 6. Annot. 152. Charge upon us And thirdly that by Perspicuity we doe not means that all things are expresly in so many words in Scripture But that they are either expresly in Scripture or by firme and clear consequence are deduceable from it And what is deduced by firme and clear consequence from Scripture may well be said to be Perspicuously contained in Scripture Even as a Conclusion which is luculently deduced from the Premisses is said to be clearlie contained in the Premisses And this I adde also against Bellarmin who in his fourth booke De verbo Dei cap. 3. States the controversie as if Papists onely mantained against us Totam doctrinam sive de fide sive de moribus non continer◠expresse in Scripturis For if by Expresse he means in so many formall words neither doe we affirme it Fourthly by this Perspicuity we means an externall and objective evidence and therefore this perspicuity is nothing impeached by the misunderstanding of Hereticks or others For their mistakes flow not from the obscurity of the Scripture but from the defect Exparte subjecti or from the indisposition of their understanding◠who hear or read Scripture And fifthly by things necessarie may be meaned either these truths the explicite beleefe whereof is necessarie to Salvation Necessitate medii so as without the beliefe thereof Salvation cannot be had or also these articles the beleefe whereof are onely necessarie Necessitate praecepti Many things may be necessarie this latter way which are not necessary by the first kynd of necessity Therefore you should have cleared what kynd of necessitie you meaned For us we freely acknowledge al things necessary either of the wayes are contained in Scripture though not with equall clearnesse But these things which are of absolute and indispensable necessitie to Salvation are either expresly revealed in Scripture or luculently deduceable by firme consequence from that which is expresly revealed therein And of this last is our present controversie I have told our Iudgement but you like a jugler bring Objections yet doe not tell your judgement nor I beleeve can you tell the judgement of your Church I could here have set down the discrepant opinions of your men in reference to this point for which I shall remit you to Gerard Tom. Vlt. Loc. Com. De Script cap. 20. § 422. 423. Where he showes that some of you mantaine all things in Scripture to be obscure as your Rhemists your Divines of Colen and Canisius but that others grant many things in Scripture especially these that are necessarie to be clear as Hieron ab Oleastro Thomas Costerus Catharinus c. You are therefore required if you can to set down the judgement of your Romish Church in this matter as clearly as I have done ours And you may if you will in the entrie consider this Dilemma Either you have a Definition of that Church which you call infallible against the perspicuity of the
Scriptures or not If you have it produce it Sure I am your Councill of Trent hath passed no such Decree and for what I know none else If none then are you a manifest wrangler and you have no certainty of faith for the Thesis which you mantaine But let you wander in the mist as you will I have premised this to clear the grounds on which I walke and so I shall proceed to examine your Objections which are like so many roveing arrowes shot without the prefixing of a marke First then you object That the perspicuity of the Scriptures cannot serve as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false except first I prove that the sense which we give of Scripture is the genuine sense intended by the holy Ghost But this precarious and meerly assertory Objection may with far more reason be inverted against your self For if the Perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessary cannot serve as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false then must it either be because Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else because the sense given by PROTESTANTS is not the genuine sense of Scripture and consequently it was itcumbent to you as the Opponent who have undertaken in your fourth Paper To impugne any ground affigned by me I say it was incumbent to you either to have proven that Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else that the sense given by PROTESTANTS is not the genuine sense of Scripture But neither of these doe you once attempt to prove It is like you did perceive the worke would be too hard for you and therefore according to your tergiversing humor you set your self onely to studie shifts and evasions whereof this Objection is the first to decline your duty But from this your first subterfuge you may easily be beaten by this Dilemma For either Scripture is perspicuous in all things necessary or not If you say not then why doe you not bring arguments to disprove its perspicuity you being the Opponent If you grant that it is perspicuous then why may it not be a ground to distinguish a True Religion from a false Even as a clear luculent Charter or Patent under the great seal may be a ground to justifie the title of an honest Sempronius against the pretences of a cavilling Titius Nor can it be matter of such impossibilitie for PROTESTANTS as you falslie insinuate to find out the true sense of Scripture if Scripture be perspicuous May you not then see what worke is incumbent to you if you desire to have the matter in controversie canvased Namely either to prove That Scripture is not perspicuous in all things necessary or else That the Religion of PROTESTANTS is not agreeable to that true and perspicuous sense of Scripture And seeing you may as easily prove light to be darkenesse as disprove the perspicuity of the Scriptures in all things necessary to Salvation you may try your Acumen upon the consonancy of our Religion with the true and genuine sense of Scripture Pitch therefore upon the chiefe points in controversie betwixt you and us such as your pretended Infallibilitie The headship of your Pope your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Masse and let it be tryed whether they be agreeable to the genuine sense of Scripture I shall be willing to heat and to examine what you have to say for them and withall Godwilling I shall not be wanting to repone to you arguments to prove them to be impious errors and dissonant or the perspicuous and genuine sense of Scripture Then may you best discerne whether we PROTESTANTS can hold forth the true sense of Scripture But your whole designe appears to be to shift a Scripturall tryall And this is generally observed now to be the way of your late Pamphleters and herein you resemble the old Hereticks of whome said Tertullian Lib. De resurrections Carnis cap. 3. Anfer Haereticis quae cum Ethnicis sapiunt ut de Scripturis solis suas quaestionâ—s sistant stare non possunt A noble and luculent testimony both for the Perspicuity and Perfection of the Scripture seeing all heresies may be confuted by Scripture And withall a remarkable character of Hereticks in shuning to be brought to this Test as knowing then that they cannot subsist And justly you as well as old Hereticks may on this account be termed Lucifuga But lest I should seeme onely to make use of Contra-argumentation against you Therefore I adde from what hath been said this briefe and direct Answere to your first tergiversing Objection If say you for this is all the force that I can reduce it to The perspicuity of Scripture serves as a distinctive ground of our Religion from a false then should I first have proven the sense given by PROTESTANTS to be the true sense of Scripture Answere had I sustained in this debate the part of an Opponent this inference might have had some colour of reason But seeing at the time I onely stand in the capacity of a Defendant and Respondent I simply deny that any such thing was incumbent to me at present I thus answere not from any diffidence of the PROTESTANT cause and therefore forbear cavilling But that I may keepe with you the exact rules of disputing The truth of our Religion and its consonancy with the genuine sense of Scripture hath been so often and so luculendy shewed by the Champions of the PROTESTANT cause that for me to adde any thing thereto were but to bring a torch to give light to the Sun All that could be expected of me according to the Rules of disputing is to clear off any cavils which you bring against the consonancy of our Religion with the true sense of Scripture Yet will you come to the examination of particular points in controversie you shall perhaps find that I shall not only doe the part of a Defendant In the mean time is it not a strong presumption that the truth shines brightly on our fide seeing after all your insolent boastings and so many peremptorie appeales from us you can bring no positive argument either against the Scriptures perspicuity or the consonancie of our Religion with the genuine sense of Scripture but only betake your self to your flieing shifts declinaturs this for your first objectioÌ„ Ye object Secondly That before I affirme so boldly that all things necessary are contained in Scripture I should first have drawne up a List and Catalogue of these necessary truths whereas Scripture say you makes no distinction betwixt these necessarie truths and others And now you would be making use of an old example of mine That there is no way to prove a piece of Gold to be upright but by producing it to be examined To which I repon First that by this your objection against the Scriptures being a sufficient Canon as containing all things necessarie to Salvation you contradict your own self For a great part of
to save his Soul is obliged in conscience to quit it and to betake himself to a diligent search where the True Religion is to be found prescinding for now where it is to be found and insisting meerlie in this that the Protestant Religion cannot be it This is proven by this one Syllogisme That Religion cannot be the True Religion which hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or to be a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. But the Protestant Religion hath no special ground or principle whereby it can be proven to be a True Religion or a Religion conforme to the true sense of the letter of the word of GOD. Ergo the Protestant Religion cannot be a True Religion You denying here the Subsumption were advertised of this one thing that a true principle or ground is not an indifferent nature but is essentially determined to prove and infer onely truth and so not to produce any thing for a principle or ground to prove the truth of the Protestant Religion which may serve with as great reason to prove a false Religion to be true After much fluctuation and many shifting toes and froes at lentgh you have pitched on two things which you say you will mantaine as solid grounds to prove the Protestant Religion to be true and to be distinguished from all false Religions The first is The perspcuity of Scripture in all points necessary to Salvation But it was showne you the great jugling that lyes under this answere For first by Scriptur of which is affirmed that it contains perspicuously all things necessary to Salvation must be understood the true letter and the true sense of the true letter of Scripture Ergo it cannot serve for a ground to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion except it be first proven that the Protestants hath both the true letter and Translation and likewise the true sense of the letter To this in which the maine point consists you give no answere nor brings no proofe but onely remits me to read your Protestant Authors whome you call Champions and who as you say have made all thir things clear as the Sun But wherefore doe you not produce the reasons of these your Champions that they may be examined and impugued Secondly It was asked how you could so boldly affirme that all things necessar to Salvation or rather that all the tenets which the Protestant Religion holds as necessary to Salvation were contained clearly in Scripture except first Drawing op a catalogue of all things that the Protestant Religion holds as points necessary to Salvation and as contradistinguished from all other things not necessary To this you answere now that a Proposition in generall may be beleeved though the beleever cannot make an induction of all particulars contained in it So we beleeve that all the dead shall rise though we cannot give a particular account of their persons But it seems this answere hath escaped your penne when you were thinking on other things For though I beleeve a proposition in generall when that proposition is revealed in generall But where is it revealed that all the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds for points nocessar to Salvation are clearly in Scripture For giving and not granting that this generall proposition All things necessar to Salvation are clearly set down in Scripture were revealed by Scripture it self attesting it yet it doeth not follow that this other generall proposition is revealled All the tenets that the Protestant Religion holds as necessar to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture or that they may be clearly deduced out of things clearly set down in Scripture Ergo it cannot be an object of divine faith but by deduceing it by Induction of particulars And to this serves your own example of a purse full of an hundred pieces of Gold for though I may beleeve in general that all the gold contained in that purse is upright gold if this were revealed in general by a sufficient authority yet prescinding from all authority affirmeing this I cannot assent that they are all and none excepted upright gold except taking them all one by one and putting them to the tryall because if only one of them were not upright the whole assent would be false Thirdly Though you say all things necessar to Salvation to be clearly set down in Scripture yet you require the due use of certaine middes to attaine to the true knowledge of thir things and being demanded to specifie thir middes and what you meane by the due use of them And for answere to this you bring now onely a long Digression about rules to interpret Scripture slightin the maine print which is to show in this a difference betwixt you and these of a false Religion and whether these of a false Religion may not use as duely these middes as you can doe for attaining to the true sense of Scripture To this you onely answere that De facto they doe not use duely these middes and That the God of this world hath blinded their minds c. But what if they apply this to your self The second ground that you have pitched upon to prove the Protestant Religion to be a true Religion and to be distinguished from all false Religion Is the conformity it hath with the doctrine of the first three Centuries But this cannot be a ground distinct from the conformity which you say your Religion hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Because giving and not granting that your doctrine had this conformity you cannot by this prove that it is a true doctrine since by you All these were fallible and might have erred And conformity with doctrine that may be error cannot serve to prove a doctrine to be true And if you reply that though they were fallible and might erre yet they did not erre because the doctrine they gave is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo the conformity with them is not a ground distinct from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Or else you might prove the conformity with the Acts of Parliament in matters of Religion to be a ground to prove the truth of your Religion and a distinct ground from the conformity which these Acts hath with the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make good that the conformity of your Religion with the doctrine of the Church in the first three centuries is a distinct ground from the conformity with the true sense of the letter of Scripture you must give some Authoritie to the Fathers who were then whereby they were preserved from error though of themselves they were fallible And this must consist either in some intrinsecal quality inherent in them or in some special extrinsecal assistance founded on Christs promite And here you have likewise to prove that this
whol structure of your Syllogisme which is the marrow of al you have hitherto said You have bestowed many years if my information fail not in studying this your rare Syllogisme Could you not in all that space have put it In modo figura But it seemes you will take as many years to prove either the Major or the Minor thereof But so much hath been said to these things before that now I shall adde no more least I should seeme Cum Batto balbutire In my first three Papers I required you to prove the Assumption of your Syllogisme But this like a Thersites you still declined which I could not but looke upon as an evidence that you succumbed in your probation I did likewise appeal you to produce a ground of the true Christian Religion which doth not agree to the Religion of PROTESTANTS But neither durst you adventure upon any Hereupon I might have turned my back upon you as a smattering fellow wholly incapable to mantaine a Theological debate But to render you the more inexcusable and to convince all to whose hands these Papers may come how desirous I was to have the truth examined I condescended Ex superabundanti though not tyed thereto by rules of disputing to produce in my fourth Paper Two irrefragable grounds by which the truth of Religion may be examined Viz The perspicuity of the Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation And Conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Christian Church Hereupon I have urged with all the earnestnesse I could in my Fourth fifth and sixth Papers that both your Religion and ours might be brought to these Tests and examined thereby namely both by Scripture and Antiquity But you like one who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 self condemned knowing in your conscience that it is a wicked cause which you doe mantaine have still declined And the scop of this your seventh Paper is yet to decline the examination of Religion by either of these grounds But Veritas non quaerit angulos It is he who doth evill that hates the light Joh. 3.21 Yet have you the impudencie in this your Seventh Paper to say that after many toes and froes now I have produced two grounds as if either I had delivered some inconsistencies or had been driven to produce these grounds by force of your arguments or that now only in my last Paper these grounds had been first produced All which are manisest untruths Is this your gratitude to him who had so liberally gratified you with the production of these grounds When you were clearly at a Nonplus The two grounds which I produced I did prove in my Fourth Paper to be solid and sufficiently distinctive of the true Religion from a false and from them I did demonstrate the truth of our Religion and the falshood of yours for Rectum est sui obliqui Index but you have not once dared to examine these arguments While therefore you hold on in this your tergiversing way it might be enough for me to say to you with the Poet Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua Ought you not either to acquiesce to these Grounds produced by me or to produce others more solid especially you being the Opponent But yet once more I offer against you to disput the truth of our Religion both from Scripture and Antiquity and shall withall examine the scurvie pellucid and tergiversing evasions which you have made use of in this your seventh Paper You repeat here againe your three cavils against The Perspicuity of Scripture in all things necessary to Salvation or rather your three cowardly subterfuges to decline a Scriptural tryal but without any confirmation deserving a review I should the more patiently have borne with these taudologies had you been pleased for clearing the state of the controversie betwixt you and us to have delivered the judgement of your Romish Church concerning the Perspicuity of the Scripturs I told you the judgement of PROTESTANTS and shew you how they are injured by your writers I required you with the like plainness to set down the judgement of your Romish Church and the rather because your Authors are found to be inconsistent with one another in this matter And though I have looked upon your ablest Controversists namelie Bellarmin lib. 3. De verbo Dei cap. 1. Gretser In defensione capitis primi libri tertii Bellarmin De verbo Dei and Stapleton lib. 10. De principijs fidei cap. 3. Yet can I not find one Canon of a Council produced by any of them as to this particular Would they not have done it if they had any Doe you not manifest to the World you play the jugler when you dare not adventure to tell the judgement of the Romish Church even in that against which you doe so eagerly cavil You think you have disgraced all that I have writen by calling it A heap of digressions copied out of controversie bookes I find you indeed still better at calumniating then at arguing If my Paper did containe any impertinent Digressions why doe you not particularize them But I have already unfolded the Mysterie That which you cannot answere must be branded as a Digression to palliat your ignorance I acknowledge I have improven against you somewhat of the writings of Ancients of Schoolmen and of modern Coutroversists both of your side and of ours nor am I hereof ashamed This I hope is not the base Plagiarie trade which I leave to your Iesuits as being better acquainted with stealing other mens Papers Have you not heard how your famous Iesuis Antony Possevin did steal from Doctor Iames a learned PROTESTANT his Cyprianus redivivus and put it in his great Apparatus under his own name for which you may find how sharply he is chastised by Doctor Iames in his excellent treatise concerning The corruption of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Prelats Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome Part. 2. page 9.10 Goe trace backe all the Papers which I have sent to you and see if you can fix any such trespasse upon me As for you I confesse we have no cuase yet to accuse you of ripping up the bowels of many Authors All the Authority wherewith you have hitherto loaded us is Master Dempsters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You need not fear that any thing which as yet hath come frō you will be standered as Olens lucernam you onely ramble out any fleeing tergiversing Shifts that come first In buccam as a man who minded not to dive into the controversie However once yet as I have said I will trace your footsteps In your first Cavill you alleadge that The Perspicuity of the Scripturs cannot serve as a distinctive character of the Religion of PROTESTANTS from a false except I first prove that the PROTESTANTS have the true letter and translation and true sense of the letter To which you say I answered nothing but remitted you to our PROTESTANT Authors Here we
have a new Specimen of your Iesuiticall Candor for First there was no mention of the Translation in your first proposall of this Objection But Secondly to let this Peccadillo passe how are you so impudent as to say that I had given no other Answere but remitted you to our PROTESTANT Authors Looke backe on my Paper and blush for your lying Had I not first inverted the Objection against your self and then did I not Answere directly that this Objection might have had some colour of reason had I sustained the part of an Oppouent but none at all I being the Defendant or Respondent Did I not shew you that it concerned you to prove that we PROTESTANTS had not the true sense of Scripture and that all incumbent to me at present was to answere your arguments And the same now I desire to be accoÌ„modated to the True letter and translation of Scripture Prove if you can that we are either destitute of the true letter translation or sense of the Scripture What I said of PROTESTANT Writers that they have shewed our Religion to be conforme to the true sense of Scripture which indeed they have done as with a Sun beame was not that they in that had performed what now I was tyed to doe but as then I told you that it were no impossible taske but had often been performed though at present I resolved to keep you to the Rules of argueing Yea did I not deal more liberally with you and require you to pitch on some chief points in controversie betwixt you and us and for your encouragement promised that I should not onely hold the Defendants part But you cannot be drawne out of your lurkeing holes and thereby you discover both your desperat cause and cowardly Spirit Nay more have I not in my last Paper proven sundrie points of controversie against you Such as the Perfection of Scripture the perspicuity of Scripture the falliblity both of Popes and Councils c. Yet have you nto once had the boldnesse to canvase these my arguments Should I have passed through other Controversies is it not like that you would have waved all under your common pretence that they were but impertinent Digressions But though you had keeped silence at other points I think not so strange as that you could hear your Popes in cathedra and extra cathedram charged with errour and yet not awake out of your Lethargie I will minde you of a testimony of your Alphonsus à Castro concerning your Popes to see if it can alarme you In lib. 1. Adversus Haereses cap. 4. Thus he writes Omnis homo errare potest in side etiamsi Papa sit Nam de Liberio Papa refert Platina illum sensisse cum Arianis Anastasium secundum hujus nominis Pontificem favisse Nestorianis qui historias legerit non dubitat Caelestinum Papam etiam erresse circa matrimonium fidelium quorum alter labitur in Haeresin Res est omnibus manifesta Neque hic Caelestini error talis fuit qui soli negligentiae imputari debeat ita ut illum errasse dicamus velut privatam personam non ut Papam qui in qualibet re seriâ definienda consulere debet viros doctos quoniam hujusmodi Caelestini Definitio habebatâ—r in antiquis Decretalibus in cap. LaudabtleÌ„ titulo De Conversione infidelium quam ego ipse vidi legi So your A Castre In your second Cavill you alledge for it seemes you dare adventure upon no more Syllogisms That before I affirme so boldly that all things necessarie to Salvation are contained in Scripture I ought first to have drawne a catalogue of all these necessarie points and now you foyst in a word againe which was not in the first proposal of this cavil Or rather say you a list would be drawne of all these points which the PROTESTANT Religion holds as necessarie All the ansvere you bring me in makeing to this is That a proposition in general may be beleeved though the beleever cannot make an induction of all the particulars contained in it Are you become so shamelesse that in every step you must deal unfaithfully Who may not see that ye Romanists are moved by the same Genius with the old Hereticks of whome Austine observed Hareticorum frontem non esse frontem Did I not make Five Replyes to this your Second Cavil And you pitch but upon one branch of one of them and that also you misrepresent I must therefore pull you by the eare and remember you that First I shew that you were not In bonâ fide to object against the Perfection of Scripturs as containing all things necessarie to Salvation neither could you doe it without contradicting the grounds which you had laid downe in your First Paper Secondly I shew that this demand of A catalogue of necessaries was an old cavil of your fellows confuted by many particularly by Chillingworth Crakanthorp Stillingfleet c. to whome indeed I remitted you To these now I adde a verie late but learned Author Master Tillotson part 2. Sect. 3. § 15. In his confutation of a much eryed up Romish pamphlet entituled Sure footing where he calls This canting demand of a Catalogue of necessaries one of the expletive topicks which Popish writers of the lower forme doe generally make use of to sil up a booke And withall brings in Doctor Holden in his Analysis fidei lib. 1. cap. 4. One of the great Patrons of your traditionarie way shewing that this demand of a catalogue of necessaries is unreasonable and mantaining it to be not onely Impossible but also if it could be had Uselesse and Perniâ—ions Thirdly I shew from Scripture and Augustine that you falsly affirmed that the Scripture did put no difference betwixt necessarie truths and others Fourthly I shew it was unreasonable in you to demand of me a precise Catalogue of necessarie truths for proving whereof I did coacervat a heap of arguments And Fifthly I shew that it concerned you Romanists no lesse then us to draw a Catalogue of necessarie truths and that it would prove a more difficle taske for you then for us Yea from your putting a character of necessitie upon mary articles which sometimes had it not I demonstrated your Religion to be a false Religion and your Church notwithstanding all her great pretences to Catholicisme to be the most schismatical societie under Heaven and remitted you to Doctor Morton Voetius and Stillingfleet who had demonstrated this at large Wherupon now I must minde you how Master Chillingworth urged his adversarie Master Knot to produce a Romish catalogue of necessaries assureing him when ever he received that with the one hand he should deliver his catalogue with the other but this could never be obtained from Master Knot The like offer is lately made by Master Tillotson to Master Serjeant the Author of Surefooting but though Master Serjeant have made the fashion of a Reply yet hath he not adventured upon such a Catalogue
praesenti that the object thereof doe exist in that article of time wherein the Copula of the proposition is pronounced But according to you Christ Body is not under the accidents of bread when the Copula of the proposition is pronounced for according to you Christs Body is not in the Sacrament till all the Words be ended Therefore the proposition according to your Glosse cannot be true And yet it must be true as being the word of him who is truth it self And consequently it must be Ture and Not True Your Schoolmen have perplexed themselves with these Aenigma's but could never extricat themselves out of this labyrinth in so much that what one of them affirmes the other confutes As these hints prove the falshood of your Romish glosse so the truth of the sense given by PROTESTANTS is manifest from the Series of the context For if by the pronowne Hoc or This Christ meaned the bread then the sense of the proposition must be figurative But by the pronowne This he surely understood the bread Ergo c. The Major is clear because disparats cannot be predicated of one another but Figuratively The Minor is easily proven Because what he tooke blessed and did breake of that he said This is my Body as is clear from the Series of the context But undoubtedly he tooke blessed and brake the bread therefore it was the bread which he did demonstrate by the pronowne This. And consequently the sense must be Figurative Neither is this a late invention of PROTESTANTS Said not Austin Contra Adimantum cap. 12. The Lord doubted not to say This is my Body Cum daret signum Corporis sui That is when he gave the signe and figura of his Body And long before him Tertullian Lib. 4. Adversus Martionem cap. 40. Acceptum panem distributum Corpus suum fecit hoc est Corpus meum dicendo ad est figura Corporis mei Could Calvin or Beza have more luculently affirmed the meaning of Christs proposition to be Figurative I know your two Cardinals Bellarmin and Perron have scrued up a multitude of wrested testimonies of Antiquity as if the Ancient Church had favoured your monstrous sigment of Transubstantiation But Spalatensis Lib. 5. De Rep. Eccles cap. 6. à num 22. Ad numerum 164. not to mention other Authors hath copiously examined and fully vindicated all these testimonies and clearly demonstrated that the Church in the first Eight Centuries was in the same judgement as to the Sacrament of the Eucharist with the Reformed Churches By this touch the judicious Reader may discerne whether our exposition of that rext be not built upon solid grounds The like might be shewed if our expositions and yours were compared of other much tossed Scripturs such as Luke 22.32 I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not Matth. 16.18 Upon this rock I will build my Church 1. Tim. 3.15 The pillar and ground of truth Iob. 21.16 Feed my sheep c. And this were the most compendions way to try whether your expositioÌ„ or ours were the more genuine This also was the advice of Augustine of old Lib. 3. Contra Maximin Arianum cap. 14. Nec ego Nicaenum nec tu debes Arâ—minense tanquam prajudisaturus proferre Concilium Nec ego hujus authoritate nec tu illus detineris Seripturarum authoritatibus non quorumcunque proprys sed utrisque communâ—bus testibus res cum re causa cum causa ratic cum ratione concertes It is true throogh prejudice interest or blindnes men may oppose the most luculent truth after all these meanes But then the whole defect is as we have often advertised you Ex parts subjecti on the part of the subject And so much of your three frivolous cavils against the Scripturs perspicuity in al things necessarie to Salvation In your next section as you declined a tryal by Scripture so likewise you shun to have your Religion tryed by Antiquity and you pretend two noble shifts The first is that according to us al these in the first three Centuries were fallible and therefore though our Religion were conforme to theirs it will not follow that it is the True Religion I doubt if ever any had to doe with such a shamelesse tergiversing fellow For First suppose it were true that our Divines did say that all these of the three first Centuries were Fallible yet if you grant their Religion to be the True Religion and I admit their Religion as to all essentials to be a Test whether ours be true or not with what face can you decline it Know you not that Maxim of Law Testem quem quis inducit pre se tenetur recipere contrase Secondly how could you say That we affirme that all these of the first three Centuries were fallible seeing in these centuries were the Apostles whome we acknowledge to have been Infallible in their Doctrine But Thirdly by saying That we mantains that all in these ages even excepting the Apostles and pen-men of holy writ were fallible and subject to errors you discover your self to be either grosly ignorant of the judgement of PROTESTANTS or to be a base scurvie sophister which will appeare by distinguishing two words in your assertion For First the particle All may be taken either Collectively or Distributively And Secondly Errors of Religion are of two sorts Some in points fundamental and essential some in points which are not of such indispensable necessity This being premised I propose this Distinction If you meane that we mantaine that All in these ages Collectively taken that is the whole Catholick Church may erre in Fundamentals and Essentials it is a most absurd falshood for PROTESTANTS mantaine no such thing We acknowledge the promises for the perpetuity of the Church Isa 59. ver 21. Matth. 28 ver 20. c. But if the whole Catholick Church collectively taken did err in Fundamentals in any age then the Church for that time should utterly cease to be upon earth It is True sundrie of your Writers either through Ignorance or through their calumniating Genius have charged this on PROTESTANTS that they mantaine that the Church may utterly fail But this is so impudent a slander that Bellarmin himself is ashamed of it Lib. 3. De Ecclesia Militants cap. 13. Notandum sayeth he Multos ex nostris tempus terere dum probant absolute Ecclesiam non posse desicere nam Calvinus cateri Heretici id concedunt If therefore this be your meaning you charge PROTESTANTS falsly But if you onely meane that All in these ages taken Distributively remember that now we speake not of Apostles or of pen-meÌ„ of holy writ or of these who had an extraordinatie Prophetick spirit might erre in things not Fundamental this is granted Yet this hinders not but that the truth of our Religion may be proven by its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Church For though every one Distributively taken may erre in Integrals yet seeing Al
did come to my hands the fourth of November and I doe not wonder of your long silence of near three moneths for it is patched up of so various and copious Digressions copied out as it seems of Controversie bookes that you will scarce find one of twenty that will take the paines to read only over And to make it grow you have adjoined a long and tedious discourse about Real presence which appearingly is the substance of all you taught your Scholars this last Year But all this your painful labour for so many moneths is lost since as alwayes I have protested to you that I take no notice of things out of the way Neither will begiune any other thing before we have fully ended the maine point This debate was occasioned of a continual Railing made by you in the Pulpit againes Catholick Religion but with such ingenuity out of that your Chaire of Verity that in place of Catholick Dogmes to be impugned you did often substitute and propone in a ridiculous manner to the people Problematick opinions holden by some Scholastickes and Casuists as manifestly appeared out of the conference we had by mouth Whether this did proceed out of gross Ignorance or Malice or out of both I remit to your self Seeing that you did show so great fervour in skaring your Auditors from Catholick Religion you were desired to confirme them in their own Religion by produceing some solid but special ground and principle whereby might be proven the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion And though in the beginning under the pretext that you had onely the Defenders part you stood stiffe not to be obliged to this Yet because you saw that it could not consist with the reputation of a man in your place to play altogether the Dumme in a matter of Religion of so great concernment as is the putting in question whether the PROTESTANT Religion be a True Religion or not lest this declineing should be imputed either to your ignorance or to the want of positive grounds after that with defuse digressions of all sorts you did runne your self as it were out of breath At long lang length you were forced to have your recouse to the Old jock trot that your PROTESTANT Authors teaches you to wit that your Religion is proven to be true by this Medium or principle because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture As containing perspicuously all things necessarie for mans Salvation This then being by your own confession the chief and most plausible ground for the truth of your Religion you are desired to lay asid all other things hold you at this precisly until you make it good and proportion at to confirme your own PROTESTANTS in their Religion You say â—â—en that your Religion is proven to be a True Religion because it is grounded upon Scripture and conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture But it cannot be showen that it is conforme to the true sense of the letter of Scripture excep first it be showen that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture Ergo to make this good you must first produce some special ground or principle whereby a judicious man may be reasonably induced to think that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture that is to say the sense intended by the holy Ghost For as it is impossible that a thing be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed that there be a true sense so it is impossible to show or prove a thing to be conforme to the true sense except it be first shown and proven that there is a true sense Al then that is required of you is that you produce some special ground or principle to make it appeare that you have the true sense of the letter of Scripture since all the rest depends upon this onely one thing and that the ground which you produce to prove this be such as cannot equally serve to prove a false Religion acknowledged by your self for a false Religion to have the true sense of the letter of Scripture And this incumbes upon you if you will vindicat your Religion from this foul note that there can be shown no difference betwixt it and a false Religion And consequently that it is impossible that your Religion can be shown or proven to be a True Religion And it is expected that you will performe this with a clear Substantious Laconick and School-way laying altogether aside your diffuse reviling Pulpit way It is fatal to you to close your Paper with braging and praising your self and extolling your own answeres and withall to undervailne all that is brought against you but this as other things doe not reach to the maine point Mr. IOHN MENZIES Answere to the Iesuits eight Paper Some Animadversions upon Master Dempster alias Rind or Logan the Iesuit his eight Paper wherein he so shamlesly tergiverseth that he answeres not to one word of that which was replyed to him HOW now you Thersites Have you so shamlesly deserted the Scene Is your Syllogisme which Seven times you had repeated in Folio now relinquished without proving either Major Minor or justifying the Forme thereof Had you nothing at all to say for your Cavils about Acatalogue of necessaries the Rules of interpretation of Scripture the Infallibility of your Propounders or your Motives of credibility nor yet the ingenuity to acknowledge your self to be overcome by reason Are all your whisperings why the truth of Religion may not be examined By its conformity with the faith of the most Ancient Church silenced and yet dare you not comit your cause to the tryal Is it a sufficient confutation of what was replyed to you to say that the Prolixitie of the Reply would outwearie the patience of the Reader Would such a complement have been taken from Whitaker and Chamier as a sufficient confutation of Bellarmin's Vast volumes What a lazie Drone are you who could hardly digest the paines of reading two poor sheets of Paper Had I not so far condescended to your dulnes as to give you a confutation of all your Seven Papers in two words Could I be more Laconick Did I not put it in your option either to deale with the Large Paper or with these Two Words Could you neither read nor confute Two Words Are not you fitter to be a Neat-Herd then a Disputant Doe you not deserve that very character which Melâ—hior Canus puts upon the author of your Golden Legend Lib. 11. Loc. Com. cap. 6. Where he cals him Hominem ferrei eris plumbei cerdis a man of a brasen face and a leaden heart that is both shamless and witless Doe you not nobly act the part of a Champion for your Romish Cause who in stead of a consutation of a Polemick discourse stricking at the foundation of your Papal Superstition doe substitute a calumnious reflexion upon the first occasion of the debate Who
is now guiltie of the impertinent Digression you or I the Reader may judge All the colour you could put upon this shameless and cowardly tergiversing is That it seemes say you These large discourses of mine are copied out of controversie Writers But why would not you copie an Answere thereto out of your controversie Writers Why at least doe you not name The Authors with whom I had made so bold Especially I having in my last given a particular instance of the Plagiary trade of Jesuits and appealed you if you could to convict me of the like cryme If you put me to it I will rip up yet more of their sores of this nature Could the confutation of all your Papers in Two Words be copied from any Author But I had so brow-beaten this cavil before that like a self condemned Malefactor who to use Tertullians phrase is Acorde suo fugitivus you dare not now positively affirme it only say you It seems But I wil deale more squarely with you You not onely seeme but really are an effronted calumniator If you take ill with this freedome learne henceforth to affirme no more then you are able to prove Had it not been to cleare a little of the matter of Fact against these your lying representations of the first occasion of this debate I had not denzied a returne to this your impertinet Paper wherein you have not answered one word that was replyed to you But I am the rather moved to examine these your calumnies because it is long since I heard that Scurvie Lybels to this purpose were disseminated by persons of your professioÌ„ and now I find that by this your Paper you doe homologate the same reproaches Yet no to notice these diffamatorie Pasquils which no man durst owne I shall at the time only discover the falshood of some few of your allegeances in this your Eight Paper And First you say That this debate was occasioned by our continual railing against your pretended Catholick Religion As if it were our custome to charge your Religion falsly with these things which you doe not mantaine A great crime I acknowedge if it were a truth But why did you not for the satisfaction of the Reader and our conviction instance some of these falshoods Doe you not hereby manisest the calumniating genius by which you have been acted all along Know therefore that we PROTESTANTS hold it not lawful to lie for GOD. Job 13.7 The truth of GOD needs not mens lies to support it Did I see that the PROTESTANT cause could not be mantained without calumnies and falshoods I should instantly disowne it as not being of GOD. I reckone it my mercie that I have been helped in some measure to give a faithful testimony against the Abominations of Poperie and wil account it my duety so to doe while I live I have inded said it from Pulpit and I hope I have also made it good that your Romish Doctors have corrupted much both of the Dogmaticals and Practicals of Christianity And what I have said herein I shall be readie through the grace of GOD to mantaine not onely against such an Ignoramus as you but the whole unhallowed crew of Jesuits This hath been often charged upon you and demonstrated against you by our Divines But because I see you are not for large Volumes I shall remit you at present onely to a little but learned tractare to this purpose writen by Doctor Jeremy Taylor Entituled A Dissuasive from Poperie But what Doeth a Jesuit accuse us of Railing Doth not the World know that persidious lying and equivocation are the Piae fraudes the holy I should have said Hellish Chears whereby their cause is mantained Have they ever been able to wipe off those staines which Watson their own Romish secular Priest fixed upon their societie in so much that he is not afraid to say that Lucian Machiavel yea and Don Lucifer might goe to school and learne Satanical practises from your Jesuits And as for you is it not too too apparent by all these your Papers that you serve for nothing unlesse it be to rail and lie like a Shimet At arguing have you not proven according to the Proverb Quaesi asinus ad lyram Remember therefore that smart admonition Matth 7.5 Thou Hypocrite first cast the beame out of there own eye then shall thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brothers eye You are pleased Secondly to say That in stead of impugning your Catholick dogmes as you terme them We propound to the people and that in a radiculous manner so gravely forsoth doe you occuse us Problematick points out of your Casuists and Schoolmen If you Iesuits were not Persons Effrontis imprâ—bitatis linguae effrauis habituated in confident asserting of lies would you not have examined the truth of this report before you had given it under your hand Whether we behave our selves ridiculously in Pulpit grave Auditors can witnesse Indeed if the Supremacie of your Pope and the infallibility of your Church if your Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of the Masse it your Adoring of Images and invocating of Saincts and Angels if your Purgatorie and Praying for the Dead c. If these I say and such as these be the Problematick points you speake of Them I confesse we doe publickly propound and solidly confute If these be onely Problemes which a man may innoceÌ„tly affirme or deny why for opposing these doe you Romanists anathematize PROTESTANTS Why have you brunt so many of them alive and cruelly imbrewed your hands in the blood of so many thousands of them Sometimes I deny not occasions may occurre of speaking concerning the particular tenets of some of your Doctors But then judcious Hearers can beare us witnesse for we teach nothing in a corner that we no otherwayes represent these then as the judgement of such Doctors This appeared when I was confuting from Pulpit that impious tenet which I suppose is the Probleme you hint at of many of your Doctors That a sinner is not bound by the law of GOD immediatly after he hath sinued to repent For in Pulpit I did onely charge it upon many of your Doctors But though we be so ingenuous in representing the tenets of your Doctors I shall desire you to confider what a staine and reflexion these impious tenets of particular Doctors among you leave upon your Romish Church Are they not published with the approbation of your Authorised Licencers of books as containing nothing Contrary to the Catholick Faith Are either Authors or Licencers of the books censured by your Church Have not your Expurgatoris indices deleted much better stuffe in the writings boon of Ancient and Moderne Authors whereof you may find many examples in Doctor Iames his excellent booke of The corruption of Scriptures Councils and Fathers by the Prelats Pastors and Pillars of the Church of Rome part 4 But the impious tenets or your Casuists and Schoolmen stend uncensured with the
for you did simply and without limitation at the Conference admit the Assumption which did assert this to be the Doctrine of your Church This I hope may suffice concerning the occasion of the Conference and the moving of that question at it I come now to consider a little of the Point it self whether it ought to be reckoned as a Probleme and whether it be espoused by many of your Doctors and how far it may be charged upon Your Church In order to which I shall say but Two things The First is that this is surely the received Doctrine of many of your Chief Doctors in the Present Romish Church That a man when he hath sinned is not tyed by the command of GOD presently to repent For clearing this I shall not 〈◊〉 your puny and obscure Writers but as many of your Grandees as I hope shall suffice to justifie what I have said from Pulpit I beginne with your voluminous Suarez in 3 part Tom. 4. disp 15. sect 5 I adde to him his contemporary Iesuit of no lesse renowne Vasquiz in 3. part Tom. 4. quaest 86. Dub. 5. With whome you may joine another of your Champions Gregorie de Valentia Tom. 4. disp 7. quest 8. punct 4. and Aegidius Coninck disp 3 de tanit 〈◊〉 3. as also your famous Bishop of the Canaries Mclâ—hior Canns Relect de Paenit part 4. Yea and from all these you may second to your eminent Cardiuaâ— de Lugo tract de pauit disp 7. sect 11 § 1. num 196. And if you would goe yet higher your Casuist Navar In Enchirid. cap. 1. num 27. Is not onely for it himself but also cites for the same your Rope Adrian the sixth What should I blot Paper with the names of Bican Meratins Bonaciuae Layman c Take that one general testimony of De Lugo in the place cited Sententia har sayeth he Communis est jam omnibus thâ—ologis uno vel altero recentiore excepte This doctrine is now commone to all Divines except it be one or two late Writers Yea divers of the forecited Authors and others of the like stampe have gone a greater length in this unhappie doctrine then I charged upon you For they not onely teach That a sinner is not bound to repent immediatly after his trespasse but also in many Remarkable eireumstances when GOD seemes to be signally calling for Repentance As First That a man is not bound to repent when he seriously cals his sinne to remembrance Nor Secondly When a grievous calamitie is upon him or the Countrey he lives in Nor Thirdly on holy and festival dayes all these and much more you will find in Vasquez Quest 86. dub 6. For after the enumeration of these and other weighty cases at length he peremptorly concludes That the precept of Repentance never obliges Per se that is but by Accident Except in the article of death Yea there are of your Doctors who goe yet a further length and Doe deny that a sinner by divine precept is bound to repent at all even in the article of Death of which a little hereafter What Christian ears can heare of these things and not tingle May not this suffice to justifie the truth of my Assertion in Pulpit viz That many of your chief Doctors mantaine that a man is not bound immediatly after he hath sinned to repent But I adde in the next place that your great Doctors seeme to lay more weight upon this point then upon a meere Probleme yea and that Your Church cannot cleare her innocencie as to this matter For your Cardinal de Lugo speaking of this Doctrine in the place forecited calls it Communem sensum omnium fidelium The commone sense of all Beleevers Doe your Authors speake so of meer Problems Nay the chief argument whereby the forecited Authors confirme this there tenet is from the Universal practise of your Romish Church Because sayeth Lugo no penitent De dilatione penitentiae se unquam accusat nec ullus Confessarius de hoc paenitentem interrogat And he addes this reason quia siz nemo in praxi existimat esse novam culpam actualem ex dilatione paenitentiae Hereupon the same Cardinal concludes the contrary doctrine to be Injurious to your whole Romish Church both Pastors and People Because it charges them with no smal guiltynesse seeing neither Delinquents in their Confessions nor Confessors in their examinations take any notice of the Delay of repentance I shall give you the words of your Cardinal Minus digne sentiunt de Ecclesiae corpore cum velint ab universis Ecclesiae non selum subditis sed Prelatis ex ignorantia omitti debitum And this was one ground whereupon in the conference I did charge Your Romish Church with this doctrine when you would not speake to it under these restrictions with which I had spoken of it in the Pulpit And if herein I have trespassed in charging it upon Your Church you may see that not so much I as your great Cardinal is to blame for it and other your Authors whose chief argument to confirme this doctrine is taken A praxi Ecclesia If this be the judgement of Your Church why give you it out for A Probleme If it be not the judgement of Your Church then how comes it that there is no notice taken of the delay of Repentance in your Penitential court of Conscience either by Priest or People as your great Authors doe testifye But that you may see that I deale not with you meerly upon the testimonies of your Schoolmen and Casuists Doth not your Council of Trent sess 14. cap. 4. Manifestly declare that Attrition with Sacerdotal absolution without Contrition is sufficient yea the words of the Council are so clear sayeth Aegidius Coninck Tom. 2. de Sacram. disp 3. dub 1. num 5. Us sine aperta violentia non possint aliter explicari Therefore according to your Romish Tridentine faith a man may be saved eternally without Contrition Now let the world judge whether Our Religion or Yours have the greatest tendency to Holinesse We say that an adult Sinner cannot be saved without Contrition you say he may be saved with Attrition and sacerdotal absolution We say that a man how soone he sinnes Is bound to repent Most of the doctors of your Present Romish Church say That a man is not so much as bound presently to Attrition far lesse to Contrition Yea your own greatest Clerks testify that in your Confessions there is no notice taken of the Delay of repentance either by Priest or Penitent Would not the serious consideration of this one particular make any sober persone whose minde is not prepossessed with prejudice abhorre Your Papal Religion But it may be Objected in your behalf That some of your old Doctors such as Guliel Parisiensis Johannes Major c. Did mantaine that a sinner was presently bound to repent I grant it was so but this makes nothing against that which I have said Who knowes not
though I was onely the Defendant yet being out-wearied by your Cowardlynesse Have I not demonstrated that in sundrie chief points of controversie such as the Perspicuity and perfection of Scripture the fallibility of Popes and Councils and in the matter of transubstantiation that the PROTESTANTS had the right and true sense of Scripture and that you Romanssts were in the trespasse But you as a Catholick Doctor have one Catholicon by which you coufute all that your Adversarie objects namely by calling it a Digression for with that Reply you have satisfied your self throughout all your Papers Onely as to the last Specimen which I gave you concerning Transubstantiation you think you come off with honour by saying That it savours of what I taught my Scholars this last year Are not you a brave Champion indeed who are as afraid of an Argument that hath beene handled in the Schools as you would be of a Crocodile What sport would your men have made had our Whitaker Iunius Chamier and Danaaus declined to examine Bellarmins arguments because he had handled them before in that Colledge where he was Professor But whereas you say That the Argument which I brought against your transubstantiation seems to have beene the summe of all that I taught in the School this last year you shall know that I have not been accustomed to such laziness as to drone whole years like you upon one Syllogisme As in these forementioned particulars I have demonstrated that PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture and not you the same might be showen in all the rest of the points of controversie betwixt you and us and hath beene abundantly done by our Divines But to propose more Arguments to you is but Margaritas porco projicere For it would seeme you dare graple with none of them Fourthly I must advertise you of a Radical error which leades you into many more For you seeme still to suppose that who ever are a true Church must have one general ground from which the truth of all the points of Religion which such a society doe owne may be demonstrated without an examination of particulars And this if I mistake not is your 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which leades you into all the rest of your errors And therefore you still wave the examination of particulars and call for such a general ground But in this you show extreame basenesse that you neither prove the necessity of such a Principle nor yet produce that Principle by which your and our Religion is to be examined Only you insist still upon one general false Hypothesis as if it were an undenyable Axiom and a Datum Whereas in very truth a true Church may mantaine the fundamentals of Christianity and yet alas have the Tares of some errors mingled with the Wheat as is largely demonstrated by our Divines in that Question Num Ecclesia possit errare And therfore there is not one General Ground to be expected proving that all the points of Religion mantained by such a society are truth without examining particulars And this may be strongly confirmed Ad Hominem against you For if there were any such Commone Ground it would be the Infallibility of your Propounders but not this as I have proven in my former Papers Nay I have so soundly cudgelled this your Romish principle in my Last that you durst not once mention it in this your Eight Paper How ever if there be any ground which you suppose to prove the truth of Religion as a Test which none can justly decline I appeale you to produce it and I undertake by the helpe of GOD to show that either it is a false ground or else that it agrees to the PROTESTANT Religion Fifthly this Assertion of yours That before we câ—in prove the truth of our Religion from Scripture we ought first to prove that we have the true sense of Scripture had need of a very favourable and benigne interpretation else it is perfect non-sense and a very contradiction For if you meane by our having the true sense of Scripture that our ReligioÌ„ is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost then if we must prove that we have the true sense of Scripture before we prove that we have the True Religion we must prove we have the true ReligioÌ„ before we prove that we have the true Religion A noble stick of Romish non-sense Sixthly how easie were it to demonstrate against you Romanists that we PROTESTANTS have the true sense of Scripture seeing in most of all the Positives of our Religion you doe agree with us as that there is a GOD that he is to be adored and that there are three Persons c. Consequently The PROTESTANTS sense of Scripture must be the true sense else your Religion cannot be true You must either acknowledge that vve have the true sense of Scripture or condemne your ovvn Religion The chief controversie that remaines betvvixt you and us is concerning your Supernumerarie Additions as vvhether not onely GOD is to be adored but also Images and Crosses and not onely GOD is to be invocated but also Saincts and Angels c. That is vvhether there be so many more Supernumerarie senses of Scripture besides those vvhich PROTESTANTS mantaine and you Papists dare not deny Whether I say besides these there be other senâ—es of Scripture mantained by you Romanists and denyed by us Ought not you then to prove these your Supernumerarie senses And are not vve sufficiently vvarranted to adhere to the Negative except there be solid grounds for these Superadded sexses vvhich I beleeve neither you nor the vvhole sâ—lb of Jesuits shall be able to shovv though you get a superaddition of all Lucifers Acumen But Seventhly and Lastly Seeing nothing will satisfie you unlesse I though onely the Defendant doe also prove against you the Negative that is that not onely Our sense of Scripture is true but also that these Your superadded and supernumerarie senses are not true therefore to draw you if it be possible our of your lurking holes I will try you by this Argument The sense of Scripture given by your present Romish Church in many things contradicts the sense given by the Ancient Romish Church Ergo the sense put upon Scripture by your Present Romish Church in many things cannot be true The Sequel is cleare because two contradictories cannot be true If therefore you confesse that the Ancient Romish Church had the true sense of Scripture which ye must doe or else destroy the great foundation of your Religion namely the pretended Infallibility of the Church of Rome in all ages then wherein you contradict the Ancient Romish Church therein surely you deviat from the true sense of Scripture It remaines therefore onelie that I confirme the Antecedent which I doe by a few cleare Instances Instance first Your present Romish Church mantains that Images are to be adored Not so the Ancient Romish Church As appeares by the
justifie your proceeding in that Conserence which we had be mouth since you should remit all that thing to the judgement of these illustrious persons that were then present and let them judge whether you did feebly and cowaraly act your part and seeme to compeare there onely to game time Likewise in what school did you learne this civil title wherewith you honor me calling me a Neat-herd rather nor a Disputant that I am a man of â— brâ—sen face and a leaden heart that I am both shamelesse and as â—lesse that I am a Lazie drone c But this proceeds because my Popers which you verballie vilisie calling them Pasquills and not w.r. â—ie to be answered yet you sind they gall you and seeing your self not sâ—â—ffâ—â—ent with reputation to answere to supply this desiciency you seek help from the desusion of Bile that it may subministrat to you such uâ—comely and ume sonable words But let us come to the matter it self In my first Paper and in all others since there was nothing urged upâ—r you but onely that since you 〈◊〉 gerinrailing against Catholick Religion you would produce sâ—â—â—e ground to show the truth of your PROTESTANT Religion and whereby it may be distinguished from a false Religion that be this means you might bath confirme PROTESTANTS in their Religion and â—ime others to embrace the same But hitherto in so many Papers all that can be extorted out of you is that your PROTESTANT Religion is proven to be a true Religion be this Medium because it is grounded upon the word of GOD and conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture a reason indeed most solid and convincent if it were true But this pretended conformity of PROTESTANT Religion with Scripture was showen this way to you to be a meer imaginar and groundlesse conformity because as it is impossible a thing to be conforme to a true sense except it be supponed to be a true sense so it is impossible that a thing can be proven to be conforme to a true sense except it be first showen and proven that there is a true sense Ergo you cannot prove your Religion to be true because it is conforme to the true serse of the letter of Scripture except first you bring some pregnant reason whereby the understandings of men may be convinced that you have upon your side the true sense of the letter of Scripture Now since all dependes upon this one point you were desired to apply your self wholly to satisfie this onely and to doe in a substantious and school way laying aside for a whyle your diffuse railing Pulpit way But let us now examine the noble answeres that you give in this your last Paper The first answere is not direct but rather a declining of the difficulty under pretext that it makes a Non-sese to say That before a Religion can be showen or proven to be true it must first be proven that there is the true seate of the letter of Scripture upon their part who professes such a Religion because the true sense of the letter of Scripture and the truth of Religion are one and the self same thing and so â—â— would follow that a thing were proven before it were proven which is a grosse Non-sense But this subtility in the which you seeme to take some complesance and put great force serves onely to discover grosse Ignorance For First he this you show your self altogether ignorant of the nature of Formal Praecisions who have uâ—rtue where they interveen to make asâ—â—fficient distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleâ—me None you show your self Ignorant of the 〈…〉 be no Objective difference betwixt true Religion and the truths contained under the letter of Scripture But thir two are seperabâ—â— Since all the truths contained under the letter of Scripture may be and yet not componit any Religion at all to wit if there be no obligation imposed upon us to beleeve them or if GOD had not decreed it nor made the faith and beleef of these things necessar to obtaine our Salvation Lastly giving not granting that this your speculation had some soliditie yet it cannot serve to better your cause since all this just as it lyes may be wuh as great reason assumed be a falfe Religion for a scouge and refuge of their ignorance when they are pressed to assigne some ground wherely it may appeare that they have the true sense of the letter of Scripture upon their side or bring some disparity betwixt you and them Your second answere to prove that the true sense of the letter of Scripture is upon your side is Because your sense is conforme to the sense of the Fathers that lived in the first three Centuries But first in this you resile from your foundator Calvin who as you know disclaimes the Fathers in many things taxing them of errors and hitherto your other reformers harped alwayes upon this string that all doctrines even of the Fathers should be examined be the sell Scripture as the onely rule admitting no wise the doctrine of the Fathers themselves but in so far as they did agree with Scripture But now since you invert altogether this order you give occasion to suspect that you are hatching Some new Religion of your own leaving their principles Againe this conformtiy cannot serve your purpose except first you show that the Fathers of the first three Centuries did in the bookes that are now extant teach all points that are necessar to Salvation And this must be proven either be some tectin ony drawne either out of Scripture or out of themselves or else we will have nothing for this but onely your bare saying In the closing of your Paper beside your ordinary braging whereby you doe over value all your own things and undervalue all things brought against you you play the Prophet in Ryme Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acts Corruet mandi desinet esse caput Bo sie yat yis your prophesie be not lyk your Patriarche Lutheris prophesie who when he lept out of the churche did brage that with tuo yeiris Preaching he would abolische and eliminat all Poperie out of the world sa yat efteryir tua yeiris yair wold be no moir in the world nather Pop nor Cardinalis nor Monkis nor Nunnes nor Mase nor Belis c. This Paper was not delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS many dayes after it was dated but to excuse this the following Postscript was subjoined to the Paper with an other hand POSTSCRIPT Tho this Paper came from the author the day efter it was dated it could not be sent sooner to Master IOHN MENZEIS in regard the Person to whom it was adressed was not in Towne Master IOHN MENZEIS his Answere to the Jesuits ninth Paper Some Reflections upon Master Dempster the Iesuit his ninth Paper wherein he scarce touches what hath been Replyed to him and yet foolishly imagines that he hath confuted the conformity of the Religion
true Ergo c. The Sequel of the Major you dare not but admit unlesse you mine Insidell and deny that the true Christian Religion hath solid grounds to prove its conformity with the Scripture And for the probation of the Assumption you cannot but allow me that measure against you which you allow your self against me and therefore I appeale you to produce any solid ground which the True Christian Religion hath which the Religion of PROTESTANTS wanteth Yea or any solid ground which you Râ—â—anists can pretend to for confirmation of your Religion which we want You have never adventured to name any but the pretended Infallibility of your Propounders But this we have so battered to you that now you have stolen fom it not daring to mention it againe in any of these your Two last Papers Nay Fourthly I must remember you of a Dilemma ad Hominem against you Romanists which you might have gathered from my last If we deviat from the sense of holy Scripture then it must be either in our Affirmatives or in our Negatives Not in our Affirmatives you and we agreeing in most of these Therefore either in these we have the true sense else you have it not Nor in our Negatives else your contradictorie Affirmatives should be true But I proved in my Last that in many of these you doe manifestly erre as contradicting the Ancient Romish Church particularly in your Adoration of Twages Transubstansiation Communion under one kind The Poper suprexmatie the Canonicall authority of Apocry ha bookes The jurisdiction of the Pope over secular Printes your papall Indulginces at extended to Purgarotse And I am readie to prove the falshood of the rest of your Super-induced articles when ever you have the confidence to come to a particular tryall But I am utterly discouraged from multiplying more instances against a tergiversing fellow who is neither moved by credit nor conscience to examine what is replyed to him Fifthly seeing you shun to tell a ground by which the truth of Religion is to be tryed lest the Balfardie of your Religion should be proven I will give you a solid ground from a person of great fame in your Romish Gourcâ—â— though a Grecian by extract This is Goorgius Scholarius who pleaded for the interest of the Latine Church in the matter of the ProcessioÌ„ of the holy Ghost from the Father and the Son at the Councell of Florence Now this Scholarius tom 4. Conciliorum in Orat. 3. ad Concil Florent proposes these rules for determining controversies in Religion Et primo quidem sayeth he non decet velle omnia disertis verbis è scriptura desumere cum multos haereticos scimus pratextu hoc usos Sed si quid verbis it a prolatis sit consequens adaeque erit honorandum similiter quod veris confessis fuerit repugnans contrarium nullo modo est admittendum deinde eorum quae obscurius dicta sunt sumendae sunt è scriptura ipsa veluti magistra explicationes per ea quae uspians clarius illa disserit Where this learned Author holds these foure choise Positions for discerning betwixt truth and error in Religion to all which we PROTESTANTS doe cordially agree The First is That all divine truth are not revealed in so many words in Scripture Secondly that some divine truths are plainly set downe Diserris verbis and what by firme consequence is deduced from these ought to be beleeved and received with the same respect as these which are delivered In terminis Thirdly whatsoever is repugnant to these truths which are plainly Diserris verbis set downe or confessed upon all hands ought to be rejected as erroneous Fourthly that these things which are more obscurely treated of in Scripture are to receive their explications from other cleare Scripture as the Mistres of our faith These grounds so laid downe he afterwards accon modaâ—s to his present Hypothesis for decyding the controversie betwixt the Latine and Greek Church concerning the procession of the holy Ghost and may by the same measure be applyed to the controversies betwixt us PROTESTANTS and You Romanists If therefore you will dire to adventure upon the tryal of particular controversies betwixt you and us according to this standard I trust you shall see if prejudice doe not blind you that all the points of the Religion of PROTESTANTS are either revealed in Scripture plainly and In terminis or the by solid consequence are deduceable from these which are revealed In terminis And on the contrary that your Supe irauce Romish article wherein we differ from you are neither In terminis in Scripture nor yet by solid consequence deduceable from these things which are clearly revealed in Scripture but on the contrarie are repugnant thereunto I hope therefore the intelligen Reader wil observe that if you descend not to a particular tryal it is not because a ground was not assigned to you from discerning truth in Religion from error but from diffidence of your desperat cause Onely that you doe not returne to your usual trifling Cavill that Hereticks and those of a false Religion may pretend the same grounds for justifying their Heresies let me tell you that Hereticks may indeed pretend a patrocinie from these grounds which upon examination will overturne their cause And therefore what I say to you I say the same of all other Hereticks Socinians Pelagians Nestorians Aâ—â—baptists Antinomians c. That if they will come to a particular discusse according to these premised rules what ever their pretences be it shall appeare that their Heresies are neither In terminis contained in Scripture nor yet are deduceable by solid reason from these things which are clearly revealed but are repugnant thereunto Sixthly I answere Directly to this your Cavill by this Distinction If you meane that PROTESTANTS or whatsoever society acclaiming the True Religion before they prove the truth of their Religion or the conformity thereof to the true sense of Scripture must first produce one ground proving all the senses which they give in Scripture In cumulo to be true without a particular examination of the several senses and points of Religion mantained by them that I say is a grosse falshood and mistake For a Society may professe the true Religion and mantaine all the essentialls the cof and yet as I told n my last have some errors mingled in with these 〈◊〉 as our Dâ—vines have demonstrated in the Question Nom Ecclesiâ— possit errare Therefore if this be your mâ—â—ning it concernes you to have proven it for I doe and in my Last I imply did deny it But if you onely meane that PROTESTANTS or others acclaiming the truth of Religion must either have the essentials and all truths in their Religion plainly and In terminis revealed in Scripture or else solidly deduceable upon a particular discusse from these things that are so plainly revealed I grant it freely that it ought and must be so And therefore it you will
come to the examination of particular Articles I engage to disclaime the Religion of PROTESTANTS if it be not found to be so and shall onely demand but the like ingenuity readynesse and engagement from you that you will renounce your Romish superstition if is neither be In terminis in Scripture nor solidly deduceable from these things which are there plainlie revealed If there be not enough said to put an end to your general whifling Cavils let these who are not fascinated by prejudice judge Is it not time after the exchange of nine Papers to come once to the matter for you are not as yet come to it The rest of your Paper you pretend to spend in examining the Answeres given by me to this your forementioned Cavil Concerning the sense of holy Scripture But it would seeme you had been either dreaming or drunke when you wrote this for you bring me in only making Two answeres whereas indeed I have made Seven of the two which you mention only one of them is to be found in my Last Paper But however I will try how you behave your self in examining these That which you say is my First Answere is indeed my Fifth as you will find when you awake from your sleep and looke on my Paper But before I take in your Reply I will first propose my former Answere not in your words for I seldome find them faithfull but in my own as I proposed them in my Last My words then were these This Assertion of yours that before we can prove the truth of our Religion from the Scripture we must first prove this we have the true sense of the Scripture bad need of a verse favourable and benigns interpretation else it is perfect Nonsense and a very contradiction For if you meane by our having the true sense of Scripture that our Religion is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost then if we must prove that we have the true sense of Scripture before we prove that we have the True Religion we must prove that we have the True Religion before we prove that we have the True Religion These were my words and if the inference be not solid upon the Supposition laid downe therein these who have common sense may judge Yet to this you have made Three Replyes but each of them more ludibrious then another Your First Reply is a pedantick whifle about formall Praecisions you say That I shew my self to be altogether ignorant of the nature of formall praecisions which have vertue where they interverne to make a sufficent distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleme For all your pretended skil of these Pracisions there are schoole Boyes with us who could adventure to the lists with you concerning them Yet I confesse in some sense you may commence Doctor in the matter of Praecisions For you have a notable faculty of praescinding from the purpose But if you had said any thing to the point you should have shewed that there interveens a Formall Praecisions sufficient to make a distinction betwixt the Medium and Probleme betwixt these two V.Z. That our Religion is contained in Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost And this That our Religion is the true Religion Can you either conceive or conclude that our Religion is contained in the Scripture as the true sense thereof intended by the holy Ghost and not conceive Ipso Facto and Formaliter that it is the True Religion Especially seeing from the beginning of your Papers you have acknowledged That a Religion to be a True Religion and to be conforms to the true sense of Scripture are Synonima's You may try in the next how you can prove this for you still leave the greatest part of your worke behind you But in the Second place from this pedantick notion you proceed to a more absurd position as if heere There were an objective distinction betwixt the Medium and the Probleme still out of your Modestie Vphraiding me with Ignorance For say you The True Religion and truths contained under the letter of Scripture are separable one from another because all the truths of Scripture may be yet not compâ—uÌ„â— any ReligioÌ„ at all to wit if there had been no obligation imposed upon us to beleeve them And hereupon You conclude me ignorant of the nature of True Religion A greater cry me I confes then the ignorance of the nature of formal Praecisions Onely you had need to guard well that this your insolent accusation doe not recoyl upon your own head For First were you not sophisticâ—ting Ab Ignoratiore Elenchi you should have concluded that our Religion may be contained in the Scripture as the true sense hereof and yet make up no Religion at all But who sees not this to be a manifest contradiction And yet these were the two which you ought to prove to be separable for that was the Supposition whereon my Inference was builded But Secondly what ignorance and absurdity doe you bewray when you say That all the truths contained under the letter of Scripture may be and yet make up no Religion at all I will instance to you a few Scripture truths which it is impossible they should be and not make up a Religion Matth. 4.10 It is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve John 20.31 These thinges are written that ye might beleeve that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and beleeving ye might have life through his name 1. John 3.23 This is his commandement that ye should beleeve on the name of his Son Jesus Christ These Scripture truths cannot be unlesse they concurre to make up a Religion and the reason is evident which also destroyes your fond Supposition and pretended reason to the contratie because they include in them a Form all obligation of worshiping GOD and beleeving in order to the obtaining or Salvation Do not you the refore bewray brutish ignorance of Scripture and of Religion when you say That all truths contained in the Scripture may be without an obligation to beleeve them and so compound no Religion at all For it is one Scripture Truth that we are commanded and obliged in Scripture to beleeve these truths in order to the obtaining of Salvation Your Third Reply is nothing lesse ludibrious then the former Two in which you say That what was said in that answere of mire to you may be said by persons of another Religion alswell as by us And who doubts but Hereticks may justly repell your Noneseâ—se May not Hereticks be otherwise solidly confuted albeit they laugh at your ridiculous Cavils I hope these transient to ches may suffice to discover with how little successe you have dealt with that Fifth Answere of mine which you call the first For I judge it unbeseeming for me in handling so weighty a controversie as this Whether the Religion of PROTESTANTS or Papists be the true
our Reformed Divines have often offered to disput against you Romanists the controversies of Religion out of the Fathers Did I not show you this before from Juel Whitaker and Crakanthorp And how often doth learned Calvine in his Institutions confute you Romanists from Antiquity as your transubstantiation Lib. 4. cap. 17. § 14. Your Communion under one kinde Ibid. § 47. 48. 49. 50. The necessity of Auricular confession Lib. 3. cap. 4. § 7. Your Papal Indulgences Lib. 3. cap. 5. § 3. 4. The Popes supreamacie over the whole Catholick Church Lib. 4. cap. 7. § 3. 4. 5. c. Yea and not to insist in reckoning out particulars when he is treating of Councils and their authoritie Lib. 4. cap. 9. § 1. Veneror Councilia sayeth he ex animo suoque in honore apud omnes esse cupio and a little after Sicuti ad plenam doctrinae nostrae approbationem totius Papismi eversionem abunde verbo DEI instructi sumus ut nihil praeterea requirere magnopere opus sit ita si res flagitet magna ex parte quod satis sit ad utrumque vetera Concilia nobis subministrant where Judicious Calvine affirmes that out of Ancient Councils both the Religion of PROTESTANTS may be confirmed the Papal superstition confuted From all this may it not appeare how ludibriously you say that I seeme to be hatching a New Religion of my own Am I not offering to defend the received Religion of PROTESTANTS and to have the truth thereof tryed By its conformity with the faith of the Ancient Primitive Church Is the Ancient Religion a New Religion Is the Religion both of Ancients and PROTESTANTS a Religion peculiar to me Will you not blush that such foolish Non-sense should have droped from you But you have another trifling Shift Before say you That conformity with the faith of the Ancient hurch in the first three Centuries be admitted as a Test by which the truth of Religion may be discerned it ought to be proven that all the necessaries of the Christian Religion are contained in their writings which are now extant But First may it not with better reason be resorted on you that before you had rejected it from being a Test you ought first to have proven that there were some necessaries and essentials of the Christian Religion no where to be found in any of the writings of these three ages If any be wanting produce them and your evidence of their absolute necessity If you can produce no necessarie article that is wanting why decline you the tryal But the truth is you Romanists mantaine such a desperat cause that if either Scripture or Antiquity be Umpyre you must surely be condemned There is no way to get a favourable Interloquitur for you but by setting up your Infallible Propounders that is your own selves to be Supreame judges to the whole World If such a Religion be not to be suspected let the World judge But Secondly doe not you Romanists boast bigly sometimes of Universal traditions And here by the way I tel you I shall never declyne to have all the Essentials of Religion tryed by the famous rule of Vincentius Lyrinensis in Commonitorio primo contra Haereses cap. 3. Quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus est creditum But if any of the necessaries or essentials of Christianity are not to be found in the writings of the Three first Centuries how shall we have a Perpetual and universal tradition for these seeing the current is supposed to be broken off at the fountain for three hundred yeares thereafter Must we take the voice of your Present Church as an Oracle to tell us what was beleeved by the Church so many ages agoe though there be no record left that such a thing was ever beleeved We must examine her Credentials before we become so implicite to her in matters of Fact But Thirdly If any of the Necessaries of Christian Religion be altogether wanting in the writings of Ancients of these ages how did your Gualterius the Jesuit undertake to prove the truth of your Religion by the testimonies of the Church in all ages It is true he was most unhappie in his undertaking in so much that Chillingworth in his Defence of Doctor Potter part 1. cap. 2. § 119. affirmes that he heard an able man of your Religion say That Gualterius had not produced one pertinet testimony in the first three Centuries The like may be said of Ioannes Andreas Coppenstenius a Predicant in his Historical supplement to Bellarmine who undertakes the like but with as little successe Yet doe not such undertakings suppose that all necessary and essential truths of Religion may be found in the writings of these times Sed laterem lavo I doe but lose my travell what wonder to see a Thief declyne the Court and jurie He knowes upon tryal he must be condemned I have pressed you to come to be examined either by Scripture or Antiquity or both or to produce any other solid way of discerning a true Religion from a false but you declyne all Have I not just cause therefore to discharge finally with such a babling Lucifuga After I had signed my last Paper that known Distich dropped from my pen in a Postscript Roma diu titubans variis erroribus acta Corruct mundi desinet esse caput At this you behoved to have a fling though you scarce said any thing to the controversall points of the Paper Bot sie say you yat yis your Prophesie be not lyk your Patriarche Lutheris Prophesie who when he lept out of the Churche did brage yat with tue yeiris Preaching he wold abolische and eliminat all Poprie out of the world sa yat ester yir tua yeiris yair wold be no mor in the world nather Pop nor Cardinalis nor Monkis nor Nunnes nor Mase nor Belis c. I have set down your own words with your own spelling that the Reader may discerne what a Famous Clerke you are But here I must Querie you in a few particulars and First how call you this my Prophesie Are they not the lines of a Germane Prince Were they not sent to Pope Gregorie the ninth by Frederick the second the Emperour who felt the heavie hand of your usurping Popes as other Princes have done Secondly how cal you Luther our Patriarch We indeed honor Luther and Calvine as precious servants of GOD. But we make neither of them Pope or Patriarch or Master of Sentences Non sumus jurati in verba Magistri Our faith is pinned to no mans slieve Though you be implicit Slaves to the Pope yet we to no man Thirdly what Church I pray you doe you mean when you say that Luther did leape out of the Church Is it the Catholick or universal Church But when I pray you did the Roman Church become the Catholick a part become the whole Are not the Grecian Russian abyssine c Churches parts of the Catholick
evidence for this exposition that your own Barronius Sixtus Senensis Ribera and others have acknowledged Rome to be Babylon Nor can this denomination be limited to Heathnish Rome for not only is Rome called Babylon by Tertullian who lived under the Heathnish Emperours but also by Hierome Esebius Austine and many others cited by your own Ribera who lived under Christian Emperours But I shall not now enter on that controversie Only let me remember you of Lactantius boldnesse Lib. 7. Instit cap. 15. Romanum nomen horret animus dicere sed dicam quia futurum est tolletur de Terra Is it not the refore the concernment of you Romanists to hearken to that advyce which Hierome long agoe tendered concerning this matter Lib. 2. Adversus Iovinianum speaking of Rome Maledictionem quam urbi Salvator in Apocalypsi comminatus est potes effugere per paenitentiam habens Ninivitarum exempluÌ„ But seeing you are so good at descanting upon Poetick Rythmes I will give you another which I assure you is no more mine then the other but what truth it containes the World may judge O Roma à Roma quantum mutata vetustâ es Nunc caput es scelerum quae caput orbis eras Fifthly and Lastly if ever Luther uttered such a speach as you alledge wherein we are not concerned yet can I not be induced to beleeve that he did it in such a ludibrious manner as you have expressed it For you would insinuat that he had foretold That within two yeares there should be no more Pope or Masse or any other relict of your Papal superstition Yet you have foolishly heaped up so many Negatives that what you intend for a Negative becomes an Affirmative and so you destroy your own Scope Indeed your Bellarmine in setting downe this calumnie of Cochlaus had more wit then to heap such a multitude of Negatives as you have done But as for you as you begane ludibriously so you end Dignum talli patella operculum If Hierome thought he had coÌ„descended farre in bestowing one lucubration against such a Trifler as Vigilantius have not I supererogated above measurein allowing nine Papers upon you who deserve more the Title of Dormitantius then that Adversarie of Hieromes Now therefore I doe finally discharge with you except you come to the purpose Yet to reduce you to that from which you have digressed in your Last eight Papers I subjoyne againe the confutation of all the nine in two words Aberdene May 10. 1667. Iohn Menzeis POSTSCRIPT A succinct confutation of Master Dempster the Iesuit his nine Papers in two words Nego Minorem Or Nego Conclusionem Aberdene May 10. 1667. John Menzeis The Jesuits tenth Paper Answere to a ninth Paper of Master IOHN MENZEIS wherein is confirmed that the pretended conformity of PROTESTANT Religion with Scripture is a meer imaginar and groundless conformity 14. May 1667. This Paper was delivered to Master IOHN MENZEIS on May 15. I Received the twelfth of May your ninth Paper and it seemes that you have made an obstinat resolution that since you cannot bear out your cause with solid reasones that in supple of this and to blâ—nd simple People you will cary it out by a Bastard sort of eloquence that is by a multitude of words that either wants a sufficient signification corresponding to them or else are about objects altogether disparat and out of line You carp at that which I said that the cause wherefore I did not answere to all things contained in your Papers was not the prolixity of them but barrennesse and superfluity of them This you say is a contradiction for if they be barren how are they superfluous But I tell you over againe that there is no contradiction in affirming your Papers to be both barren of stuffe that makes to the purpose or to our present controversie and stuffed with superfluous digressions out of purpose And with this occasion I call to your minde other sort of Contradictions upon your part For when you was urged to give some ground whereby might be proven the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion Your answere was that Religion is not an indivisible truth but a complex of many and so that ye were not obliged to prove in generall the truths of your Religion but that you would descend to all the particulars and to this effect you brought an example of a purse holding an hundred pieces of gold in it which must be all applyed to the touch stone one be one But afterwards when you assigning for the ground of the truth of your Religion the perspicuity of Scripture in all particular points that you hold as necessary to salvation you were desired to give a list of all these particular points that so they might be tryed whether the perspicuity of Scripture did shyne brightly over them all here you disclaimed your former example of the purse alleaging that you was not obliged to descend to particulars Is not this to breath out of the same mouth both heat and cold Likewise you are alwayes pretending that you are a meer Defendant and not Opugnant and yet your Papers containes almost nothing else but Impugnations of Catholick doctrines which make nothing to our present controversie Neither will it avail to say that the Defendant may Retort arguments because the retortion of arguments in our present controversie doth only serve to condemne your own Religion of falshood and error For giving and not granting that you had all the grounds for the truth of your Religion which Catholicks have for the truth of theirs though it be most false and that this is all that you pretend by your retortions yet it cannot serve to prove the truth of your Religion because you violently putting out the Catholick Religion under pretext that it was false and erronious were obliged to bring in another which was better consequently that had better grounds And if you did proceed reasonablie this only were sufficient to close your mouth and to make you lay aside all such superfluous digressions and to insist only in bringing such solid reasons that could not be applyed to any Religion that you esteeme to â—e erronious I purposly omit as I have professed alwayes to doe all your digressions that maks nothing to our present purpose As that misapplyed discourse of Sainct Chrysostome with the Pagans since just as it lyes and as it is cited by you it may be assumed by any new Upstart Sectarie if they were cited before your assembly asked in what Scripture he did found his error And though you call it a trisling cavill to object so often to you that all you bring to prove the truth of the PROTESTANT Religion may be with as great reasone assumed to prove a false Religion to be true yet you must know that is no trisling matter but a maine point and an argument both of the weakenes of your Religion and of your insufficiency to mantaine it for since you can bring
to these ages as not to goe further After we have gotten the verdict of the First three Centuries I shall not then declyne to trace you successively through all succeeding ages to this day And I am confident upon a through discusse it will appeare that Your present Romish Faith as to all its Essentials was never the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age let be in All. And upon the conttarie neither you nor any of your Adherents shall be able to prove that our Religion differs in Its Essentials from the faith of the Catholick Church in anie age Now in such an enquiry can we fall upon a more convenient Method then to beginne at the fountain I meane at the most pure Ancient and according to Egesippus Elogie Virgin Church in the First three Centuries If our ReligioÌ„ be found conforme thereto in all Its Essentials as I am coÌ„fident it shall then sure it is conforme to the True Catholick Religion in all ages If yours be found dissonant thereto as I doubt not but it will then sure it is dissonant to the Christian Religion in all ages For there is but one faith Eph. 4.5 and one True Religion But Secondly you have the boldnesse to upbraid me with Two contradictions Only before I propose them I must minde you that neither of these pretended Contradictions are in my Ninth Paper to which you now answere So glad it seemes you have been of any thing to fill up the roome wherein you should have answered that Ninth Paper If my Former Papers were guilty of these ContrÌ„adictions were you not very obtuse who did not discover them more timely Yet let the unpartiall Reader judge of these Contradictions The first alledged contradiction is That upon the one hand I should have affirmed Religion to be a complex of many truths which are to be severally tryed as the severall pieces of gold in a purse and that I would descend to the severall particulars yea and that all points necessary to salvation were contained perspicuously in Scripture Yet when you called me to give a list of all these particular points then I disclaimed my former example of a purse and alledged that I was not obliged to descend to particulars I see now I was in no mistake when I said that you walked by that Machiavillian principle Calumniare audacter c. Resume all my Papers and see if ever I refused to descend to a tryall of any particular Controversie betwixt you and us Yea have I not all this time been pressing you to this and you dared not to peep out of your lurking holes Have I not passed through many of the Controversies in particular to which you have not adventured to make any Reply Produce the page or leafe in any of my Papers where ever I disclaimed that forementioned example Of trying the severall peices of gold by the touch stone yea or one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that once I gave you under my hand But I shall ingenuoussy tell the truth of that which you so deceitfully misrepresent and when I have done contradict me if you can I said indeed That Religion is a complen of many truths and to prove them all as matters are now stated bemint us and you Remanists were to write a body of controversies But yet that I should never decline to examine any of those with you And I have further said that all the necessarie points af Christian Religion were contained perspicuously in the Scriptures But when you in stead of comeing to a discusse of parâ—â—cular points only started that old threed bare Cavill Concerning a precise catalogue of necessarie points I shew That it was but a meer tergiversing shift in you and demonstrated by many reasons which you was never able to answere That there was no necessitie lying upon me in order to the decision of the maine controversie at present betwixt us to determine a precise Catalogue of necessarie truths You may call in for your assistance the rest of your Society and try if you can find a reall Contradiction in all this Indeed if I had promised to give you a Catalogue of points necessarie to Salvation and hereafter had refused to give it oâ— if since I declared a readiness to debate with you any point in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and the Church of Rome I had declined to performe my promise you might have accused me of Inconsistencie with my self Or if haveing â—ffiâ—med that all things necessarie to Salvation are clearly contained in Scripture I had denyed any article of faith necessarie to Salvation to be contained clearly in Scripture you might have charged me with a Contradiction But you and your Associats may canvase what I have said againe and againe and try if you can find either a Contradiction or that I have declyned any thing that is necessarie for the decision of the present Controve sie Cannot all the points in Controversie betwixt the Reformed Churches and Pomanists be particularly examined without Desyning a precise catalogue of truths simplie necessarie to Salvation Have I ever said that everie one of your Romish errors is Fundamentall Or that no points of truth are clearly revealed in Scripture but only Fundamentals or such the explicite belief whereof is absolutly necessarie to Salvation Nay I tell you that on maine reason why I did and doe forebear for the time to pitch upon such a Catalogue was because I stand now to justify the Religion of PROTESTANTS against your Cavills But the Reformed Churches in their Harmony of Confessions have not so farre as I have observed determined that Precise Catalogue of necessaries So that in pirching upon such a Catalogue at the time I should leave my worke to follow a tergiversing vagrant Yea some of our Divines particularly acuâ—e Chillingworth in his booke entituled The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation part 1. cap 3 § 13. Affirmes that more may be necessarie to the Salration of some then of others And therefore to call for a precise catalogue of points necessarie to the Salvation of every one were as if one should call for a Dyall to serve all Meridians or for a coat to serve the Moon in all her Changes You may likewise remember that I shew in my Sixth and Seventh Papers that Romanists are no lesse concerned to give a Catalogue of necessaries nor exposed to fewer difficulties in doing it then we and that in this matter your Authors have been often Non-plussed by PROTESTANT Divines For you have made points Necessarie which the Ancient and Catholick Church never held as Necessarie And so have separated your selves from the Catholick Church of IESUS CHRIST But to let you see that I am still ready to performe what ever I undertooke pitch you upon any point controverted betwixt the Reformed churches and You whether belonging to the Essentials or Integrals of Religion that is whether simply necessarie to Salvation or not and you shall find that I
of PROTESTANTS with the holy Scripture DID ever Nature produce such a ludibrious trifling tergiversing Caviller Is not the great controversie betwixt you and me whether the Religion of PROTESTANTS or your Popish Religion be the Christian ReligioÌ„ How then were you not ashamed when I had demonstrated the falshood of many of the chief articles of your Religion such as the Adoration of Images Transubstantiation Communion under one kind The Popes supremacâ—e the holding of Apâ—criphal books for canonical Scriptrue the Jurisdiction of Popes over Princes your Papal Indulgences as extended to Purgatorie and consequently that PROTESTANTS who contradict you in all these particulars have the truth on their side how then I say were you not ashamed to make no other Reply to all these things But onely to say What make these things to the purpose Is it nothing to the purpose to prove the Fundamentals of your Religion to be falshoods and that the truth of GOD is mantained by the PROTESTANTS against your Popish Church Is not your Religion so unhappie that if it be convicted of one Falshood the whole fabrick and systeme thereof is overturned The Infallibility of your Church being a Fundamental point with you and yet when the falshood of so many points of your Religion is demonstrated What is that to the purpose say you Doe not such Papers deserve as Hierome said Alversus Vigilantium Indignationem scribentis rather to be answered with contempt and disdaine then with any serious confutation Are you not as ludibrious in your next Period Did not I in my last expostulat sharpely with you that in stead of making a polemick Reply to my Seventh Paper to which you answered not one word you did substitut a Railing Digression concerning the occasion of this Debate and of our verball conterence and so did put upon me a necessity of confuting your Calumnies concerning that Matter of Fact How then have you a face to charge me as if I had of my own accord and free choise fallen upon that Digression But though conscience move you not to answere to the arguments proving the falshood of your Religion for perhaps an ill cause and your Ignorance stand as invincible impediments in your way yet ought you not in commone honestie to have vindicated your self from the Falshoods charged upon you in that Matter of Fact Is it enough for you to say To what purpose are these discourses and ought not the matter of that conference be left to the judgement of the Auditors Who if you may be credited did see my feeblenes Am I from the purpose when I confute the lies of your Paper If you judge it not to the purpose to vindicat your self from so many Falshoods let you be stigmatized for the man you are If you would have had the matter of that conference remirted onely to the judgement of the Auditors among whom you had a company of judicious proselyts of the female sex why did you fall upon a Calumnious representation of it in your Last Why were Diffamatorie pasquils stuffed with reproaches long agoe disseminated through the Countrey May it not seeme strange that a person who hath given such shamefull demonstrations of His feeblenesse in nyne Papers should have the confidence to reproach another with Feeblenesse Loripedem derideat rectus But what occasion gave you in that conference to try either the feeblenesse or gallantrie of any Was any thing heard from you And if it should have been heard what noble stuffe it should have contained these your Nine Papers may testifie We should have had an Informal Syllogisme repeated Ad nauseam without probation of Major or Minor or rectifying the Forme thereof Would such a formidable Achilles have affrighted a poor School Boy Was there not an Argument propounded to you concluding the impiety of your Religion because it destroyed all Certainty of faith which you dared not once to examine And when you declined to answere thereto was there not cause Ex justa indignatione which you may reproach as Feeblenesse to refuse to hear you And in that which you were drawne with much importunity to answere with what credit came you off either of your self or your Church I am content that such of the hearers as had capacity may judge How comoe it that you touch not at all the foule staine which I shaw your Doctors leave upon your Romish Church by their Impious Doctrine of Probables How is it that you doe not at least turne thiâ— off as you have done the rest with your usual tergiversing Querie To what purpose is all this discourse Are you utterly silent as to this matter because you had occasioned this discourse by challenging us for proposing before our Auditors your Problematick Doctrines But then you should have keeped silence concerning the former particulars also for to them likewise were we led by your impertinencies Or doth your silence proceed from the conviction of conscience that you know not how these impieties could be justifyed like a School Boy who skips over the word in his lesson which he cannot read If this be the account of your silence I should not blame you so much onely I could wish that in your old dayes you might learne the ingenuity of acknowledging error to be error when it is convi cingly demonstrated to you Yet notwithstading all these tergiversing shifts and silent transitions you have the confidence to avouch Your readines to answere whole Tomes It is not a strange thing to see a Thraso and a Thersites joyned in one persone Who will beleeve that you who have sucoumbed these Eight or Nine times in answering a poor sheet or two for in all of them you have tergiversed and to some not answered one word at all that you are in such a Capacity to deale with Volumes Looke backe on the Papers which you have received and take a view of the Fallacies charged upon you as also how many Chiefe articles of your Religion I have impugned and all to his houre unanswered When you have discharged your self of that worke which already lyes upon you you may purchase some more credit to your emptie brags But I must correct my self I confesse you have invented a compendious Method of confuting both sheets and volumes by your usuall Querie To what purpose are these discourses If you please you may cause adde this your invention to the next addition of Pancirolli nova reperta Yet whether that compendious confutation looke like the Reply of a Disputant or of that which you are not willing to hear your self may judge Your Last apologie for not examining my Papers taken from the Prolixity of them seemes now too slender and pellucid to your own self therfore you are pleased to strengthen it by accusing my Papers of Barrennesse and Superfluity how well these your Rhetorications cohere together others may judge if my Papers be guilty of Barrennesse then have they too little matter in them if of Superfluity