so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
hope for salvation yet without question it might send many souls to heaven who would gladly have embraced the Truth but that they wanted means to discover it Thirdly and lastly she may yet more truly be said to perish when she Apostates from Christ absolutely or rejects even those Truths out of which her Heresies may be reformed as if she should directly deny Jesus to be the Christ or the Scripture to be the Word of God Towards which state of Perdition it may well be feared that the Church of Rome doth somewhat incline by her superinducing upon the rest of her Errors the Doctrin of her own Infallibility whereby her errors are made incurable and by her pretending that the Scripture is to be interpreted according to her doctrin and not her doctrin to be judged of by Scripture whereby she makes the Scripture uneffectuall for her Reformation 20. Ad § 18. I was very glad when I heard you say The Holy Scripture and ancient Fathers do assign Separation from the Visible Church as a mark of Heresie for I was in good hope that no Christian would so belie the Scripture as to say so of it unless he could have produced some one Text at least wherein this was plainly affirmed or from whence it might be undoubtedly and undeniably collected For assure your self good Sir it is a very heinous crime to say thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so I expected therefore some Scripture should have been alledged wherein it should have been said whosoever separates from the Roman Church is an Heretick or the Roman Church is infallible or the guide of Faith or at least There shall be always some Visible Church infallible in matters of Faith Some such direction as this I hoped for And I pray consider whether I had not reason The Evangelists and Apostles who wrote the New Testament we all suppose were good men and very desirous to direct us the surest and plainest way to Heaven we suppose them likewise very sufficiently instructed by the Spirit of God in all the necessary points of the Christian Faith and therefore certainly not ignorant of this Unum Necessarium this most necessary point of all others without which as you pretend and teach all faith is no Faith that is that the Church of Rome was designed by God the guide of Faith We suppose them lastly wise men especially being assisted by the spirit of wisdom and such as knew that a doubtful and questionable guide was for mens direction as good as none at all And after all these suppositions which I presume no good Christian will call into question is it possible that any Christian heart can believe that not one amongst them all should ad rei memoriam write this necessary doctrin plainly so much as once Certainly in all reason they had provided much better for the good of Christians if they had wrote this though they had writ nothing else Methinks the Evangelists undertaking to write the Gospel of Christ could not possibly have omitted any one of them this most necessary point of faith had they known it necessary S. Luke especially who plainly professeth that his intent was to write all things necessary Methinks S. Paul writing to the Romans could not but have congratulated this their Priviledge to them Methinks instead of saying Your Faith is spoken of all the world over which you have no reason to be very proud of for he says the very same thing to the Thessalonians he could not have failed to have told them once at least in plain terms that their Faith was the Rule for all the World for ever But then sure he would have forborn to put them in fear of an impossibility as he doth in his eleventh Chap. that they also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles if they did not look to their standing might fall away to infidelity as the Jews had done Methinks in all his other Epistles at least in some at least in one of them he could not have failed to have given the world this direction had he known it to be a true one that all men were to be guided by the Church of Rome and none to separate from it under pain of damnation Methinks writing so often of Hereticks and Antichrist he should have given the world this as you pretend only sure preservative from them How was it possible that S. Peter writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his own departure writing to preserve Christians in the Faith should in neither of them commend them to the guidance of his pretended Successors the Bishops of Rome How was it possible that S. James and S. Jude in their Catholick Epistles should not give this Catholick direction Methinks S. John instead of saying he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God The force of which direction your glosses do quite enervate and make unavailable to discern who are the sons of God should have said He that adheres to the doctrin of the Roman Church and lives according to it he is a good Christian and by this Mark ye shall know him What man not quite out of his wits if he consider as he should the pretended necessity of this doctrin that without the belief hereof no man ordinarily can be saved can possibly force himself to conceive that all these good and holy men so desirous of mens salvation and so well assured of it as it is pretended should be so deeply and affectedly silent in it and not one say it plainly so much as once but leave it to be collected from uncertain principles by many more uncertain consequences Certainly he that can judge so uncharitably of them it is no marvel if he censure other inferior servants of Christ as Atheists and Hypocrites and what he pleases Plain places therefore I did and had reason to look for when I heard you say the holy Scripture assigns Separation from the visible Church as a mark of Heresie But instead hereof what have you brought us but meer impertinences S. John saith of some who pretended to be Christians and were not so and therefore when it was for their advantage forsook their Profession They went out from us but they were not of us for if they had been of us they would no doubt have continued with us Of some who before the decree of the Council to the contrary were persuaded and accordingly taught that the convert Gentiles were to keep the Law of Moses it is said in the Acts Some who went out from us And again S. Paul in the same Book forewarns the Ephesians that out of them should arise men speaking perverse things And from these places which it seems are the plainest you have you collect that separation from the Visible Church is assigned by Scripture as a Mark of Heresie Which is certainly a strange and unheard of strain of Logick Unless you will say that every Text wherein it is said that some Body goes
Christians That it was fit and lawful to deny the Laity the Sacramental Cup That it was expedient and for the edification of the Church that the Scripture should be read and the publick worship of God perpetually celebrated in a language which they understand not and to which for want of understanding unless S. Paul deceive us they cannot say Amen Or is it reasonable you should desire us to believe you when your own Men your own Champions your own Councils confess the contrary Does not the Council of Constance acknowledg plainly That the custom which they ratified was contrary to Christs institution and the custom of the Primitive Church and how then was it taught by Christ and his Apostles Do not Cajetan and Lyranus confess ingenuously that it follows evidently from S. Paul that it is more for edification that the Liturgy of the Church should be in such a Language as the Assistants understand The like Confession we have from others concerning Purgatory and Indulgences Others acknowledges the Apostles never taught Invocation of Saints Rhenanus says as much touching Auricular Confession It is evident from Peter Lombard that the Doctrin of Transubstantiation was not a point of Faith in his time From Pius Mirandula that the Infallibility of the Church was no Article much less a foundation of Faith in his time Bellarmine acknowledges that the Saints enjoying the Vision of God before the day of judgment was no Article of Faith in the time of Pope John the XXII But as the Proverb is when Thieves fall out true men recover their goods so how small and heartless the reverence of the Church of Rome is to ancient Tradition cannot be more plainly discovered than by the Quarrels which her Champions have amongst themselves especially about the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin The Patrons of the Negative opinion Cajetan Bannes Bandellus and Canus alledg for it First an whole army of Scriptures Councils and Fathers agreeing unanimously in this Doctrin That only Christ was free from sin Then an innumerous multitude of Fathers expresly affirming the very point in question not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries or Predecessors or indeed of their Successors for many ages All the Holy Fathers agree in this that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Original sin So * In part primum q. 1. Art 8. Dub. 5. Bannes Cajetan brings for it fifteen Fathers in his judgment irrefragable others produce two hundred Bandellus almost three hundred Thus †Disp 51. in Ep. ad Rom. Salmeron That all the Holy Fathers who have fallen upon the mention of this matter with one mouth affirm that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin So ‖ Lib. VII loc cap. 1. cap. 3. n. 9. Canus And after That the contrary Doctrin has neither Scripture nor Tradition for it For saith he no Traditions can be derived unto us but by the Bishops and Holy Fathers the Successors of the Apostles and it is certain that those ancient writers received it not from their predecessors Now against this stream of ancient Writers when the contrary new Doctrin came in and how it prevailed it will be worth the considering The First that set it abroach was Richardus de Sancto Victore as his country-man * Omnium expresse primus Christiferam virginem originalis noxae expertem tenuit De gestis Scotorum III. 12. Johannes Major testifies of him He was expresly the first that held the Virgin Mary free from Original sin or he was the first that expresly held so So after upon this false ground which had already taken deep root in the heart of Christians That it was impossible to give too much honour to her that was the Mother of the Saviour of the World like an ill weed it grew and spread apace So that in the Council of †Sess XXXVI Basil which Binius tells us was reprobated but in part to wit in the point of the Authority of Councils and in the deposition of Eugenius the Pope it was defined and declared to be Holy Doctrin and consonant to the worship of the Church to the Catholick Faith to right Reason and the Holy Scripture and to be approved held and embraced by all Catholicks and that it should be lawful for no man for the time to come to preach or teach the contrary The custom also of keeping the Feast of her Holy Conception which before was but particular to the Roman and some other Churches and it seems somewhat neglected was then renewed and made Universal and commanded to be celebrated sub nomine Conception is under the name of the Conception Binius in a Marginal note tells us indeed That they celebrate not this Feast in the Church of Rome by virtue of this Renovation cum esset Conciliabalum being this was the act not of a Council but of a Conventicle yet he himself in his Index stiles it the Oecomenical Council of Basil and tells that it was reprobated only in two points of which this is none Now whom shall we believe Binius in his Margin or Binius in his Index Yet in after-times Pope Sixtus IV. and Pius V. thought not this Decree so binding but that they might and did again put life into the condemned opinion giving liberty by their constitutions to all men to hold and maintain either part either that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with Original sin or was not Which Constitution of Sixtus IV. The * Sess V. Council of Trent renewed and confirmed But the wheel again turning and the Negative opinion prevailing The Affirmative was banisht first by a Decree of Paul V. from all publick Sermons Lectures Conclusions and all publick Acts whatsoever and since by another Decree of Gregory XV. from all private Writings and private Conferences But yet all this contents not the University of Paris They as Salmeron tells us admit none to the Degree of Doctor of Divinity unless they have first bound themselves by solemn Oath to maintain the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Now I beseech you Mr. R. consider your courses with some indifference First You take Authority upon you against the universal constant unopposed Tradition of the Church for many ages to set up as a rival a new upstart yesterdays invention and to give all men liberty to hold which they please So Pope Sixtus IV. The Council of Trent and Pius V. that is you make it lawful to hold the ancient Faith or not to hold it nay to hold the contrary This is high presumption But you stay not here For Secondly The ancient Doctrin you cloyster and hook up within the narrow close and dark rooms of the thoughts and brains of the defenders of it forbidding them upon pain of damnation so much as to whisper it in their private discourses and writings and in the mean time the New Doctrin you set at full liberty and give leave nay countenance and encouragement to all men to
Divel himself if he have a mind to it But I would shew you that divers ways the Doctors of your Church do the principal and proper work of the Socinians for them undermining the Doctrine of the Trinity by denying it to be supported by those Pillars of the Faith which alone are fit and able to support it I mean Scripture and the Consent of the Ancient Doctors 17. For Scripture your Men deny very plainly and frequently that this Doctrine can be proved by it See if you please this plainly taught and urged very carnestly by Cardinal Hosius De Author Sac. Scrip. l. 3. p. 53. By Gordonius Huntlaeus Contr. Tom. 1. Controv. 1. De verbo Dei C. 19. by Gretserus and Tanerus in Colloquio Ratesbon And also by Vega Possevin Wiekus and Others 18. And then for the Consent of the Ancients that that also delivers it not by whom are we taught but by Papists only Who is it that makes known to all the World that Eusebius that great searcher and devourer of the Christian Libraries was an Arrian Is it not your great Achilles Cardinal Perron in his 3. Book 2. Chap. of his Reply to K. James Who is it that informs us that Origen who never was questioned for any Error in this matter in or near his time denyed the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Ghost Is it not the same great Cardinal in his Book of the Eucharist against M. du Plessis l. 2. c. 7 Who is it that pretends that Irenaeus hath said those things which he that should now hold would be esteemed an Arrian Is it not the same Perron in his Reply to K. James in the Fifth Chap. of his Fourth Observation And does he not in the same place peach Tertullian also and in a manner give him away to the Arrians And pronounce generally of the Fathers before the Council of Nice That the Arrians would gladly be tryed by them And are not your fellow Jesuits also even the Prime Men of your Order prevaricators in this point as well as others Doth not your Friend M. Fisher or M. Flued in his Book of the Nine Questions proposed to him by K. James speak dangerously to the same purpose in his Discourse of the Resolution of Faith towards the end Giving us to understand That the new Reformed Arrians bring very many Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers to prove that in this Point they did contradict themselves and were contrary one to another which places whosoever shall read will clearly see that to common People they are unanswerable yea that common People are not capable of the Answers that Learned Men yield unto such obscure passages And hath not your great Antiquary Petavius in his Notes upon Epiphanius in Haer. 69. been very liberal to the Adversaries of the Doctrine of the Trinity and in a manner given them for Patrons and Advocates first Justin Martyr and then almost all the Fathers before the Council of Nice whose Speeches he says touching this point cum Orthodoxae fidei regula minime consentiunt Are no way agreeable to the rule of Orthodox Faith Hereunto I might add that the Dominicans and Jesuits between them in another matter of great importance viz. Gods Prescience of future contingents give the Socinians the premises out of which their conclusion doth unavoidably follow For the Dominicans maintain on the one Side that God can foresee nothing but what he Decrees The Jesuits on the other Side that he doth not Decree all things And from hence the Socinians conclude as it is obvious for them to do that he doth not foresee all things Lastly I might adjoyn this that you agree with one consent and settle for a rule unquestionable that no part of Religion can be repugnant to Reason whereunto you in particular subscribe unawares in saying From truth no Man can by good consequence infer falshood which is to say in effect that Reason can never lead any Man to Error And after you have done so you proclaim to all the World as you in this Pamphlet do very frequently that if Men follow their Reason and Discourse they will if they understand themselves be led to Socinianism And thus you see with what probable matter I might furnish out and justifie my accusation if I should charge you with leading Men to Socinianism Yet I do not conceive that I have ground enough for this odious imputation And much less should you have charged Protestants with it whom you confess to abhor and detest it and who fight against it not with the broken Reeds and out of the Paper Fortresses of an imaginary Infallibility which were only to make sport for their Adversaries but with the Sword of the Spirit the Word of God of which we may say most truly what David said of Goliah's Sword offered him by Abilech non est sicut iste There is none comparable to it 19. Thus Protestants in general I hope are sufficiently vindicated from your Calumny I proceed now to do the same service for the Divines of England whom you question first in point of Learning and Sufficiency and then in point of Conscience and Honesty as prevaricating in the Religion which they profess and inclining to Popery Their Learning you say consists only in some superficial Talent of Preaching Languages and Elocution and not in any deep knowledg of Philosophy especially of Metaphysicks and much less of that most solid profitable subtile O rem ridiculam Cato jocosam succinct method of School Divinity Wherein you have discovered in your self the true Genius and Spirit of detraction For taking advantage from that wherein envy it self cannot deny but they are very eminent and which requires great sufficiency of substantial Learning you disparage them as insufficient in all things else As if Forsooth because they dispute not eternally Utrum Chimaera bombinans in vacuo possit comedere secundas Intentiones Whether a Million of Angels may not sit upon a Needles point Because they fill not their Brains with notions that fignifie nothing to the utter extermination of all reason and common sence and spend not an Age in weaving and un-weaving subtile Cobwebs fitter to catch Flies than Souls therefore they have no deep knowledge in the Acroamatical part of Learning But I have too much honoured the poorness of this detraction to take notice of it 20. The other Part of your accusation strikes deeper and is more considerable And that tells us that Protestantism waxeth weary of it self that the Professors of it they especially of greatest Worth Learning and Authority love temper and moderation and are at this time more unresolved where to fasten than at the Infancy of their Church That their Churches begin to look with a New Face Their Walls to Speak a New Language Their Doctrine to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the then Visible Church of Christ For example the Pope not Antichrist Prayer for the Dead Limbus Patrum
say that a whole House is supported by the Foundation and yet never mean to exclude the Foundation from being a part of the House or to say that it is supported by it self Or as you your selves use to say that the Bishop of Rome is head of the whole Church and yet would think us but Captious Sophisters should we infer from hence that either you made him no part of the whole or else made him head of himself Your negative conclusion therefore that these Questions touching Scripture are not decidable by Scripture you needed not have cited any Authorities nor urged any reason to prove it it is evident of it self and I grant it without more ado But your Corollary from it which you would insinuate to your unwary reader that therefore they are to be decided by your or any Visible Church is a meer inconsequence and very like his collection who because Pamphilus was not to have Glycerium for his Wife presently concluded that he must have her as if there had been no more men in the World but Pamphilus and himself For so you as if there were nothing in the World capable of this Office but the Scripture or the present Church having concluded against Scripture you conceive but too hastily that you have concluded for the Church But the truth is neither the one nor the other have any thing to do with this matter For first the Question whether such or such a Book be Canonical Scripture though it may be decided negatively out of Scripture by shewing apparent and irreconcilable contradictions between it and some other Book confessedly Canonical yet affirmatively it cannot but only by the Testimonies of the ancient Churches any Book being to be received as undoubtedly Canonical or to be doubted of as uncertain or rejected as Apocryphal according as it was received or doubted of or rejected by them Then for the Question of various readings which is the true it is inreason evident and confessed by your own Pope that there is no possible determination of it but only by comparison with ancient Copies And lastly for Controversies about different Translations of Scripture the Learned have the same means to satisfie themselves in it as in the Questions which happen about the Translation of any other Author that is skill in the Language of the Original and comparing Translations with it In which way if there be no certainty I would know what certainty you have that your Doway Old and Rhemish New Testament are true Translations And then for the unlearned those on your Side are subject to as much nay the very same uncertainty with those on ours Neither is there any reason imaginable why an ignorant English Protestant may not be as secure of the Translation of our Church that it is free from Error if not absolutely yet in matters of moment as an ignorant English Papist can be of his Rhemish Testament or Doway Bible The best direction I can give them is to compare both together where there is no real difference as in the Translation of controverted places I believe there is very little there to be confident that they are right where they differ therefore to be prudent in the choice of the guides they follow Which way of proceeding if it be subject to some possible Error is it the best that either we or you have and it is not required that we use any better than the best we have 28. You will say Dependance on your Churches infallibility is a better I answer it would be so if we could be infallibly certain that your Church is infallible that is if it were either evident of it self and seen by its own light or could be reduced unto and setled upon some Principle that is so But seeing you your selves do not so much as pretend to enforce us to the belief hereof by any proofs infallible and convincing but only to induce us to it by such as are by your confession only probable and prudential motives certainly it will be to very little purpose to put off your uncertainty for the first turn and to fall upon it at the second to please your selves in building your House upon an imaginary Rock when you your selves see and confess that this very Rock stands it self at the best but upon a frame of Timber I answer secondly that this cannot be a better way because we are infallibly certain that your Church is not infallible and indeed hath not the real prescription of this priviledge but only pleaseth her self with a false imagination and vain presumption of it as I shall hereafter demonstrate by may unanswerable arguments 31. But seeing the belief of the Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture how can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but Cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine Verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material Objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their Salvation not to know whether their were any Scripture or no. Those Barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6. Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the means and instrumental Objects 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Luth. the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Heb. the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgment of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no
Church were Infallible therefore the Clurch is Infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austin's account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was always a Tradition of the ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church Infallible not so much in consigning ancient Traditions as in defining emergent controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrins which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrins for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet happily it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingeniously with you and the world I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it nor that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the nearness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falsehood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrin so believed or the custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own Opinions but as Apostolick Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrines must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrines of the Ancient Church of some age or ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholick at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrine of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian a De Corona Militis c 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Council of Trents profession to receive them and the written Word with the like affection of Piety are now rejected and neglected by the Church of Rome For example Immersion in Baptism Tasting a mixture of Milk and Honey presently after Abstaining from Bathes for a week after Accounting it an impiety to pray kneeling on the Lords day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in the 3. chap. He adds another in the fourth of the Veiling of Women And then adds Since I find no law for this it follows that Tradition must have given this observation to custom which shall gain in time Apostolick authority by the interpretation of the reason of it By these examples therefore it is declared that the observing of unwritten Tradition being confirmed by custom may be defended The perseverance of the observation being a good testimony of the goodnest of the Tradition Now custom even in civil affairs where a law is wanting passes for a law Neither is it material whether it be grounded on Scripture or reason seeing reason is commendation enough for a law Moreover if law be grounded on reason all that must be law which is so grounded A quocunque productum Whosoever is the producer of it Do ye think it is not lawful Omni fideli for every faithful man to conceive and constitute Provided he constitute only what is not repugnant to Gods will what is conducible for discipline and available to salvation seeing the Lord says why even of our selves judge ye not what is right And a little after This reason now demand saving the respect of the Tradition A quocunque Traditore censetur nec auctorem respiciens sed Auctoritatem From whatsoever Traditor it comes neither regard the Author but the Authority Quicunque traditor any Author whatsoever is founder good enough for them And who can secure us that Humane inventions and such as came à quocunque Traditore might not in a short time gain the reputation of Apostolick Seeing the direction then was b Hier. Precepta majorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 46. But let us see what S. Chrysostom says They the Apostles delivered not all things in writing who denies it but many things also without writing who doubts of it and these also are worthy of belief Yes if we knew what they were But many things are worthy of belief which are not necessary to be believed As that Julius Caesar was Emperor of Rome is a thing worthy of belief being so well testified as it is but yet it is not necessary to be believed a man may be saved without it Those many works which our Saviour did which S. John supposes would not have been contained in a World of Books if they had been written or if God by some other means had preserved the knowledge of them had been as worthy to be believed and as necessary as those that are written But to shew you how much a more faithful keeper Records are than report those few that were written are preserved and believed those infinity more that were not written are all lost and vanished out of the memory of men And seeing God in his providence hath not thought fit to preserve the memory of them he hath freed us from the obligation of
Church which at first perhaps were but wink'd at after tolerated then approved and at length after they had spread themselves into a seeming Generality confirmed for good and Catholick and that therefore there was no certainty that they came from the beginning whose beginning was not known I should have remembred him that even by the acknowledgment of the Council of Trent many corruptions and superstitions had by insensible degrees insinuated themselves into the very Mass and Offices of the Church which they thought fit to cast out and therefore seeing that some abuses have come in God knows how and have been cast out again who can ascertain me that some Errors have not got in and while men slept for it is apparent they did sleep gathered such strength gotten such deep root and so incorporated themselves like Ivy in a Wall in the State and polity of the Roman Church that to pull them up had been to pull them down by rasing the Foundation on which it stands to wit the Churches Infallibility Besides as much water passes under the Mill which the Miller sees not so who can warrant me that some old corruptions might not escape from them and pass for Original and Apostolick Traditions I say might not though they had been as studious to reduce all to the primitive State as they were to preserve them in the present State as diligent to cast out all Postnate and introduct opinions as they were to persuade men that there were none such but all as truly Catholick and Apostolick as they were Roman I should have declared unto him that many things reckoned up in the Roll of Traditions are now grown out of fashion and out of use in the Church of Rome and therefore that either they believed them not whatever they pretended or were not so obedient to the Apostles command as they themselves interpret it Keep the Traditions which ye have received whether by word or by our Epistle And seeing there have been so many vicissitudes and changes in the Roman Church Catholick Doctrines growing exolete and being degraded from their Catholicism and perhaps deprest into the number of Heresies Points of Indifference or at least Aliens from the Faith getting first to be Inmates after procuring to be made Denizons and in process of time necessary members of the Body of the Faith Nay Old Heresies sometimes like old Snakes casting their Skin and their Poyson together and becoming wholsom and Catholick Doctrines I must have desired pardon of my Uncle if I were not so undoubtedly certain what was and what was not Catholick Doctrine in the days of my Fathers Nay perhaps I should have gone further and told him That I was not fully assured what was the Catholick Doctrine in some points no not at this present time For instance to lay the Axe unto the Root of the Tree the infallibility of the present Church of Rome in determining controversies of Faith is esteemed indeed by divers that I have met with not only an Article of Faith but a Foundation of all other Articles But how do I know there are not nay why should I think there are not in the World divers good Catholicks of the same mind touching this matter which Mirandula Panormitan Cusanus Florentinus Clemangis Waldensis Occham and divers others were of who were so far from holding this Doctrine the Foundation of Faith that they would not allow it any place in the Fabrick Now Bellarmine has taught us that no Doctrine is Catholick nor the contrary Heretical that is denied to be so by some good Catholicks From hence I collect that in the time of the forenamed Authors this was not Catholick Doctrine nor the contrary Heretical and being then not so how it could since become so I cannot well understand If it be said that it has since been defined by a General Council I say first This is false no Council has been so foolish as to define that a Council is Infallible for unless it were presumed to be Infallible before who or what could assure us of the Truth of this definition Secondly if it were true it were ridiculous for he that would question the Infallibility of all Councils in all their Decrees would as well question the Infallibility of this Council in this Decree This therefore was not is not nor ever can be an Article of Faith unless God himself would be pleased which is not very likely to make some new Revelation of it from Heaven The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Error in this matter is this That the whole Religion of the Roman Church and every point of it is conceived or pretended to have issued Originally out of the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition either in themselves or in the principles from which they are evidently deducible Whereas it is evident that many of their Doctrines may be Originally derived from the Decrees of Councils many from Papal definitions many from the Authority of some great Man To which purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen says of Athanasius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat XXI in Laudem Athanasii What pleased him was a law to men what did not please him was as a thing prohibited by Law his Decrees were to them like Moses his Tables and he had a greater veneration paid him than seems to be due from men to Saints And as memorable that in the late great Controversie about Predetermination and Free-will disputed before Pope Clement VII by the Jesuits and Dominicans The Popes resolution was if he had determined the matter to define for that opinion which was most agreeable not to Scripture nor to Apostolick Tradition nor to a consent of Fathers but to the Doctrine of S. Austin so that if the Pope had made an Article of Faith of this Controversie it is evident S. Austin had been the Rule of it Sometimes upon erroneous grounds Customs have been brought in God knows how and after have spread themselves through the whole Church Thus Gordonius Huntleius confesses that because Baptism and the Eucharist had been anciently given both together to men of ripe years when they were converted to Christianity Afterwards by Error when Infants were Baptized they gave the Eucharist also to Infants This Custom in short time grew Universal and in S. Austins time passed currantly for an Apostolick Tradition and the Eucharist was thought as necessary for them as Baptism This Custom the Church of Rome hath again cast out and in so doing profest either her no regard to the traditions of the Apostles or that this was none of that number But yet she cannot possibly avoid but that this example is a proof sufficient that many things may get in by Error into the Church and by degrees obtain the esteem and place of Apostolick Traditions which yet are not so The Custom of denying the Laity the Sacramental Cup and the Doctrine that it is lawful to do so who can
employ their time and wits and tongues and pens in the maintenance and propagation of it Thus Paul V. and Gregory XV. Yet this is not all For Thirdly You bind men by Oaths to defend the new opinion and to oppose the ancient So the University of Paris Yet still you proceed further For Fourthly By your General Councils confirmed by your Popes you have declared and defined that this new invention is agreeable and consequently that the ancient Doctrin is repugnant to the Catholick Faith to Reason to the Holy Scripture So the Council of Basil These things I entreat you weigh well in your Consideration and put not into the Scale above a just allowance not above three grains of partiality and then tell me whether you can with reason or with modesty suppose or desire that we should believe or think that you believe that all the points of Doctrin which you contest against us were delivered at first by Christ and his Apostles and have ever since by the Succession of Bishops and Pastors been preserved inviolate and propagated unto you The Patrons I confess of this new Invention set not much by the Decree of the Council of Basil for it but plead very hard for a full and final definition of it from the Sea Apostolick and finding the conspiring opposition of the ancient Fathers to be the main impediment of their purpose it is strange to see how confidently they ride over them First Says * Disp 51. in Epist ad Rom. Salmeron in the place forecited they press us with multitude of Doctors of whom we must not say that they err in a matter of such moment We answer says he out of †De moribus Eeclesia lib 1. cap. 2. S. Austin and the Doctrin of S. Thomas That the argument drawn from Authority is weak Then to that multitude of Doctros we oppose another multitude Thirdly We object to the contrary the efficacy of reasons which are more excellent than any Authority Some of them reckon two hundred Fathers other as Bandellus almost three hundred Cajetan fifteen but those as he says irrefragable But as a wise Shepheard said pauperis est numerare pecus Some of those whom they produce are of an exolete Authority and scarce worthy of memory Lastly Against this objected multitude we answer with the word of God * Exod. 23.2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil Neither shalt thou in judgment yield to the sentence of many to depart from the truth For when the Donatists gloried in the multitude of their Authors S. Austin answered it was a sign of a cause destitute of truth to rely only upon the Authority of many men which may err It falls out sometimes also that from some one Doctor especially if he be famous proceeds a multitude of followers of his Opinion and some taken with an humble and pious fear choose rather to follow the Opinion of another against their mind than to bring out of their own wit any thing new lest they should so bring any new thing into the Church Whose humility as it is to be praised so the confidence of others is not to be condemned who for the love of truth fear not to bring in better things Thus S. Hierome in his Sermon of the Assumption if it be his fears to affirm that the Virgin Mary is assumed into Heaven and thinks it rather to be piously desired than rashly defined But * In the Margint here he says The Doctrin of S. Austin alone hath brought into the Church the Worship of the blessed Virgins Assumption S. Austin more happily dared to affirm it and settle it with many argument by which adventure this the Church hath gained that perswaded by his reasons she hath believed it and celebrates it in her worship But they fetch their arguments from the Antiquity of the Doctors to which always greater honour was given than to Novelties But I answer old men are praisers of ancient times but we affirm the younger the Doctors are the more perspicacious Moreover we say that although they were ancient yet they were men and themselves held under the darkness of Original sin and might err But go to who are these Ancients are they Apostles are they Ambrose or Hierom or Austin but none of them discuss'd this Controversie on purpose Chrysostom is opposed in his Commentary on S. Matthew where he saith though Christ were not a sinner yet he has humane Nature from a sinner Understand says Salmeron from her who of her self and according to the condition of nature was a sinner Thomas says that Chrysostom speaks exorbitantly for he constitutes the Virgin under actual sin Or that the Commentaries which go up and down under his name ane not his Or that these passages are adjectitious Or if they be indeed his with the good leave and favour of so great a man they are to be rejected Neither ought any man to marvel that he Bernard and Thomas and Bonaventure and Alexander of Ales and Albert and Durand and Egidius and Lastly The greater part followed that opinion both because they were men and because in progress of time new mysteries are revealed which before were unknown For as holiness of life purgeth no man from sin so it frees no man from danger of error Every age finds out some verities proper to it self which the former ages were ignorant of and there in the Margin Every age hath its peculiar divine revelations Thus far Salmeron by whom we may see That Protestants are not the only men who say that the Fathers may err but that Roman Catholicks too can and dare valiantly break through and tread under their feet though perhaps with cap in hand and some shew of reverence and even ride over whole bands of Fathers when they stand in their way Another great Achilles for the same opinion is one Joannes Baptista Poza a Jesuite and Professor of Divinity at Complutum He in his fourth Book of his Elacidarium Deiparae pleads very earnestly to have it defined and labours very lustily to remove all exceptions to the contrary but above all those many ones That there is no Tradition for it That the stream of Ancient Tradition is against and therefore well and worthily may it be condemned for an Heresie but to be Canonized among the Articles of Faith it can with no reason expect To the Second exception he brings two answers which Salmeron it seems forgot in the prosecution whereof he hath many excellent passages which I have thought good to cull out of him to evidence the wonderful reverence and constant regard of the present Church of Rome to the Tradition of the Ancient The first That it is possible the Writings of the Fathers out of which these Testimonies against the Immaculate conception are taken may be corrupted But to shew it probable they are so in these places he speaks not one word of sense nor so much as any colourable reason
unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce No proposition which contradicts the common judgment of the Fathers can be probable * I should rather subsume but this does so Therefore not probable But it is de fide that our opinion is probable for the Council of Trent hath made it so by giving liberty to all to hold it Therefore without doubt we must hold that it is not whatsoever it seems against the common judgment of the Fathers This argument saith he doth most illustriously convince the followers of the contrary opinion that they ought not to dare affirm hereafter that their opinion flowes from the common judgment and writings of the ancient Doctors His second answer is That whereas Bandillus and Cajetan c. produce general sayings of Irenaeus Origen Athanasius Theophilus Alexandrinus Greg. Nyssen Basil Greg. Naz. Cyprian Hierom Fulgentius and in a manner of all the ancient Fathers exempting Christ alone from and consequently concluding the Virgin Mary under Original sin which Argument must needs conclude if the Virgin Mary be not Christ His answer I say is These Testimonies have little or no strength for did they conclude we must then let us in Gods name say that the Virgin Mary committed also many venial sins For the Scriptures Fathers and Councils set forth in propositions as Universal That there is no man but Christ who is not often defiled at least with smaller sins and who may not justly say that Petition of our Lords Prayer Demitte nobis debita nostra An answer I confess as fit as a Napkin to stop the mouths of his domestick adversaries though no way fit to satisfie their reason But this man little thought there were Protestants in the world as well as Dominicans who will not much be troubled by thieves falling out to recover more of their goods than they expected and to see a prevaricating Jesuit instead of stopping one breach in their ruinous cause to make two For whereas this man argues from the destruction of the Consequent to the destruction of the Antecedent thus If these testimonies were good and concluding then the Virgin Mary should have been guilty not only of Original but also of actual sin But the Consequent is false and blasphemous Therefore the Antecedent is not true They on the others side argue and sure with much more reason and much more conformity to the Ancient Tradition From the Assertion of the Antecedent to the Assertion of the Consequent thus If these testimonies be good and concluding then the Blessed Virgin was guilty both of Original sin and Actual but the Testimonies are good and concluding therefore she was guilty even of actual sins and therefore much more of Original His Third Answer is That their Church hath or may define many other things against which if their works be not depraved there lies a greater consent of Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and therefore why not this The Instances he gives are four 1. That the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin 2. That the Angels were not created before the visible world 3. That Angels are Incorporeal 4. That the Souls of Saints departed are made happy by the Vision of God before the day of Judgment Against the first Opinion he alledges direct places out of Origen which he says admit no exposition though Pamelius upon Tertullian and Sixtus Senensis labour in vain to put a good sense on them Out of Euthymias and Theophylact Out of S. Chrysostom divers pregnant testimonies and S. Thomas his confession touching one of them out of the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in S. Austin cap. 75. Out of S. Hilary upon Psa 118. which words yet says he Tolet has drawn to a good construction yet so much difficulty still remains in them Out of Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 7. which he tells us will not be salved by Pamelius his gloss Out of Athanafius out of Irenaeus III. 18. out of S. Austin lib. 2. de Symbolo ad Catech. cap. 5. Whose words yet because they admit says Poza some exposition I thought fit to suppress though some think they are very hard to be avoided Out of Greg. Nyss out of S. Cyprian in his Sermon on the Passion Whose words says he though they may by some means be eluded yet will always be very difficult if we examin the Antecedents and Consequents out of Anselm Rich. de S. Victor S. Ambrose S. Andrew of Hierusalem and S. Bede and then tells us there are many other Testimonies much resembling these and besides many Fathers and Texts of Scripture which exempt Christ only from actual sin and lastly many suspicious sayings against her Immunity in them who use to say that at the Angels Annunciation she was cleansed and purged and expiated from all faults committed by her freewill which saith he though Canisius and others explicate in a pious sense yet at least they shew that either those alledged against the Imaculate conception are as favourable to be expounded Or we must say that a verity may be defined by the See Apostolick against the judgment of some Fathers From these things says he is drawn an unanswerable reason That for the defining the purity of the conception nothing now is wanting For seeing notwithstanding more and more convincing testimonies of Fathers who either did or did seem to ascribe actual sin to the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding the Universal sayings of Scripture and Councils bringing all except Christ under sin Lastly notwithstanding the silence of the Scriptures and Councils touching her Immunity from actual sin seeing notwithstanding all this the Council of Trent hath either decreed Seff VI. c. 23. de Justifical or hath confirmed it being before decreed by the consent of the faithful that the Blessed Virgin never was guilty of any voluntary no not the least sin It follows certainly that the Apostolick See hath as good nay better ground to enrol amongst her Articles the Virgins Immaculate conception The reason is clear for neither are there so many nor so evident sentences of Fathers which impute any fault or blemish to the Conception of the Mother of God as there are in appearance to charge her with actual offences Neither are there fewer Universal propositions in Scripture by which it may be proved that only Jesus was free from actual sin and therefore that the Virgin Mary fell into it Neither can there at this time be desired a greater consent of the faithful nor a more ardent desire than there now is that this verity should be defined and that the contrary Opinion should be Anathematized for Erroneous and Heretical The words of the Council of Trent on which this reason is grounded are these If any man say That a man all his life long may avoid all even venial sins unless by special priviledge from God as the Church holds of the Blessed Virgin let him be Anathema But if the consent of the Church hath prevailed against more clear Testimonies of ancient Fathers even for that which is favoured with no express authority of Scriptures or Councils And if the Council of Trent upon this consent of the faithful hath either defined this Immunity of the Virgin from all actual sin or declared it to be defined Who then can deny but that the Church hath immediate power to define among the Articles of Faith the pious Opinion of the Immaculate Conception His second Example by which he declares the power of their Church to define Articles against a multitude of Fathers and consequently not only without but against Tradition is the opinion that Angels were not created before the Corporeal world was created which saith he is or may be defined though there were more Testimonies of Fathers against it than against the Immaculate Conception So he says in the Argument of his Fifth Chapter and in the end of the same Chapter The Council of Lateran hath defined this against the express judgment of twenty Fathers of which Nazianzen Basil Chrysostome Cyrill Hierom Ambrose and Hillary are part His third Example to the same purpose is the opinion that Angels are Incorporeal against which saith he in the Argument of his sixth Chapter there are more Testimonies of the Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and yet it is or at least may be defined by the Church and in the end of the Chapter I have for this Opinion cited twenty three Fathers which as most men think is now condemned in the * Firm de summâ Trinitate Lateran Council or at least as †De Angelis lib. 6. Suarez proves is to be rejected as manifestly temerarious His fourth and last Example to the same purpose is The Opinion that the Souls of Saints departed enjoy the Vision of God before the Resurrection Against which he tells us in the first place was the Judgment of Pope John XXI though not as a Pope but as a private Doctor Then he musters up against it a great multitude of Greek and Latin Fathers touching which he says All these Testimonies when * 1. 2. D. 29. cap. 1. Vasquez has related at length he †cap. 3. answers that they might be so explained as to say nothing against the true and Catholick Doctrin Yet if they could not be so explained their Authority ought not to hinder us from embracing that which the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same argument I make says Peâ—â— The Fathers and ancient Doctors which are objected against the pious opinion of the Conception of the Virgin may be commodiously explicated or at least so handled that they shall not hurt Notwithstanding though they cannot be explicated some of them that their Testimonies ought not to hinder but that the Sea Apostolick may define the Blessed Virgins preservation from Original sin In fine for the close of this Argument he adds Nolo per plura I will not run through more Examples These that I have reckoned are sufficient and admonishes learned men to bring together other like proofs whereby they may promote the desired Determination FINIS
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
of God also this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due to so Sovereign Majesty and Power Which those whom the use thereof cannot persuade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confess for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose rather to commend the vertue of an Enemy than to flatter the vice and imbecility of a Friend And so much for this matter 24. Again what if the Names of the Priests and Altars so frequent in the Ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resumed and more commonly used in England than of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominal with the Ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominal may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a State in this regard more justifiable against the Roman than formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these Names are objected we also use the Names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the Corporal Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25. What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the Ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with sincerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsly said by you that you know that to some Protestants I clcarly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or wentabout to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censured somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affirming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two Hundren Years Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proof of this scandalous Calumny 26. As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them always have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of Faith though not the Infallibility of it That there is Inherent Justice though so imperfect that it cannot justifie That there are Traditions though none necessary That Charity is to be preferred before knowledg That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that Faith alone justifies though that Faith justifies not which is alone And Secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been Anciently without breach of Charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist the Lawfulness of some kind of Prayers for the Dead the Estate of the Fathers Souls before Christs Ascension Freewil Predestination Universal Grace the Possibility of keeping Gods Commandments The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion anongst Protestants it is justified to my hand by a witness with you beyond exception even your great Friend M. Brerely whose care exactness and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9 10 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your self proved an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine begins of late to be altered in these points Whereas M Brerely will inform you they have been anciently and even from the begininng of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the Stream and Current of their Doctors run one way and only some Brook or Rivulet of them the other 27. It remains now in the last place that I bring my self fairly off from your foul Aspersions that so my Person may not be any disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. First upon Hearsay you charge me with a great number of false and impious Doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The Summ of them all is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason it opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical to be the Infallible Word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any Mans Liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation either by the Catholick Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholick Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace 29. But what are all Personal matters to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is nevertheless Truth nor reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or Damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these Impostures and regard not the Person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to persuade him unless it be truth whereunto I persuade him 30. The last Accusation is That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest whch indeed were to the purpose
Antichrist are wholly lost and extinguished So unfaithful or negligent hath been this keeper of Divine verities whose eyes like the Keepers of Israel you say have never Slumbred nor Slept Lastly we deny not but a Judge and a Law might well stand together but we deny that there is any such Judge of Gods appointment Had he intended any such Judge he would have named him lest otherwise as now it is our Judge of Controversies should be our greatest Controversie 11. Ad 2 3 4 5 6. § In your second Paragraph you sum up those arguments wherewith you intend to prove that Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies Wherein I profess unto you before hand that you will fight without an Adversary For though Protestants being warranted by some of the Fathers have called Scripture the Judge of Controversies and you in saying here That Scripture alone cannot be Judge imply that it may be called in some sense a Judge though not alone Yet to speak properly as men should speak when they write of Controversies in Religion the Scripture is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule only and the only Rule for Christians to judge them by Every man is to Judge for himself with the Judgment of Discretion and to choose either his Religion first and then his Church as we say or as you his Church first and then his Religion But by the consent of both sides every man is to judge and choose and the Rule whereby he is to guide his choice if he be a natural man is Reason if he be already a Christian Scripture which we say is the Rule to judge Controversies by Yet not all simply but all the Controversies of Christians of those that are already agreed upon This first Principle that the Scripture is the Word of God But that there is any man or any company of men appointed to be judge for all men that we deny and that I believe you will never prove The very truth is we say no more in this matter than evidence of Truth hath made you confess in plain terms in the beginning of this chap. viz That Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith for as much as a writing can be a Rule So that all your reasons whereby you labour to dethrone the Scripture from this office of Judging we might let pass as impertinent to the conclusion which we maintain and you have already granted yet out of courtesie we will consider them 12. Your first is this a Judge must be a person fit to end Controversies but the Scripture is not a person nor fit to end Controversies no more than the Law would be without the Judges therefore though it may be a Rule it cannot be a Judge Which conclusion I have already granted Only my request is that you will permit Scripture to have the properties of a Rule that is to be fit to direct every one that will make the best use of it to that end for which it was ordained And that is as much as we need desire For as if I were to go a Journey and had a guide which could not Err I needed not to know my way so on the other side if I know my way or have a plain rule to know it by I shall need no guide Grant therefore Scripture to be such a Rule and it will quickly take away all necessity of having an Infallible guide But without a living Judge it will be no fitter you say to end Controversies than the Law alone to end Suits I answer if the Law were plain and perfect and men honest and desirous to understand aright and obey it he that says it were not fit to end Controversies must either want understanding himself or think the World wants it Now the Scripture we pretend in things necessary is plain and perfect and men we say are obliged under pain of Damnation to seek the true sense of it and not to wrest it to their preconceived Phansies Such a Law therefore to such men cannot but be very fit to end all Controversies necessary to be ended For others that are not so they will end when the World ends and that is time enough 13. Your next encounter is with them who acknowledging the Scripture a Rule only and not a Judge make the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture the judge of Controversies Which you disprove by saying That the Holy Ghost speaking only in Scripture is no more intelligible to us than the Scripture in which he speaks But by this reason neither the Pope nor a Council can be a Judge neither For first denying the Scriptures the writings of the Holy Ghost to be Judges you will not I hope offer to pretend that their decrees the writings of men are more capable of this function the same exceptions at least if not more and greater lying against them as do against Scripture And then what you Object against the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture to exclude him from this office The same I return upon them and their decrees to debar them from it that they speaking unto us only in their decrees are no more intelligible than the decrees in which they speak And therefore if the Holy Ghost speaking in Scripture may not be a judge for this reason neither may they speaking in their decrees be Judges for the same Reason If the Popes decrees you will say be obscure he can explain himself and so the Scripture cannot But the Holy Ghost that speaks in Scripture can do so if he please and when he is pleased will do so In the mean time it will be fit for you to wait his leisure and to be content that those things of Scripture which are plain should be so and those which are obscure should remain obscure until he please to declare them Besides he can which you cannot warrant me of the Pope or a Coucil speak at first so plainly that his Words shall need no farther explanation and so in things necessary we believe he has done And if you say the Decrees of Councils touching Controversies though they be not the Judge yet they are the Judges Sentence So I say the Scripture though not the Judge is the Sentence of the Judge When therefore you conclude That to say a Judge is necessary for deciding Controversies about the meaning of Scripture is as much as to say he is necessary to decide what the Holy Ghost speaks in Scripture This I grant is true but I may not grant that a Judge such a one as we dispute of is necessary either to do the one or the other For if the Scripture as it is in things necessary be plain why should it be more necessary to have a judge to interpret them in plain places than to have a judge to interpret the meaning of a Councils decrees and others to interpret their Interpretations and others to interpret theirs and so on for ever And where they are not plain there if we using
such great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs 35. You proceed And whereas the Protestants of England in the 6. Art have these Words In the name of the Holy Scripture we do understand those Books of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church you demand what they mean by them Whether that by the Churches consent they are assured what Scriptures be Canonical I Answer for them Yes they are so And whereas you infer from hence This is to make the Church Judge I have told you already That of this Controversie we make the Church the Judge but not the present Church much less the present Roman Church but the consent and Testimony of the Ancient and Primitive Church Which though it be but a highly probable inducement and no demonstrative enforcement yet methinks you should not deny but it may be a sufficient ground of Faith Whose Faith even of the Foundation of all your Faith your Churches Authority is built lastly and wholly upon Prudential Motives 36. But by this Rule the whole Book of Esther must quit the Canon because it was excluded by some in the Church by Melito Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen Then for ought I know he that should think he had reason to exclude it now might be still in the Church as well as Melito Athanasius Nazianzen were And while you thus inveigh against Luther and charge him with Luciferian Heresies for doing that which you in this very place confess that Saints in Heaven before him have done are you not partial and a Judge of evil thoughts 37. Luther's censures of Ecclesiastes Job and the Prophets though you make such Tragedies with them I see none of them but is capable of a tolerable construction and far from having in them any Fundamental Heresie He that condemns him for saying the Book of Ecclesiastes is not full That it hath many abrupt things condemns him for ought I can see for speaking truth And the rest of the censure is but a bold and blunt expression of the same thing The Book of Job may be a true History and yet as many true Stories are and have been an Argument of a Fable to set before us an example of Patience And though the Books of the Prophets were not written by themselves but by their Disciples yet it does not follow that they were written casually Though I hope you will not damn all for Hereticks that say some Books of Scripture were written casually Neither is there any reason they should the sooner be called in question for being written by their Disciples seeing being so written they had attestation from themselves Was the Prophesie of Jeremy the less Canonical for being written by Baruch Or because S. Peter the Master dictated the Gospel and S. Mark the Scholar writ it is it the more likely to be called in Question 38. But leaving Luther you return to our English Canon of Scripture And tell us that in the New Testament by the above mentioned rule of whose Authority was never any doubt in the Church divers Books must be discanonized Not so For I may believe even those questioned Books to have been written by the Apostles and to be Canonical but I cannot in Reason believe this of them so undoubtedly as of those Books which were never questioned At least I have no warrant to damn any man that shall doubt of them or deny them now having the example of Saints in Heaven either to justifie or excuse such their doubting or denial 39. You observe in the next place that our sixth Article specifying by name all the Books of the Old Testament shuffles over these of the New with this generality All the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received we do receive and account them Canonical And in this you fancy to your self a mystery of iniquity But if this be all the shuffling that the Church of England is guilty of I believe the Church as well as the King may give for her Motto Honi soit qui mal y pense For all the Bibles which since the Composing of the Articles have been used and allowed by the Church of England do testifie and even proclaim to the World that by Commonly received they meant received by the Church of Rome and other Churches before the Reformation I pray take the pains to look in them and there you shall find the Books which the Church of England counts Apocryphal marked out and severed from the rest with this Title in the beginning The Books called Apocrypha and with this close or Seal in the End The End of the Apocrypha And having told you by name and in particular what Books only She Esteems Apocryphal I hope you will not put Her to the trouble of telling you that the rest are in Her judgment Canonical 40. But if by Commonly received She meant by the Church of Rome Then by the same reason must She receive divers Books of the Old Testament which She rejects 41. Certainly a very good Consequence The Church of England receives the Books of the New Testament which the Church of Rome receives Therefore she must receive the Books of the Old Testament which she receives As if you should say If you will do as we in one thing you must in all things If you will pray to God with us you must pray to Saints with us If you hold with us when we have reason on our side you must de so when we have no reason 43. But with what Coherence can we say in the former part of the Article That by Scripture we mean those Books that were never doubted of and in the latter say We receive all the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received whereas of them many were doubted I answer When they say of whose Authority there was never any doubt in the Church They mean not those only of whose Authority there was simply no doubt at all by any man in the Church But such as were not at any time doubted of by the whole Church or by all Churches but had attestation though not Universal yet at least sufficient to make considering men receive them for Canonical In which number they may well reckon those Epistles which were sometimes doubted of by some yet whose number and Authority was not so great as to prevail against the contrary suffrages 44. But if to be commonly received pass for a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament by why not of the Old You conclude many times very well but still when you do so it is out of principles which no man grants For who ever told you that to be commonly received is a good Rule to know the Canon of the New Testament
by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
notwithstanding Ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam hoc est omnes qui sunt undique fideles which Card. Perron and his Translatress so often translates false Or if you say she was you will run into a greater inconvenience and be forced to say that all the Churches of that time rejected from the Canon the Epistle to the Hebrews together with the Roman Church And consequently that the Catholick Church may Err in rejecting from the Canon Scriptures truly Canonical 92. Secondly How can we receive the Scripture upon the authority of the Roman Church which hath delivered at several times Scriptures in many places different and repugnant for Authentical and Canonical which is most evident out of the place of Malacby which is so quoted for the Sacrifice of the Mass that either all the Ancient Fathers had false Bibles or yours is false Most evident likewise from the comparing of the story of Jacob in Genesis with that which is cited out of it in the Epistle to the Hebrews according to the vulgar Edition But above all to any one who shall compare the Bibles of Sixtus and Clement so evident that the wit of man cannot disguise it 93. Thus you see what reason we have to believe your Antecedent That your Church it is which must declare what Books be true Scripture Now for the consequence that certainly is as liable to exception as the Antecedent For if it were true that God had promised to assist you for the delivering of true Scripture would this oblige him or would it follow from hence that He had obliged himself to teach you not only sufficiently but effectually and irrisistably the true sense of Scripture God is not defective in things necessary neither will he leave himself without witness nor the World without means of knowing his will and doing it And therefore it was necessary that by his Providence he should preserve the Scripture from any undiscernable corruption in those things which he would have known otherwise it is apparent it had not been his will that these things should be known the only means of continuing the knowledg of them being perished But now neither is God lavish in superfluities and therefore having given us means sufficient for our direction and power sufficient to make use of these means he will not constrain or necessitate us to make use of these means For that were to cross the end of our Creation which was to be glorified by our free obedience whereas necessity and freedom cannot stand together That were to reverse the Law which he hath prescribed to himself in his dealing with men and that is to set Life and Death before him and to leave him in the hands of his own Counsel God gave the Wisemen a Star to lead them to Christ but he did not necessitate them to follow the guidance of this Star that was left to their liberty God gave the Children of Israel a Fire to lead them by Night and a Pillar of Cloud by Day but he constrained no man to follow them that was left to their liberty So he gives the Church the Scripture which in those things which are to be believed or done are plain and easie to be followed like the Wisemens Star Now that which he desires of us on our part is the Obedience of Faith and love of the Truth and desire to find the true sense of it and industry in searching it and humility in following and Constancy in professing it all which if he should work in us by an absolute irresistible necessity he could no more require of us as our duty than he can of the Sun to shine of the Sea to Ebb and Flow and of all other Creatures to do those things which by meer necessity they must do and cannot choose Besides what an impudence is it to pretend that your Church is infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of the Scripture whereas there are Thousands of places of Scripture which you do not pretend certainly to understand and about the Interpretation whereof your own Doctors differ among themselves If your Church be infallibly directed concerning the true meaning of Scripture why do not your Doctors follow her infallible direction And if they do how comes such difference among them in their Interpretations 94. Again why does your Church thus put her Candle under a Bushel and keep her Talent of interpreting Scripture infallibly thus long wrapt up in Napkins Why sets she not forth Infallible Commentaries or Expositions upon all the Bible Is it because this would not be profitable for Christians that Scripture should be Interpreted Is it blasphemous to say so The Scripture it self tells us All Scripture is profitable And the Scripture is not so much the Words as the Sense And if it be not profitable why does she imploy particular Doctors to interpret Scriptures fallibly unless we must think that fallible Interpretations of Scripture are profitable and infallible Interpretations would not be so 95. If you say the Holy Ghost which assists the Church in interpreting will move the Church to interpret when he shall think fit and that the Church will do it when the Holy Ghost shall move her to do it I demand whether the Holy Ghosts moving of the Church to such works as these be resistible by the Church or irresistible If resistible then the Holy Ghost may move and the Church may not be moved As certainly the Holy Ghost doth always move to an Action when he shews us plainly that it would be for the good of men and Honour of God As he that hath any sense will acknowledge that an infallible exposition of Scripture could not but be and there is no conceivable reason why such a work should be put off a day but only because you are conscious to your selves you cannot do it and therefore make excuses But if the moving of the Holy Ghost be irresistible and you are not yet so moved to go about this work then I confess you are excused But then I would know whether those Popes which so long deferred the calling of a Council for the Reformation of your Church at length pretended to be effected by the Council of Trent whether they may excuse themselves for that they were not moved by the Holy Ghost to do it I would know likewise as this motion is irresistible when it comes so whether it be so simply necessary to the moving of your Church to any such publick Action that it cannot possibly move without it That is whether the Pope now could not if he would seat himself in Cathedra and fall to writing expositions upon the Bible for the directions of Christians to the true sense of it If you say he cannot you will make your self ridiculous If he can then I would know whether he should be infallibly directed in these expositions or no If he should then what need he to stay for irresistible motion Why does he
Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an Universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the Fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c so new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our Faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily persuade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a fair way to make the Faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not Usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one Age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the Shell as the Popes Infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalities of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolick Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others and some things which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgment of those that have Wisdom and Experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not the Scripture 103. To this I answer As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Judge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Judge otherwise you might make your self Judge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Judge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with Sopistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to infer in the end which indeed was more than you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Judge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still run upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Judge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say Thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Judge of Controversies that they have the Authority of Fathers to warrant their manner of speaking as of * Contra Parmen l. 5. in Prin. Optatus 104. But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Judge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both do what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intellible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether they be learned or unlearned And my reason hereof is convincing and demonstrative because nothing is necessary to be believed
but what is plainly revealed For to say that when a place of Scripture by reason of ambiguous terms lies indifferent between divers senses whereof one is true and the other is false that God obliges men under pain of damnation not to mistake through error and humane frailty is to make God a Tyrant and to say that he requires us certainly to attain that end for the attaining whereof we have no certain means which is to say that like Pharaoh he gives no straw and requires brick that he reaps where he sows not that he gathers where he strews not that he will not be pleased with our utmost endeavors to please him without full and exact and never failing performance that his will is we should do what he knows we cannot do that he will not accept of us according to that which we have but requireth of us what we have not Which whether it can consist with his goodness with his wisdom and with his word I leave it to honest men to judge If I should send a Servant to Paris or Rome or Jerusalem and he using his utmost diligence not to mistake his way yet notwithstanding meeting often with such places where the road is divided into several ways whereof every one is as likely to be true and as likely to be false as any other should at length mistake and go out of the way would not any man say that I were an impotent foolish and unjust Master if I should be offended with him for doing so And shall we not tremble to impute that to God which we would take in foul scorn if it were imputed to our selves Certainly I for my part fear I should not love God if I should think so strangely of him 105. Again When you say that unlearned and ignorant men cannot understand Scripture I would desire you to come out of the Clouds and tell us what you mean Whether that they cannot understand all Scripture or that they cannot understand any Scripture or that they cannot understand so much as is sufficient for their direction to Heaven If the first I believe the Learned are in the same Case If the Second every mans experience will confute you for who is there that is not capable of a sufficient understanding of the Story the Precepts the Promises and the Threats of the Gospel If the Third that they may understand something but not enough for their Salvations I ask you first Why then doth Saint Paul say to Timothy The Scriptures are able to make him wise unto Salvation Why does Saint Austin say Ea quae manifestè posita sunt in sacris Scripturis omnia continent quae pertinent ad Fidem Moresque vivendi Why does every one of the four Evangelists Intitle their Book The Gospel if any necessary and essential part of the Gospel were left out of it Can we imagine that either they omitted something necessary out of ignorance not knowing it to be necessary Or knowing it to be so maliciously concealed it Or out of negligence did the work they had undertaken by halfes If none of these things can without Blasphemy be imputed to them considering they were assisted by the Holy Ghost in this work then certainly it most evidently follows that every one of them writ the whole Gospel of Christ I mean all the essential and necessary parts of it So that if we had no other Book of Scripture but one of them alone we should not want any thing necessary to Salvation And what one of them has more than another it is only profitable and not necessary Necessary indeed to be believed because revealed but not therefore revealed because necessary to be believed 106. Neither did they write only for the Learned but for all men This being one especial means of the Preaching of the Gospel which was commanded to be Preached not only to Learned men but to all men And therefore unless we will imagine the Holy Ghost and them to have been wilfully wanting to their own desire and purpose we must conceive that they intended to speak plain even to the capacity of the simplest at least touching all things necessary to be published by them and believed by us 107. And whereas you pretend it is so easie and obvious both for the Learned and the ignorant both to know which is the Church and what are the Decrees of the Church and what is the sense of those Decrees I say this is a vain pretence 108. For First How shall an unlearned man whom you have supposed now ignorant of Scripture how shall he know which of all the Societies of Christians is indeed the Church You will say perhaps he must examine them by the notes of the Church which are perpetual Visibility Succession Conformity with the ancient Church c. But how shall he know first that these are the notes of the Church unless by Scripture which you say he understands not You may say perhaps he may be told so But seeing men may deceive and be deceived and their words are no demonstrations how shall he be assured that what they say is true So that at the first he meets with an impregnable difficulty and cannot know the Church but by such notes which whether they be the notes of the Church he cannot possibly know But let us suppose this Isthmus digged through and that he is assured these are the notes of the true Church How can he possibly be a competent Judge which Society of Christians hath Title to these notes and which hath not Seeing this Trial of necessity requires a great sufficiency of knowledge of the monuments of Christian Antiquity which no unlearned can have because he that hath it cannot be unlearned As for example how shall he possibly be able to know whether the Church of Rome hath had a perpetual Succession of Visible Professors which held always the same Doctrine which they now hold without holding any thing to the contrary unless he hath first examined what was the Doctrine of the Church in the first Age what in the second and so forth And whether this be not a more difficult work than to stay at the first Age and to examine the Church by the conformity of her Doctrine with the Doctrine of the first Age every man of ordinary understanding may Judge Let us imagine him advanced a step farther and to know which is the Church how shall he know what that Church hath Decreed seeing the Church hath not been so careful in keeping of her Decrees but that many are lost and many corrupted Besides when even the Learned among you are not agreed concerning divers things whether they be De Fide or not how shall the unlearned do Then for the sense of the Decrees how can he be more capable of the understanding of them then of plain Texts of Scripture which you will not suffer him to understand Especially seeing the Decrees of divers Popes and Councils are conceived so obscurely
Authority of Universal Tradition that we would have them believe Scripture But then as for the Authority which you would have them follow you will let them see reason why they should follow it And is not this to go a little about to leave reason for a short turn and then to come to it again and to do that which you condemn in others It being indeed a plain impossibility for any man to submit his reason but to reason for he that does it to Authority must of necessity think himself to have greater reason to believe that Authority Therefore the confession cited by Brerely you need not think to have been extorted from Luther and the rest It came very freely from them and what they say you practise as much as they 115. And whereas you say that a Protestant admits of Fathers Councils Church as far as they agree with Scripture which upon the matter is himself I say you admit neither of them nor the Scripture it self but only so far as it agrees with your Church and your Church you admit because you think you have reason to do so so that by you as well as by Protestants all is finally resolved into your own reason 116. Nor do Hereticks only but Romish Catholicks also set up as many Judges as there are Men and Women in the Christian World For do not your Men and Women Judge your Religion to be true before they believe it as well as the Men and Women of other Religions Oh but you say They receive it not because they think it agreeable to Scripture but because the Church tells them so But then I hope they believe the Church because their own reason tells them they are to do so So that the difference between a Papist and a Protestant is this not that the one judges and the other does not judge but that the one judges his guide to be infallible the other his way to be manifest This same pernitious Doctrine is taught by Brentius Zanchius Cartwright and others It is so in very deed But it is taught also by some others whom you little think of It is taught by S. Paul where he says Try all things hold fast that which is good It is taught by S. John in these words Believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God or no. It is taught by S. Peter in these Be ye ready to render a reason of the hope that is in you Lastly this very pernitious Doctrine is taught by our Saviour in these words If the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch And why of your selves Judge you not what is right All which speeches if they do not advise men to make use of their Reason for the choice of their Religion I must confess my self to understand nothing Lastly not to be infinite it is taught by M. Knot himself not in one Page only or Chapter of his Book but all his Book over the very writing and publishing whereof supposeth this for certain that the Readers are to be Judges whether his Reasons which he brings be strong and convincing of which sort we have hitherto met with none or else captious or impertinences as indifferent men shall as I suppose have cause to judge them 117. But you demand What good Statesmen would they be who should ideate or fancy such a Commonwealth as these men have framed to themselves a Church Truly if this be all the fault they have that they say Every man is to use his own judgment in the choice of his Religion and not to believe this or that sense of Scripture upon the bare Authority of any Learned man or men when he conceives he has reasons to the contrary which are of more weight than their Authority I know no reason but notwithstanding all this they might be as good Statesmen as any of the Society But what has this to do with Common-wealths where men are bound only to external obedience unto the Laws and Judgments of Courts but not to an internal approbation of them no nor to conceal their Judgment of them if they disapprove them As if I conceived I had reason to mislike the Law of punishing simple Theft with Death as Sir Thomas Moore did I might profess lawfully my judgment and represent my reasons to the King or Common-wealth in a Parliament as Sir Thomas Moore did without committing any fault or fearing any punishment 118. To that place of S. Austin you cite lib. 32. cont Faust You see that you go about to overthrow all Authority of Scripture and that every mans mind may be to himself a Rule what he is to allow or disallow in every Scripture I shall need give no other Reply but only to desire you to speak like an honest man and to say whether it be all one for a man to allow and disallow in every Scripture what he pleases which is either to dash out of Scripture such Texts or such Chapters because they cross his opinion or to say which is worse Though they be Scripture they are not true Whether I say for a man thus to allow and disallow in Scripture what he pleases be all one and no greater fault than to allow that sense of Scripture which he conceives to be true and genuine and deduced out of the words and to disallow the contrary for Gods sake Sir tell me plainly In those Texts of Scripture which you alledge for the infallibility of your Church do not you allow what sense you think true and disallow the contrary And do you not this by the direction of your private reason If you do why do you condemn it in others If you do not I pray you tell me what direction you follow or whether you follow none at all If none at all this is like drawing Lots or throwing the Dice for the choice of a Religion If any other I beseech you tell me what it is Perhaps you will say the Churches Authority and that will be to dance finely in a round thus To believe the Churches Infallible Authority because the Scriptures avouch it and to believe that Scriptures say and mean so because they are so expounded by the Church Is not this for a Father to beget his Son and the Son to beget his Father For a foundation to support the house and the house to support the foundation Would not Campian have cryed out at it Ecce quos gyros quos Maeandros And to what end was this going about when you might as well at first have concluded the Church infallible because she says so as thus to put in Scripture for a meer stale and to say the Church is infallible because the Scripture says so and the Scripture means so because the Church says so which is infallible Is it not most evident therefore to every intelligent man that you are enforced of necessity to do that your self which so Tragically you declaim against in others The
either your Church or Pope in as much as there is no more repugnance between the Scriptures existence and our infallibility than there is between theirs 138. Obj. But if Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entrance thereof infallibility went out of the Church Ans This Argument put in form runs thus No Scripture affirms that by the entring thereof infallibility went out of the Church Therefore there is an infallible Church and therefore the Scripture alone is not Judge that is the Rule to judge by But as no Scripture affirms that by the entring of it Infallibility went out of the Church so neither do we neither have we any need to do so But we say that it continued in the Church even together with the Scriptures so long as Christ and his Apostles were living and then departed God in his providence having provided a plain and infallible Rule to supply the defect of living and infallible Guides 141. But the Jewish Church retained Infallibility in her self and therefore it is unjust to deprive the Church of Christ of it Ans That the Jews had sometimes an infallible miraculous direction from God in some cases of moment he doth affirm and had good warrant but that the Synagogue was absolutely Infallible he no where affirms and therefore it is unjustly and unworthily done of you to obtrude it upon him And indeed how can the Infallibility of the Synagogue be conceived but only by setling it in the High Priest and the company adhering and subordinate unto him And whether the High Priest was Infallible when he believed not Christ to be the Messias but condemned and excommunicated them that so professed and caused him to be crucified for saying so I leave it to Christians to judge But then suppose God had been so pleased to do as he did not to appoint the Synagouge an infallible guide Could you by your rules of Logick constrain him to appoint such a one to Christians also or say unto him that in wisdom he could not do otherwise Vain man that will be thus always tying God to your imaginations It is well for us that he leaves us not without directions to him but if he will do this sometime by living Guides sometime by written Rules what is that to you may not he do what he will with his own 144. Ad § 24. Neither is this Discourse if you mean your Conclusion that Your Church is the infallible Judge in Controversies confirmed by Irenaeus at all Iren. l. 3. c. 3. For neither has Irenaeus one syllable to this purpose neither can it be deduced out of what he says with any colour of consequence For first in saying What if the Apostles had not left Scripture ought we not to have followed the Order of Tradition And in saying That to this Order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without Letters or Ink and diligently keeping ancient Tradition Doth he not plainly shew that the Tradition he speaks of is nothing else but the very same that is written nothing but to believe in Christ To which whether Scripture alone to them that believe it be not a sufficient guide I leave it to you to judge And are not his words just as if a man should say If God had not given us the light of the Sun we must have made use of Candles and Torches If we had had no Eyes we must have felt out our way If we had no Leggs we must have used Crutches And doth not this in effect import that while we have the Sun we need no Candles While we have our Eyes we need not feel out our way While we enjoy our Leggs we need not Crutches And by like reason Irenaeus in saying If we had no Scripture we must have followed Tradition and they that have none do well to do so doth he not plainly import that to them that have Scripture and believe it Tradition is unnecessary which could not be if the Scripture did not contain evidently the whole tradion Which whether Irenaeus believed or no these words of his may inform you Non enim per alios c. we have received the disposition of our Salvation from no others but from them by whom the Gospel came unto us Which Gospel truly the Apostles first preached and afterwards by the will of God delivered in writing to us to be the Pillar and Foundation of our Faith Bellarm. de verbo Dei l. 4 c. 11. Upon which place Bellarmine's two observations and his acknowledgment ensuing upon them are very considerable and as I conceive as home to my purpose as I would wish them His first Notandum is That in the Christian Doctrin some things are simply necessary for the Salvation of all men as the knowledge of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and besides the knowledge of the ten Commandments and some of the Sacraments Other things not so necessary but that a man may be saved without the explicit knowledge and belief and profession of them His Second Note is That those things which were simply necessary the Apostles were wont to preach to all men But of other things not all to all but something to all to wit those things which were profitable for all other things only to Prelats and Priests These things premised he acknowledgeth That all those things were written by the Apostles which are necessary for all and which they were wont openly to preach to all But that other things were not all written And therefore when Irenaeus says that the Apostles wrote what they Preach in the World it is true saith he and not against Traditions because they preached not to the People all things but only those things which were necessary or profitable for them 145. So that at the most you can infer from hence but only a suppositive necessity of having an infallible Guide and that grounded upon a false supposition In case we had no Scripture but an absolute necessity hereof and to them who have and believe the Scripture which is your assumption cannot with any colour from hence be concluded but rather the contrary 146. Neither because as he says it was then easie to receive the Truth from Gods Church then in the Age next after the Apostles Then when all the ancient and Apostolick Churches were at an agreement about the Fundamentals of Faith Will it therefore follow that now 1600 years after when the ancient Churches are divided almost into as many Religions as they are Churches every one being the Church to it self and heretical to all other that it is as easie but extremely difficult or rather impossible to find the Church first independently of the true Doctrin and then to find the truth by the Church 148. Neither will the Apostles depositing with the Church all things belonging to truth be any proof
good and pertinent And that the Catholick Church may err in the latter kind of the said points 1. This distinction is imployed by Protestants to many purposes and therefore if it be pertinent and good as they understand and apply it the whole Edifice built thereon must be either firm and stable or if it be not it cannot be for any default in this distinction 2. If you object to them discords in matter of faith without any means of agreement They will answer you that they want not good and solid means of agreement in matters necessary to salvation viz. Their belief of all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture which who so believes must of necessity believe all things necessary to salvation and their mutual suffering one another to abound in their several sense in matters not plainly and undoubtedly there delivered And for their agreement in all Controversies of Religion either they have means to agree about them or not If you say they have why did you before deny it If they have not means why do you find fault with them for not agreeing 3. You will say that their fault is that by remaining Protestants they exclude themselves from the means of agreement which you have and which by submission to your Church they might have also But if you have means of agreement the more shame for you that you still disagree For who I pray is more inexcusably guilty for the omission of any duty they that either have no means to do it or else know of none they have which puts them in the same case as if they had none or they which profess to have an easie and expedite means to do it and yet still leave it undone If you had been blind saith our Saviour to the Pharisees you had had no sin but now you say you see therefore your sin remaineth 4. If you say you do agree in matters of Faith I say this is ridiculous for you define matters of Faith to be those wherein you agree So that to say you agree in matters of Faith is to say you agree in those things wherein you do agree And do not Protestants do so likewise Do not they agree in those things wherein they do agree 5. But you are all agreed that only those things wherein you do agree are matters of Faith And Protestants if they were wise would do so too Sure I am they have reason enough to do so seeing all of them agree with explicite Faith in all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture that is in all which God hath plainly revealed and with an implicite Faith in that sense of the whole Scripture which God intended whatsoever it was Secondly That which you pretend is false for else why do some of you hold it against Faith to take or allow the Oath of Allegiance others as learned and honest as they that it is against Faith and unlawful to refuse it and allow the refusing of it Why do some of you hold that it is de Fide that the Pope is Head of the Church by divine Law others the contrary Some hold it de Fide that the Blessed Virgin was free from Actual sin others that it is not so Some that the Popes indirect power over Princes in temporalties is de Fide Others the contrary Some that it is Universal Tradition and consequently de Fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin others the contrary 6. But what shall we say now if you be not agreed touching your pretended means of agreement how then can you pretend to Unity either Actual or Potential more than Protestants may Some of you say the Pope alone without a Council may determine all Controversies But others deny it Some that a General Council without a Pope may do so Others deny this Some Both in conjunction are infallible determiners Others again deny this Lastly some among you hold the Acceptation of the decrees of Councils by the Universal Church to be the only way to decide Controversies which others deny by denying the Church to be Infallible And indeed what way of ending Cotroversies can this be when either part may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receive not the decree therefore the whole Church hath not received it 7. Again Means of agreeing differences are either Rational and well grounded and of Gods appointment or voluntary and taken up at the pleasure of men Means of the former nature we say you have as little as we For where hath God appointed that the Pope or a Council or a Council confirmed by the Pope or that Society of Christians which adhere to him shall be the Infallible Judge of Controversies I desire you to shew any one of these Assertions plainly set down in Scripture as in all Reason a thing of this nature should be or at least delivered with a full consent of Fathers or at least taught in plain terms by any one Father for four Hundred years after Christ And if you cannot do this as I am sure you cannot and yet will still be obtruding your selves upon us for our Judges who will not cry out perisse frontem de rebus that you have lost all modesty 8. But then for means of the other kind such as yours are we have great abundance of them For besides all the ways which you have devised which we may make use of when we please we have a great many more which you yet have never thought of for which we have as good colour out of Scripture as you have for yours For first we could if we would try it by Lots whose Doctrine is true and whose false And you know it is written a Prov. 16.33 The Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole disposition of it is from the Lord. 2. We could refer them to the King and you know it is written b Prov. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the Lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgment c Prov. 21.1 The Heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. We could refer the matter to any assembly of Christians assembled in the name of Christ seeing it is written where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them We may refer it to any Priest because it is written d Mat. 2.7 The Priests Lips shall preserve knowledge f Mat. 25.2 The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair c. To any Preacher of the Gospel to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised g Mat. 28.20 he will he with them alwaies even to the end of the World and of every one of them it is said h Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written i Heb. 13.17 Obey your Prelates and again k Eph.
station unto the very end of their lives which is mans for ever Neither is this use of the word for ever any thing strange either in our ordinary speech wherein we use to say this is mine for ever this shall be yours for ever without ever dreaming of the Eternity either of the thing or Persons And then in Scripture it not only will bear but requires this sense very frequently as Exod. 21.6 Deut. 15.17 his Master shall bore his Ear through with an Awl and he shall serve him for ever Psal 52.9 I will praise thee for ever Psal 61.4 I will abide in thy Tahernacle for ever Psal 119.111 Thy Testimonies have I taken as mine Heritage for ever and lastly in the Epistle to Philemon He therefore departed from thee for a time that thou shouldest receive him for ever 75. And thus I presume I have shewed sufficiently that this for ever hinders not but that the promise may be appropriated to the Apostles as by many other circumstances I have evinced it must be But what now if the place produced by you as a main pillar of your Churches Infallibility prove upon Tryal an Engine to batter and overthrow it at least which is all one to my purpose to take away all possibility of our assurance of it This will seem strange news to you at first hearing and not far from a prodigy And I confess as you here in this place and generally all your Writers of Controversie by whom this Text is urged order the matter it is very much disabled to do any service against you in this question For with a bold sacriledg and horrible impiety somewhat like Procrustes his cruelty you perpetually cut off the Head and Foot the beginning and end of it and presenting to your confidents who usually read no more of the Bible than is alledged by you only these words I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth conceal in the mean time the words before and the words after that so the promise of Gods Spirit may seem to be absolute whereas it is indeed most clearly and expresly conditional being both in the words before restrained to those only that love God and keep his commandments and in the words after flatly denied to all whom the Scriptures stile by the name of the World that is as the very Antithesis give us plainly to understand to all wicked and worldly men Behold the place entire as it is set down in your own Bible If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will ask my Father and he shall give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the spirit of the Truth whom the. World cannot receive Now from the place there restored and vindicated from your mutilation thus I argue against your pretence We can have no certainty of the Infallibility of your Church but upon this suposition that your Popes are infallible in confirming the Decrees of General Councils we can have no certainty hereof but upon this supposition that the Spirit of truth is promised to him for his direction in this work And of this again we can have no certainty but upon supposal that he performs the condition whereunto the promise of the Spirit of truth is expresly limited viz. That he love God and keep his Commandments and of this finally not knowing the Popes Heart we can have no certainty at all therefore from the first to the last we can have no certainty at all of your Churches Infallibibility This is my first Argument From this place another follows which will charge you as home as the former If many of the Roman See were such men as could not receive the Spirit of Truth even men of the World that is Worldly Wicked Carnal Diabolical men then the Spirit of Truth is not here promised but flatly denied them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees of Councils which these Popes confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which is guided by these Decrees But many of the Roman See even by the confession of the most zealous Defenders of it were such men therefore the Spirit of truth is not here promised but denyed them and consequently we can have no certainty neither of the Decrees which they confirm nor of the Churches Infallibility which guides her self by these Decrees 76. You may take as much time as you think fit to answer these Arguments In the mean while I proceed to the consideration of the next Text alledged for this purpose by you out of S. Paul 1. Epistle to Timothy cap. 3.15 where he saith as you say the Church is the Pillar and ground of truth But the truth is you are somewhat to bold with S. Paul For he says not in formal terms what you make him say the Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth neither is it certain that he means so for it is neither impessible nor improbable that the words the Pillar and Gonnd of truth may have reference not to the Church but to Timothy the sense of the place that thou maiest know how to behave thy self as a Pillar and ground of truth in the Church of God which is the house of the living God which exposition offers no violence at all to the words but only supposes an Ellipsis of the Particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Greek very ordinary Neither wants it some likelihood that S. Paul comparing the Church to a House should here exhort Timothy to carry himself as a Pillar in that House should do according as he had given other Principal men in the Church the name of Pillars rather than having called the Church a House to call it presently a Pillar which may seem somewhat heterogeneous Yet if you will needs have S. Paul refer this not to Timothy but the Church I will not contend about it any farther than to say possibly it may be otherwise But then secondly I am to put you in mind that the Church which S. Paul here speaks of was that in which Timothy conversed and that was a Particular Church and not the Roman and such you will not have to be Universally Infallible 77. Thirdly if we grant you out of Courtesie for nothing can enforce us to it that he both speaks of the Universal Church and says this of it then I am to remember you that many Attributes in Scripture are not Notes of Performance but of Duty and teach us not what the thing or Person is of necessity but what it should be Ye are the Salt of the Earth said our Saviour to his Disciples not that this quality was inseparable from their Persons but because it was their Office to be so For if they must have been so of necessity and could not have been otherwise in vain had he put them in fear of that which follows If the Salt hath lost his
Transubstantiation as is explained one where or other by your School-men Now I beseech you Sir to try your skill and if you can compose their repugnance and make peace between them Certainly none but you shall be Catholick Moderator But if you cannot do it and that after an intelligible manner then you must give me leave to believe that either you do not believe Transubstantiation or else that it is no contradiction that men should subjugate their understandings to the belief of contradictions 48. Ad § 18. This Paragraph consists of two immodest untruths obtruded upon us without shew or shadow of reason and an evident sophism grounded upon an affected mistake of the sense of the word Fundamental 49. The first untruth is that some Protestants make a Church of men scarcely agreeing in one point of faith of men concurring in some one or few Articles of belief and in the rest holding conceits plainly contradictory agreeing only in this one Article that Christ is our Saviour c. Ans This is a shameless Calumny because even these men to the constituting of the very essence of a Church in the lowest degree require not only Faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour of the World but also submission to his Doctrin in mind and will Now I beseech you Sir tell me ingenuously whether the Doctrin of Christ may be called without blasphemy scarcely one point of Faith Or whether it consists only of some-one or few Articles of belief Or whether there be nothing in it but only this Article That Christ is our Saviour Is it not manifest to all the world that Christians of all Professions do agree with one consent in the belief of all those Books of Scripture which were not doubted of in the ancient Church without danger of damnation Nay is it not apparent that no man at this time can without hypocrisie pretend to believe in Christ but of necessity he must do so Seeing he can have no reason to believe in Christ but he must have the same to believe the Scripture I pray then read over the Scripture once more or if that be too much labour the New Testament only and then say whether there be nothing there but scarcely one point of Faith But some one or two Articles of belief Nothing but this Article only that Christ is our Saviour Say whether there be not there an infinite number of Divine Verities Divine precepts Divine promises and those so plainly and undoubtedly delivered that if any sees them not it cannot be because he cannot but because he will not So plainly that whosoever submits sincerely to the Doctrin of Christ in mind and will cannot possibly but submit to these in act and performance And in the rest which it hath pleased God for reasons best known to himself to deliver obscurely or ambiguously yet thus far at least they agree that the sense of them intended by God is certainly true and that they are without passion or prejudice to endeavor to find it out The difference only is which is that true sense which God intended Neither would this long continue if the walls of separation whereby the Divel hopes to make their Divisions eternal were pulled down and Error were not supported against Truth by human advantages But for the present God forbid the matter should be so ill as you make it For whereas you looking upon their points of difference and agreement through I know not what strange glasses have made the first innumerable and the other scarce a number the Truth is clean contrary that those divine Verities Speculative and Practical wherein they universally agree which you will have to be but a few or but one or scarcely one amount to many millions 〈◊〉 if an exact account were taken of them And on the other side the Points in variance are in comparison but few and those not of such a quality but the Error in them may well consist with the belief and obedience of the entire Covenant ratified by Christ between God and man Yet I would not be so mistaken as if I thought the Errors even of some Protestants unconsiderable things and matters of no moment For the truth is I am very fearful that some of their opininions either as they are or as they are apt to be mistaken though not of themselves so damnable but that good and holy men may be saved with them yet are too frequent occasions of our remissness and slackness in running the race of Christian Perfection of our deferring Repentance and conversion to God of our frequent relapses into sin and not seldom of security in sinning and consequently though not certain causes yet too frequent occasions of many mens damnation and such I conceive all these Doctrines which either directly or obliquely put men in hope of Eternal happiness by any other means saving only the narrow way of sincere and Universal obedience grounded upon a true and lively Faith These Errors therefore I do not elevate or extenuate and on condition the ruptures made by them might be composed do heartily wish that the cement were made of my dearest Blood and only not to be an Anathema from Christ Only this I say that neither are their points of agreement so few nor their differences so many as you make them nor so great as to exclude the opposite Parties from being members of one Church Militant and Joynt Heirs of the Glory of the Church Triumphant 50. Your other palpable untruth is that Protestants are far more bold to disagree even in matters of Faith than Catholick Divines you mean your own in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For neither do they differ at all in matters of Faith if you take the word in the highest sense and mean by matters of Faith such Doctrines as are absolutely necessary to Salvation to be believed or not to be disbelieved And then in those wherein they do differ with what colâ—â—r or shadow of Argument can you make good that they are more bold to disagree than you are in Questions meerly Philosophical or not determined by the Church For is there not as great repugnancy between your assent and dissent your affirmation and negation your Est Est Non Non as there is between theirs You follow your Reason in those things which are not determined by your Church and they theirs in things not plainly determined in Scripture And wherein then consists their greater their far greater boldness And what if they in their contradictory opininions pretend both to rely upon the truth of God doth this make their contradictions ever a whit the more repugnant I had always thought that all contradictions had been equally contradictions and equally repugnant because the least of them are as far asunder as Est and Non Est can make them and the greatest are no farther But then you in your differences by name about Predetermination the Immaculate Conception the Popes
Reformation which yet when you measure it without partiality you 'll find to be far short of infinite nor their symbolizing in the general of forsaking your corruptions prove any thing to the contrary or any way advantage your design or make for your purpose For it is not any sign at all much less an evident sign that they had no setled design but only to forsake the Church of Rome for nothing but malice can deny that their intent at least was to reduce Religion to that original purity from which it was fallen The declination from which some conceiving to have begun though secretly in the Apostles times the mystery of iniquity being then in work and after their departure to have shewed it self more openly others again believing that the Church continued pure for some Ages after the Apostles and then declined And consequently some aiming at an exact conformity with the Apostolick times Others thinking they should do God and men good service could they reduce the Church to the condition of the fourth and fifth ages Some taking their direction in this work of Reformation only from Scripture others from the Writings of Fathers and the Decrees of Councils of the first five Ages certainly it is no great marvel that there was as you say disagreement between them in the particulars of their Reformation nay morally speaking it was impossible it should be otherwise Yet let me tell you the difference between them especially in comparison of your Church and Religion is not the difference between good and bad but between good and better And they did best that followed Scripture interpreted by Catholick written Tradition which rule the Reformers of the Church of England proposed to themselves to follow 83. Ad 30.31 32. D. Potter p. 81.82 of his Book speak thus If a Monastery should reform it self and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not In this case could it be charged with Schism from others or with Apostacy from its rule and order So in a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from it could they be therefore said to separate from the society He presumes they could not and from hence concludes That neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schism that is separating from the Church and making themselves no members of it if all they did was as indeed it was to reform themselves 84. Now instead of these two instances which plainly shewed it possible in other societies and consequently in that of the Church to leave the faults of a Society and not leave being of it you disingenuously foist in two other instances clean cross to the Doctors purpose of men under colour of faults abandoning the Society wherein they lived 85. But that no suspicion of tergiversation may be fastned upon me I am content to deal with you a little at your own weapons Put the case then though not just as you would have it yet with as much favour to you as in reason you can expect That a Monastery did observe her substantial vows and all principal statutes but yet did generally practise and also enjoyn the violation of some lesser yet obliging observances and had done so time out of mind And that some inferiour Monks more conscientious than the rest discovering this abuse should first with all earnestness sollicite their Superiors for a general and orderly reformation of these though small and venial corruptions yet corruptions But finding they hoped and laboured in vain to effect this should reform these faults in themselves and refuse to joyn in the practice of them with the rest of their Confraternity and persisting resolutely in such a refusal should by their Superiors be cast out of their Monastery and being not to be re-admitted without a promise of remitting from their stiffness in these things and of condescending to others in the practice of their small faults should choose rather to continue exiles than to re-enter upon such conditions I would know whether you would condemn such men of Apostacy from the Order Without doubt if you should you would find the stream of your Casuists against you and besides involve S. Paul in the same condemnation who plainly tells that we may not do the least evil that we may do the greatest good Put case again you should be part of a Society universally infected with some disease and discovering a certain remedy for this disease should perswade the whole company to make use of it but find the greatest part of them so far in love with their disease that they were reslved to keep it and besides should make a decree that whosoever would leave it should leave their company Suppose now that your self and some few others should notwithstanding their injunction to the contrary free your selves from this disease and thereupon they should absolutely forsake and reject you I would know in this case who deserves to be condemned whether you of uncharitable desertion of your company or they of a tyrannical peevishness And if in these cases you will as I verily believe you will acquit the inferiors and condemn the superiors absolve the minor part and condemn the major then can you with no reason condemn Protestants for choosing rather to be ejected from the communion of the Roman Church than with her to persist as of necessity they were to do if they would continue in her Communion in the profession of Errors though not destructive of salvation yet hindering edification and in the practice or at least approbatiof many suppose not mortal but venial corruptions 86. Besides you censure too partially the corrupt estate of your Church in comparing it to a Monastery which did confessedly observe their substantial Vows and all principal Statutes of their order and moreover was secured by an infallible assistance for the avoiding of all substantial corruptions for of your Church we confess no such matter but say plainly That she not only might fall into substantial corruptions but did so that she did not only generally violate but of all the members of her Communion either in act or approbation require and exact the violation of many substantial Laws of Christ both Ceremonial and Moral which though we hope it was pardonable in them who had not means to know their error yet of its own nature and to them who did or might have known their error was certainly damnable And that it was not the Tything of Mint and Annise and Cummin the neglect whereof we impute unto you but the neglect of judgment justice and the weightier matters of the Law 87. Again you compare Protestants to such a Company as acknowledge that themselves as soon as they were gone out of the Monastery that deferred to reform must not hope to be free from those or the like Errors and Corruptions for which they left their Brethren Which is very strange seeing this very hope and nothing else moved
will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any Body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not Consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is Universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of Divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of Government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of Divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these external Forms and Orders and Government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unproved and unprobable 40. Obj. You say The Fathers assign Succession as one mark of the true Church Answ I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the Truth of their Doctrine and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urged it not against all Hereticks that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their Doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urged it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joynt Tradition of all the Apostolick Churches with one Mouth and one Voice teaching the same Doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an Age removed from him and the last of them all little more than an Age from them Yet after all this they urged it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater than any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should Err in one Faith it should be should have Erred into one Faith And this was the condition of this Argument as the Fathers urged it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not Anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholicks nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruptions and for the mystery af iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholick to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her Ancient Original Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduced Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and Ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent Trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the Old Hereticks that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urged the Old Hereticks certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but Pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41. But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
Erring persons that lead good lives should be judged of charitably c. 7.33 A man may learn of the Church to confute its Errors c. 3.40 We did well to forsake the Roman Church for her Errors though we afterwards may err out of it c. 5.63 64 65 67 87 92. We must not adhere to a Church in professing the least Errors lest we should not profess with her necessary Doctrin c. 3.56 The Examples of those that forsaking Popish Errors have denied necessary Truths no Argument against Protestants c. 3.63 External Communion of a Church may be left without leaving a Church c. 5.32 45 47. F. Whether Faith be destroyed by denying a Truth testified by God Ans Pref. 25. c. 6.49 c. 7.19 The Objects of Faith of two sorts essential and occasional c. 4.3 Certainty of Faith less than the highest degree may please God and save a man c. 1.8 6.3 4 5. Faith less than infallibly certain may resist temptations difficulties c. 6.5 There may be Faith where the Church and its infallibility begets it not c. 2.49 Faith does not go before Scripture but follows its efficacy c. 2.48 Protestants have sufficient means to know the certainty of their Faith c. 2.152 In the Roman Church the last resolution of Faith is into Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Fathers declared their Judgment of Articles but did not require their declarations to be received under Anathema c. 4.18 Protestants did not forsake the Church though they forksook its errors c. 3.11 Sufficient Foundation for faith without infallible certainty c. 6.6 45. What Protestants mean by Fundamental Doctrins c. 4.52 In what sense the Church of Rome errs not Fundamentally Ans Pref. 20. To be unerring in Fundamentals can be said of no Church of one denomination c. 3.55 To say that there shall be always a Church not erring in Fundamentals is to say that there shall be always a Church c. 3.55 A Church is not safe though retaining Fundamentals when it builds hay and stubble on the foundation and neglects to reform her Errors c. 5.61 Ignorance of what points in particular are fundamental does not make it uncertain whether we do not err fundamentally or differ in fundamentals among our selves c. 7.14 G. The four Gospels contain all necessary Doctrins c. 4.40 41 42 43. An Infallible Guide not necessary for avoiding Heresie c. 2.127 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort c. 3.69 The Church may not be an Infallible Guide in fundamentals though it be infallible in fundamentals c. 3.39 That the Roman Church should be the only infallible Guide of Faith and the Scriptures say nothing concerning it is incredible c. 6.20 H. The difference betwixt Heresie and Schism c. 5.51 There are no New Heresies no more than new Articles of Faith c. 4.18 37 38. Separation from the Church of Rome no mark of Heresie by the Fathers whose Citations are answered c. 6.22 23 24 25 26 27 2â— 30 31 33 34. No mark of Heresie to want succession of Bishops holding the same Doctrin c. 6.18 41. We are not Hereticks for opposing things propounded by the Church of Rome for divine Truth c. 6.11 12. Whether Protestants Schismatically cut off the Roman Church from hopes of salvation c. 5.38 I. The Jewish Church had no Infallibility annexed to it and if it had there is no necessity that the Christian Church should have it c. 2.141 The Imposing a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separating from a Church c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. Indifferency to all Religions falsely charged upon Protestants Ans Pref. 3. c. 3.12 The belief of the Churches Infallibility makes way for Heresie Pref. 10. An Infallible Guide not needful for avoiding Heresies c. 2.127 The Churches Infallibility has not the same Evidence as there is for the Scriptures c. 3.30 31. The Churches Infallibility can no way be better assured to us than the Scriptures incorruption c. 2.25 c. 3.27 The Churches Infallibility is not proved from the promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it c. 3.70 Nor from the promise of the Spirits leading into all Truth which was made onely to the Apostles c. 3.71 72. The Churches infallibility not proved from Ephes c. 11 12 13. He gave some Apostles c. till we all come in the Vnity of the Faith c. c. 3.79 80. That God has appointed an Infallible Judge of Controversies because such a one is desirable and useful is a weak conclusion c. 2. from 128. to 136. inclusive Infallibility in fundamentals no warrant to adhere to a Church in all that she proposes c. 3.57 Infallible interpretations of Scripture vainly boasted of by the Roman Church c. 2.93 94 95. Whether the denial of the Churches Infallibility leaves men to their private spirit reason and discourse and what is the harm of it Pref. 12.13 c. 2.110 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved c. 2.10 Interprecations of Scripture which private men make for themselves not pretending to prescribe their sense to others though false or seditious endanger only themselves c. 2.122 Allow the Pope or Roman Church to be a decisive Interpreter of Christs Laws and she can evacuate them and make what Laws she pleases Pref. 10.11 c. 2.1 S. Irenaeus's account of Tradition favours not Popery c. 2.144 145 146. His saying that no Reformation can countervail the danger of a Schism explained c. 5.11 A living Judge to end Controversies about the sense of Scripture not necessary c. 2.12 13. If Christ had intended such a Judge in Religion he would have named him which he has not done c. 2.23 c. 3.69 c. 6.20 Though a living Judge be necessary to determin Civil causes yet not necessary for Religious causes c. 2. from 14. to 22. inclus If there be a Judge of Controversies no necessity it should be the Roman Church c. 3.69 Roman Catholicks set up as many Judges in Religion as Protestants c. 2.116 118 153. A Judgment of discretion must be allowed to every man for himself about Religion c. 2.11 The Protestant Doctrin of Justification taken altogether not a licentious doctrin c. 7.30 When they say they are justified by faith alone yet they make good works necessary to salvation c. 7.30 K. Our obligation to know any divine truth arises from Gods manifest revealing it c. 3.19 L. How we are assured in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted c. 2.55 56 57. To leave a Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church is not the same thing c. 5.32 45 47. Luthers separation not like that of the Donatists and why c. 5.33.101 Luther and his followers did not divide from the whole Church being a part of it but onely reformed themselves forsaking the corrupt part c. 5.56 Luthers opposing himself to all in his reformation no objection against him c. 5.89 90. We are not bound to justifie all that Luther said
and did no more than Papists are bound to justifie what several Popes have said and done c. 5.112 M. They may be members of the Catholick Church that are not united in external Communion c. 5.9 The Protestant Doctrin of Merit explained c. 4.35 36. The Authors Motives to change his Religions with Answers to them Pref. 42.43 The Faith of Papists resolved at last into the Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Mischiefs that followed the Reformation not imputable to it c. 5.92 N. What make points necessary to be believed c. 4.4 11. No more is necessary to be believed by us than by the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Papists make many things necessary to salvation which God never made so c. 7.7 All necessary points of Faith are contained in the Creed c. 4.73 74. Why some points not so necessary were put into the Creed c. 4.75 76. Protestants may agree in necessary points though they may overvalue some things they hold c. 7.34 To impose a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separation c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. O. A blind obedience is not due to Ecclesiastical decisions though our practise must be determined by the sentence of superiours in doubtful cases c. 5.110 A probable opinion may be followed according to the Roman Doctors though it be not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7 8. Optatus's saying impertinently urged against Protestants c. 5.99 100. Though we receive Ordination and Scripture from a false Church yet we may be a true Church c. 6.54 P. Whether Papists or Protestants most hazard their souls on probabilities c. 4.57 What we believe concerning the Perpetuity of the Visible Church Ans Pref. 18. Whether 1 Tim. 3.15 The Pillar and ground of Truth belong to Timothy or to the Church c. 3.76 If those words belong to the Church whether they may not signifie her duty and yet that she may err in neglecting it c. 3.77 A possibility of being deceived argues not an uncertainty in all we believe c. 3.26 50 c. 5.107 c. 6.47 By joyning in the Prayers of the Roman Church we must joyn in her unlawful practices c. 3.11 Preaching of the Word and administring the Sacrament how they are inseparable notes of the Church and how they make it visible c. 5.19 Private Spirit how we are to understand it c. 2.110 Private Spirit is not appealed to i. e. to dictates pretending to come from Gods spirit when Controversies are referred to Scripture c. 2.110 Whether one is left to his private spirit reason and discourse by denying the Churches infallibility and the harm of it Pref. 12 13. c. 2.110 A mans private judgment may be opposed to the publick when Reason and Scripture warrant him c. 5.109 A probable opinion according to the Roman Doctors may be followed though it is not the safest way for avoiding sin c. 7.8 It 's hard for Papists to resolve what is a sufficient proposal of the Church c. 3.54 Protestants are on the surer side for avoiding sin and Papists on the more dangerous side to commit sin shewed in instances c. 7.9 R. Every man by Reason must judge both of Scripture and the Church c. 2.111 112 113 118 120 122. Reason and judgment of discretion is not to be reproached for the private spirit c. 2.110 If men must not follow their Reason what they are to follow c. 2.114 115. Some kind of Reformation may be so necessary as to justifie separation from a corrupt Church though every pretence of reformation will not c. 5.53 Nothing is more against Religion than using violence to introduce it c. 5.96 The Religion of Protestants which is the belief of the Bible a wiser and safer way than that of the Roman Church shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclus All Protestants require Repentance to remission of sins and remission of sins to Justification c. 7.31 No Revelations known to be so may be rejected as not Fundamental c. 4.11 A Divine revelation may be ignorantly disbelieved by a Church and yet it may continue a Church c. 3.20 Things equally revealed may not be so to several persons c. 3.24 Papists cannot have Reverence for the Scripture whilst they advance so many things contrary to it c. 2.1 No argument of their reverence to it that they have preserved it intire c. 2.2 The Roman Church when Luther separated was not the visible Church though a visible Church and part of the Catholick c. 5.26 27. The present Roman Church has lost all Authority to recommend what we are to believe in Religion c. 2.101 The properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.5.6 7. Whether the Popish Rule of Fundamentals or ours is the safest c. 4.63 S. Right administration of Sacraments uncertain in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 68. inclusive In what sense Salvation may be had in the Roman Church Ans Pref. 5 7. Salvation depends upon great uncertainties in the Roman Church c. 2. from 63. to 73. inclus Schisms whence they chiefly arise and what continues them c. 4.17 Schism may be a Division of the Church as well as from it c. 5.22 He may be no Schismatick that forsakes a Church for Errors not damnable Ans Pref. 2. No Schism to leave a corrupted Church when otherwise we must communicate in her corruptions c. 5.25 Not every separation from the external Communion of the Church but a causeless one is the sin of Schism c. 5.30 They may not be Schismaticks that continue the separation from Rome though Luther that began it had been a Schismatick c. 5.4 c. 6.14 The Scripture cannot be duly reverenced by Papists c. 2. n. 1. The Scripture how proved to be the word of God c. 4.53 The Divine Authority of the Scripture may be certain though it be not self-evidently certain that it is Gods word c. 6.51 Books of Scripture now held for Canonical which the Roman Church formerly rejected c. 2.90 91. Whether some Books of Scripture defined for Canonical were not afterward rejected c. 3.29 The Scripture in things necessary is intelligible to learned and unlearned c. 2.104 105 106. Some Books of Scripture questioned by the Fathers as well as by Protestants c. 2.34 The Scripture has great Authority from internal Arguments c. 2.47 The Truth of Scripture inspiration depends not on the authority of the Roman Church Pref. 14. c. 6.45 If the Scriptures contain all necessary truths Popery is confuted Pref. 30. to 38. inclusive The true meaning of Scripture not uncertain in necessary points c. 2.84 A determinate sense of obscure places of Scripture is not needful c. 2.127 150. The sense of plain places of Scripture may be known by the same means by which the Papists know the sence of those places that prove the Church c. 2.150 151. God may give means to the Church to know the true sense of Scripture yet it is not necessary it should have that sense c. 2.93 It
necessary to the Church to be so then it was impossible the Church should acquire this Essence or this property afterwards and therefore impossible it should have it at the time of Luthers rising Necessarium est quod non aliquando inest aliquando non inest alicui inest alicui non inest sed quod semper omni Arist Post Analyt Again every Sophister knows that of Particulars nothing can be concluded and therefore he that will shew that the Church of Rome and the adherents of it was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising He must argue thus It was always so therefore then it was so Now this Antecedent is overthrown by any Instance to the contrary and so the first Antecedent being proved false the first consequent cannot but be false for what Reason can be imagined that the Church of Rome and the Adherents of it was not the whole Catholick Church at S. Cyprians time and was at Luthers rising If you grant as I think you cannot deny that a Church divided from the Communion of the Roman may be still in truth and in Gods account a part of the Catholick which is the thing we speak of then I hope Mr. Lewgars Argument from Unity of Communion is fallen to the ground and it will be no good Plea to say Some one Church not consisting of divers Communions was the Catholick Church at Luthers rising No one Church can be named to be the Catholick Church but the Roman Therefore the Roman Church was the Catholick at Luthers rising For Mr. Lewgar hath not nor cannot prove the Major of this syllogism certainly true but to the contrary I have proved that it cannot be certainly true by shewing divers instances wherein divers divided Communions have made up the Catholick Church and therefore not the dividing of the Communions but the cause and ground of it is to be regarded whether it be just and sufficient or unjust and insufficient Neither is the Bishop or Church of Rome with the Adherents of it an infallible Judge thereof for it is evident both he and it have erred herein divers times which I have evinced already by divers examples which I will not repeat but add to them one confessed by Mr. Lewgar himself in his discourse upon the Article of the Catholick Church pag. 84. S. Athanasius being excommunicated though by the a How by the whole Church when himself was part of it and communicated still with divers other parts of it whole Church yet might remain a member of Christs body not visible for that is impossible b What not to them who know and believe him to be unjustly Excommunicated that a person cut off from visible Communion though unjustly should be a visible member of the Church but by invisible Communion by reason of the invalidity of the sentence which being unjust is valid enough to visible excision but not farther II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it THE Condition of Communion with the Church of Rome without the performance whereof no man can be received into it is this That he believe firmly and without doubting whatsoever that Church requires him to believe It is impossible that any man should certainly believe any thing unless that thing be either evident of it self as that twice two are four that every whole is greater than a part of it self or unless he have some certain reason at least some supposed certain reason and infallible guide for his belief thereof The Doctrins which the Church of Rome requireth to be believed are not evident of themselves for then every one would grant them at first hearing without any further proof He therefore that will believe them must have some certain and infallible ground whereupon to build his belief of them There is no other ground for a mans belief of them especially in many points but only an assurance of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome Now this point of that Churches Infallibility is not evident of it self for then no man could chuse but in his heart believe it without farther proof Secondly it were in vain to bring any proof of it as vain as to light a Candle to shew men the Sun Thirdly it were impossible to bring any proof of it seeing nothing can be more evident than that which of it self is evident and nothing can be brought in proof of any thing which is not more evident than that matter to be proved But now experience teacheth that millions there are which have heard talk of the Infallibility of the Roman Church and yet do not believe that the defenders of it do not think it either vain or impossible to go about to prove it and from hence it follows plainly that this point is not evident of it self Neither is there any other certain ground for any mans belief of it or if there be I desire it may be produced as who am ready and most willing to submit my judgment to it fully perswaded that none can be produced that will endure a severe and impartial examination If it be said The Roman Church is to be believed infallible because the Scripture says it is so 1. I demand how shall I be assured of the Texts that be alledged that they are indeed Scripture that is the Word of God And the answer to this must be either because the Church tells me so or some other if any other be given then all is not finally resolved into and built upon that Churches Authority and this answer then I hope a Protestant may have leave to make use of when he is put to that perillous Question How know you the Scripture to be the Scripture If the answer be because the Church tells me so my reply is ready that to believe that Church is infallible because the Scriptures say so and that the Scripture is the word of God because the same Church says so is nothing else but to believe the Church is infallible because the Church says so which is infallible 2. I could never yet from the beginning of Genesis to the end of the Apocalypse find it written so much as once in express terms or equivalently that the Church in subordination to the Sea of Rome shall be always infallible 3. If it be said that this is drawn from good consequence from Scripture truly interpreted I demand what certain ground have I to warrant me that this consequence is good and this interpretation true and if answer be made that reason will tell me so I reply 1. That this is to build all upon my own reason and private interpretation 2. I have great reason to fear that reason assures no man that the infallibility of the Church of Rome may be deduced from Scripture by good and firm consequence 4. If it be said that a Consent of Fathers do so interpret the Scripture I answer 1. That
this is most false and cannot without impudence be pretended as I am ready to justifie to any indifferent Hearer 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers mean as is pretended If it be said reason will tell me so I say 1. this is false 2. This is again to do that which is objected to Protestants for such a horrid crime that is to build all finally upon reason If it be said they are so interpreted by the Catholick Church I demand whether by the Catholick Church be meant that onely that is in subordination to the Bishop of Rome or any other with that or besides that If any other it is false and impudent to pretend that they so understand the Fathers or Scriptures If that only then this is to say that that Church is infallible because it may be deduced from Scripture that it is so and to prove that it may be deduced from Scripture because the Fathers say so and to prove the Fathers do say and mean so because the Church of Rome says they do so And then what a stir and trouble was here to no purpose why was it not rather said plainly at the beginning The Church of Rome is certainly infallible because she her self says so and she must say true because she is infallible and that is as much to say as unless you grant me the Question I neither can nor will dispute with you If it is said indeed the Fathers do not draw this doctrin from Scripture but yet they affirm it with a full consent as a matter of Tradition I reply 1. That this pretence also is false and that upon tryal it will not appear to have any colour of probability to any who remembers that it is the present Roman Church and not the Catholick Church whose infallibility is here disputed 2. I demand who shall be judge whether the Fathers do indeed affirm this or no If reason then again we are fallen upon that dangerous Rock that all must be resolved into private reason If the Church I ask again what Church is meant If the Church of the Grecians or Abyssines or Protestants or any other but the Roman it is evident they deny it If the Church of Rome then we are again very near the head of the Circle For I ask how shall I be assured this Church will not err and deceive me in interpreting the Fathers and the Answer must be either none or this that the Church is infallible Obj. If it be said that the Infallibility of the Roman Church would yield the Church so many commodities and that the want of an infallible Church to guide men in the way to Heaven would bring so many mischiefs upon the world that it cannot be thought but that God out of his love to men hath appointed this Church as an infallible guide to all other Churches seeing it is so necessary there should be some such guide and so evident there is no other Ans I answer that this argument would serve the Church of Greece or England or Geneva to prove it self infallible and the guide of all other Churches would they but take upon them to be so For every one might say for it self It is necessary there should be some Guide it is evident there is no other Ergo I am appointed by God to be that Guide The same argument any man might use to make himself Monarch of any popular State for first he might represent unto them the commodities of a Monarchy and the mischiefs of a Democracy then he might say That God surely out of his Love to them hath appointed some remedy for their inconveniences And lastly that he hath ordained no other to redress them but himself and then conclude that he alone must of necessity be the man appointed to rule over them I answer Secondly that here also we must resolve all into Reason and the private Spirit or that we are still in the Circle For I demand how do you know that these pretended commodities are to be compassed and these pretended mischiefs are to be avoided only by the Infallibility of the Church of Rome or some other Church and not by any other means which God hath provided If you say reason tells you so I say 1. This is to make reason your last and lowest foundation 2. I assure you Reason tells me no such matter and yet I know that I am as willing to hear it as you are If you say the Church tells you so and she is infallible this I say is to prove the Church infallible because she is so Thirdly I demand How it is possible you should know that these pretended commodities might not be gained and these mischiefs which you fear avoided without any assistance of the Church of Rome's infallibility if all men in the world did believe the Scripture and live according to it and would require no more of others but to do so If you say that notwithstanding this there would be no unity in Doctrin I answer 1. It is impossible you should know this considering that there are many places in Scripture which do more than problably import that the want of piety in living is the cause of want of unity in believing 2. That there would be unity of Opinion in all things necessary and that in things not necessary unity of Opinion is not necessary But lastly that notwithstanding differences in these things of lesser importance there might and would be unity of Communion unity of charity and affection which is one of the greatest blessings which the world is capable of absolute unity of opinion being a matter rather to be desired than hoped for Obj. Against this it has been objected that the Scripture cannot be the guide because many men have used their best endeavors to follow it and yet have fallen some into Arianism others into Pelagianism others into other damnable Heresies and how can I secure any man but he may do the like Ans To this I answer by distinguishing the persons which are pretended to have made use of this Guide and yet to have fallen into Heresie that they were either such as did love the truth sincerely and above all things as did seek it diligently and with all their power to this intent that they might conform their belief and life unto it such as following S. Pauls direction did first try all things deliberately and then chose what in their conscience they thought was best or they were such as for want of the love of the truth God suffered to fall into strong delusions to fall to a false Religion because they brought not forth the fruits of the true to make shipwreck of their faith because they had cast away a good conscience to have their Eyes blinded and their light taken away because they made not the right use of it but were idle and unprofitable and set their hearts upon vanity and had only a form of Religion but denied the