which Saint Hierome gives as Saint Austine to the Pelagians that before Arrius arose the Ecclesiasticall Writers spoke minùs cautè with lesse circumspection though it brings some salve to the present objection yet it is a weapon against Tradition in generall for if through want of care the best and wisest men vs'd to contradict Tradition as you must grant they did then sure much more likely when they taught by word of mouth when lesse care is alwaies us'd then in Bookes and how then can any age be sure that by this reason of minùs cautè loquuti sunt their Ancestors have not mistaken their Fathers and mislead their Posterity Look but into Athanasius and see but what he answers to what is brought against him out of Dionysius Alexandrinus truly in my opinion when he strives to make it Catholique Doctrine he doth it with no lesse pulling and halling then Sancta Clara useth to agree the articles of the English Church with the Tenets of the Roman Consider what eighty Bishops and those Orthodoxe decreed against Paulus Samosatenus and if you make it consent with Athanasius his Creed I shall believe that you have discouer'd a way how to reconcile both Parts of a Contradiction This I say not as intending by it to prove the Arrian opinion to be true but that the contrary Party insisted not upon your grounds but drew their beliefe out of Scripture for if there had been such a common and constant Verball Tradition the chiefe Christians would not through want of Caution have contradicted it neither could Constantine if it had been then as known a Part of the Christian Religion as Christ's Resurrection have ever so slightly esteemed the Question when it first arose neither would Alexander the Bishop of Alexandria have remain'd any while in suspence as Zozomen saith he did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but this being then a Question newly started and spoken of before but by Accidents and so peradventure minùs cautè for the same Author saies that they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were therefore faine to try it by Scripture esteeming Written Tradition as sufficient a Rule as Verball as you may see by Constantine's own words at the Councel of Nice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theodoret. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Bookes of the Evangelists and the Apostles and the Oracles of the Ancient Prophets teach us clearly what we are to think of the Divinity Let us therefore cut of these Divinity-inspir'd discourses seek the solutions of our Questions which being the Emperours Proposition and passing uncontradicted which the Bishops would not have suffr'd it to do if they had known yours to be so much the best and most certaine way and this so hazardous as you suppose we have reason to believe that they for want of your direction made the Scripture their Rule and sought out for Truth by the same way that we damnable Hereticks do and by that condemn'd the Arrians as not having such a Tradition as you speak of or if they had which is very unlikely counting it so insufficient as that they were not to conclude by that Neither did onely that ancient and not yours Councell but even your own Modern ones shew that they went upon other grounds since to have had every Bishop askt what he receiv'd from his Teachers as receiv'd from theirs as come downe from the Apostles would sure have been the shortest way to find Truth and if they had thought it the best too it would have sav'd the Friers at Trent many a long dispute out of Scripture Fathers and Reason and the Bishops many a weary session before any thing could be determined or the Parties brought to agree Besides there is another reason if I may be pardon'd a little insisting upon my digression which perswades me that your own Councels define not upon your grounds that is because suppose a thousand Catholique Bishops meet and define any thing yet wee know it is not among you believ'd de Fide without it be confirmed by the Pope which shewes plainly enough that you think not they went by such a Tradition since of that eighty so many persons from so many several Parts are witnesses beyond exception according to your own grounds and that their Infallibility is not thought to depend upon an Impossibility that in the matter of Fact what hath been taught under that Notion they should either deceive or be deceiv'd but upon an infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost which may be wanting to any company whereof the Pope is no part or of whose decrees he is no confirmer Now to return to my proofes that against the Arrians there was no such Tradition as you speak of at least that was the ground upon which they were condemned consider if you please that in that Epistle which Eusebius of Caesarea writ to some Arrians after the Councell of Nice he saith First that they assented to the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Consubstantiall because also they knew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some eloquent and illustrious Bishops and Writers had us'd the Terme In which I note that neither claim'd he any such Verbal Tradition for this as you speak of and of that sort which he claim'd he names onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some as knowing too many had writ otherwise to give such a Tradition leave to be generall Secondly He saith they consented to Anathematize the Contradictors 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to hinder men from using unwritten words by which he saith and that truely that all confusion hath come upon the Church And if it be askt why the same reason made them not keep out the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I answer That I believe or else he is not constant to his own reason that he meant onely those words to be unwritten which were in Scripture neither themselves nor equivalently whereas he took 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be in the Scripture in the latter sence And that by written he meant in the Scripture onely appeares by what followes that no divinely-inspired writing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 using the Arrians Phrase it was neither fitting to say nor teach them Neither can you say that Eusebius being himself a secret Arrian prevaricated herein for Theodoret makes this Epistle an Argument against than which he would not have done if either it had seem'd to him to say any thing contrary to the Catholique doctrine or not to have oppos'd the contrary by a Catholique way at least without giving his leader some Caution concerning it All which reasons move me to think that the generality of Christians had not been alwaies taught the contrary to Arrius's doctrine but some one way others the other most neither as having been onely spoken of upon occasions and therefore me thinks you had better either say with the Protestants that the Truth was concluded as Constantine said it should be by Arguments from Scripture or as some of your own say of
Church will be found to abound in errors and to belie equallie her title being troubled her selfe with what she undertakes to secure others from like the Apothecary in Lucian who undertaking to cure all men of the Cough 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 could himselfe scarce prescribe his Medicine for coughing the while Besides of what sort soever the error be yet since the Condition of her Communion is to professe a beleife that she hath none such a one as to them who indeed beleeve so would not be dangerous yet to me who cannot professe this but against my Conscience how slight a one soever may be an occasion of damnation Againe as to me your answer appeares false so to those of your own side it will appeare hereticall to me it would give no satisfaction though you had proved what you but affirme because I desire to know an eternall not a temporarie Guide whereas if in your Church there should happen any Schisme your answer then would give me no meanes to resolve my selfe which part were the guide that is the true Church without a new and peradventure by the way an endlesse search To them it will give scandall because first you presuppose that we must know the Church by the Doctrine and the Doctrine by the Church and secondlie you imply a possibilitie that the Church of Rome is now but by accident and may come not to be the true Church and so all their confidence built upon her as the Directresse of all Churches and the eternall Admirall of Gods Fleet will appeare to have a very fallible foundation Besides in the cause of your Limitation I find more reason to commend your Discretion then your Ingenuitie for for the first if you had said that the Universall Church of Christ must alwaies be connected to the particular one of Rome which were to allow her Infallibilitie you knew Antiquitie to have said much against you and besides that this being not yet de fide among your selves nor evident in it selfe could not serve for a foundation to the whole bodie of our faith if you had absolutelie denied it you knew that you should incurre the displeasure of the most prevailing part of your own men and that then the maine and to the Ignorant the onely visible signe would bee taken away For the second if you had affirmed that the Church could erre in nothing how slight soever you would both have contradicted many of your own side as Stapleton by name and have asserted more then there were any colour of proofe for and would have wanted this distinction to retire to if you were confuted in any particular if you had restrained her Infallibilitie to things necessarie or weightie or the like then the question would again have risen which are those for many errors which we lay to her charge concerne not things indeed necessarie though she adde to the error that other of thinking that whatsoever she holds becomes necessarie by her holding it and then for all you have said the doctrine of Purgatorie might be false and yet she the Church and that infallible as farre as by your Doctrine her Infallibilitie had need to be extended Resp Neither doe I remit the questioner to Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe out of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso Repl. If you hold Scripture to be so sufficient a mean I wonder Sir why you thinke not fit to remit me to it unlesse you thinke that you have severall sufficient waies to prove so evident a Truth by or thinke me not to come with meet preparation Indeed if that be as among you it is counted to come resolved not to judge of what the Roman Church holds by what the Scriptures say but to beleeve that they say whatsoever she holds then I confesse I come not with the Conditions required but if it be to come desirous to finde the Truth and to follow and professe it when I have found it in spite of all temporall respects which might either fright or allure me from so doing then I suppose that Charitie which hopeth all things will encline you to beleeve that I come as I ought to come untill some evident reason perswade you to the contrarie That the Scripture cannot prove every thing in foro contentioso I beleeve but all necessarie Truths I beleeve it can for onely those which it can are such I denie not but that a contentious person may denie a thing to be proved when his own Conscience contradicts his words but so he may Arguments drawn from any other ground as well as Scripture so that if for that cause you refuse to admit of proofes from thence you might as well for the same refuse to admit of any by any other kinde of Arguments And certainlie if the Scriptures I meane the plaine places of it cannot be a sufficient ground for such and such a point surelie it cannot be a sufficient ground to build a ground upon as the Churches Infallibilitie and therefore though it it seemes you desire so much that this be beleeved that so it be you care not upon what proofe yet a considering Protestant who is not as hot to receive your Religion as you are that he should may presentlie say when he is press'd by you with Scripture to this since this is a way of proofe which your selves admit not of an Argument from hence may bring me from my own Religion but never to yours because it is a beame which that relies much upon that by any other way then the authoritie of the Church no man can be sufficientlie sure of the meaning of Scripture That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I thinke it very rationall for Nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable Principle in all Natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our Understanding hath Principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some Principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its Principall part in the very head And if there be such a Principle the whole Church is Infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Repl. Christ is our unquestionable and infallible Governour and his Will the Principle by which we are guided and the Scripture the place where this Will is contained which if we endeavour to find there we shall be excused though we
acceptance of it which being no other then the church of all ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved that free from Corruption then it self in a continuall visibilitie I answer That neither to giving authority to Scriptures nor to the keeping of them is required a continuall visibility of a no-waies erring body of Christians the Writers of them give them their authority among Christians nor can the Church move any other and that they were the Writers we receive from the generall Tradition and Testimony of the first Christians not from any following Church who could know nothing of it but from them for for those parts which were then doubted of by such as were not condemned for it by the rest why may not we remain in the same suspence of them that they did and for their being kept and conveighed this was not done onely by their Church but by others as by the Greeks and their is no reason to say that to the keeping and transmitting of records safely it is required to understand them perfectly since the old Testament was kept and transmitted by the Jewes who yet were so capable of erring that out of it they looked for a Temporall King when it spoke of a Spirituall and me thinks the Testimony is greater of a Church which contradicts the Scripture then of one which doth not since no mans witnessing is so soon to be taken as when against himself and so their Testimonie is more receiveable which is given to the Scriptures by which themselves are condemned Besides the generall reverence which ever hath been given to these Books and the continuall use of them together with severall parties having alwaies their eyes upon each other each desirous to have somewhat to accuse in their adversaries give us a greater certaintie that these are the same writings then we have that any other ancient book is any other ancient Author and we need not to have any erring Company preserved to make us surer of it Yet the Church of Rome as infallible a Depositarie as she is hath suffered some variety to creep into the Coppies in some lesse materiall things nay and some whole Books as they themselves say to be lost and if they say how then can that be rule whereof part is lost I reply That wee are excused if we walk by all the Rule that we have and that this maketh as much against Traditions being the Rule since the Church hath not looked better to Gods unwritten Word then to his written and if she pretend she hath let her tell us the cause why Antichrists comming was deferred which was a Tradition of Saint Paul to the Thessalonians and which without impudence she cannot pretend to have lost And if againe they say God hath preserved all necessary Tradition I reply so hath he all necessarie Scripture for by not being preserved it became to us not necessarie since we cannot be bound to beleeve and follow that we cannot find But besides I beleeve that which was ever necessary is contained in what remaines for Pappias saith of Saint Mark that he writ all that Saint Peter preacht as Irenaeus-doth that Luke writ all that Saint Paul preacht nay Vincentius Lirinensis though he would have the Scripture expounded by ancient Tradition yet confesseth that all is there which is necessary and yet then there was no more Scripture then we now have as indeed by such a Tradition as he speakes of no more can be proved then is plainly there and almost all Christians consent in and truely I wonder that they should brag so much of that Author since both in this and other things he makes much against them as especially in not sending men to the present Roman Church for a Guide a much readier way if he had known it then such a long and doubtfull Rule as he prescribes which indeed it is impossible that almost any Question should be ended by Eleventhly He brings Saint Austines authority to prove that the true Church must be alwaies visible but if he understood Church in Mr Mountagues sence I think he was deceived neither is this impudent for me to say since I have cause to think it but his particular opinion by his saying which Cardinall Perron quoted that before the Donatists the Question of the Church had never been exactly disputed of and by this being one of his maine grounds against them and yet claiming no Tradition but onely places of Scripture most of them allegoricall and if it were no more I may better dissent from it then he from all the first Fathers for Dionysius Arcopagita was not then hatcht in the point of-the Chiliasts though some of them Pappias and Irenaeus claimed a direct Tradition and Christs owne words Secondly As useth this kind of libertie so he professeth it in his nineteenth Epistle where he saith that to Canonicall Scriptures he had learnt to give the reverence as not to doubt of what they said because they said it from all others he expected proofe from Scripture or Reason Thirdly The Church of Rome condemnes severall opinions of his and therefore she ought not to find fault with them who imitate her example Twelfthly He addes two reasons more The consent of the Fathers of all ages And the confession of Protestants To the First I answer That I know not of any such and am the more unapt to beleeve it because Mr. Mountague vouchsafes not to insist upon nor to quote any which I guesse he would have done but that he misdoubted their strength Secondly Suppose that all the Fathers which speake of this did say so yet if they say it but as private Doctors and claime no Tradition I know not why they should weigh more then so many of the now learned who having more helpes from Arts and no fewer from Nature are not worse searchers into what is Truth though lesse capable of being Witnesses to what was Tradition Thirdly They themselves often professe they expect not to be read as Judges but as to be judged by their and our Rule the Cononicall Scriptures Fourthly Let him please to read about the Immaculate Conception Rosa Salmeron and Wadding and he will find me as submissive to Antiquity even whilst I reject it as those of their own Party for they to prefer new opinions before old are faine to prefer new Doctors before old and to confesse the latter more perspicatious and to differ from those of former times with as little scruple as he would from Calvin whom Maldonat 6 Cap. St. Johan on purpose to oppose confesseth he chuseth a new Interpretation before that of all the Ancients which no witnesse but my eyes could have made me beleeve nay and produce other points wherein their Church hath decreed against the Fathers to perswade her to do so againe althoug Campian with an eloquent brag would perswade us that they are all as much for him as Gregory the thirteenth who was then Pope
the Church in their positive tearmes Summus Pontifex cum totam Ecclesiam docet in his quae ad Fidem pertinent nullo casu errare potest We conceive he hath suffciently expressed the sence of the word Infallibility so that Infallibilis est nullo casu errare potest are to us the same thing It cannot therefore be the Word alone but the whole importance and sence of that word Infallibility which Mr. Cressy so earnestly desires all his Catholicks ever hereafter to forsake because the former Church did never acknowledge it and the present Church will never be able to maintaine it This is the great successe which the Reason Parts and Learning of the late Defendors of our Church have had in this maine Architectonicall Controversie And yet though the Church never maintained it though the Protestants have had such advantage against it though Mr. Cressy confessing both hath wished all Catholicks to forsake it yet will he not wholly forsake it himself but undertakes most irrationally to answer for it If the Church never asserted it if the Catholicks be not at all concerned in it to what end will Mr. Cressy the great mitigator of the rigor and defendor of the latitude of the Churches Decisions maintaine it If Mr. Chillingworth have had such good successe against it why will his old Friend Mr. Cressy endeavour to answer his arguments especially considering when he hath answered them all he can onely from thence conclude that Mr. Chillingworth was a very had Disputant who could bring no argument able to confute that which in it selfe is not to be maintained So unreasonable it is and inconsistent with his Concessions that he should give an answer at all but the manner of his answer which he gives is farr more irrationall For deserting the Infallibility he answers onely the authority of the Church and so makes this authority answer for that Infallibility from whence these three manifest absurdities must necessarily follow First When he hath answered all M. Chillingworth's arguments in the same manner as he pretends to answer them he must still acknowledge them unanswerable as they were intended by him that made them And no argument need to be thought good for any thing else if he which made it knew what he said as Mr. Chillingworth certainely did Secondly He onely pretends to answer those arguments as against the authority of the Church simply considered without relation to such an Infallibility which were never made against an authority so quallified And therefore whether the argument of his deare friend were to any purpose or no his answer manifestly must be to none Thirdly If hee intend to refute all opposition made to their Infallibility by an assertion of their bare authority then must he assert that authority to be as great and convincing which is fallible as that which is infallible that Guide to be as good which may lead me out of my way as that which cannot That Iudge to be as fit to determine any doubt who is capable of a mistake as he which is not And then I make no question but some of his own Church amongst the rest of their dislikes will put him in mind of that handsome sentence of Cardinall Belarmine Iniquissimum esset cogere Christianos ut non appellent ab eo Judicio quod erroneum esse potuit I once thought to have replied to those answers which he hath given to Mr. Chillingworth's arguments but his antecedent Concession hath made them so inconsiderable to me that upon a second thought I feare I should be as guilty in replying after my Objections as he hath been in answering after his Confessions Wherefore I shall conclude with an asseveration of min own which shall be therefore short because mine That the Reply of this most excellent Person Sola operarum summa praesertim in Graecis incuria excepta is the most accurate Refutation of all which can be said in this Controversie that ever yet appeared and if what hath already been delivered have had such successe upon so eminent an adversary then may we very rationally expect at least the same effect upon all who shall be so happy as to read these Discourses Which is the earnest desire of I. P. OF THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME A discourse written by the Lord Viscount FALKLAND TO him that doubteth whether the Church of Rome hath any errors they answer that she hath none for she never can have any this being so much harder to beleeve then the first had need be proved by some certainer Arguments if they expect that the beleefe of this one should draw on whatsoever they please to propose yet this if offered to be proved by no better wayes then we offer to prove by that she hath erred which are arguments from Scripture and ancient Writers all which they say are fallible for nothing is not so but the Church Which if it be the onely infallible determination and that can never be believed upon its owne authority we can never infallibly know that the Church is infallible for these other waies of proofe may deceive both them and us and so neither side is bound to beleeve them If they say that an argument out of Scripture is sufficient ground of Divine Faith why are they offended with the Protestants for beleeving every part of their Religion upon that ground upon which they build all theirs at once And if following the same Rule with equall desire of finding the Truth by it having neither of those qualities which Isid Pelus saith are the cause of all Heresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pride and Prejudication why should God be more offended with the one then with the other though they chance to erre They say the Church is therefore made infallible by God that all men may have some certain Guide yet though it be infallible unlesse it both plainly appeare to be so for it is not certaine to whom it doth not appeare certaine and unlesse it be manifest which is the Church God hath not attained his end and it were to set a ladder to Heaven and seem to have a great care of my going up whereas unlesse there be care taken that I may know this ladder is here to that purpose it were as good for me it never had been set If they say we may know for that generall Tradition instructs us in it I answer that ignorant people cannot know this and so it can be no Rule for them and if learned people mistake in this there can be no condemnation for them For suppose to know whether the Church of Rome may erre as a way which will conclude against her but not for her I seek whether she have erred and conceiving she hath contradicted her self conclude necessarily she hath erred I suppose it not damnable though false because I try the Church by one of the touch-stones which herself appoints me Conformity with the Ancients For to say I am to beleeve
I may onelie get a fall and this fastening appeares not to me till I be shewed some more certaine connexion between the Opinions of this Age and those of the Apostolicke times then yet you have done or till you have answered those Arguments by which as I perswade my selfe I have made it appeare that it cannot be done Resp As for the two places concerning the Popes and Councels Infallibillity it is not to my purpose to meddle of them because of one side the way I have begun beareth no need of those discourses and on the other I should engage my selfe in Quarrels betweene Catholique and Catholique obscure the matter I have taken in hand and profit nothing in my hearers more then to be judged peradventure to have more learning then wisedome to governe it withall Repl. With your favour Sir these places concerne not onely questions between your selves but between you and us for I thought you had all agreed though I knew you had not alwaies done so and though it seemes by your declining to speak about it that you doe not yet that generall Councels confirmed by the Pope are infallible and the Doctrines defined by them are to be beleeved de fide which if you be not then the Glew which it is so bragged you have to keepe you still at Unitie is dissolved and if you be then you should both have answered upon what grounds you are so and have destroyed my Objections against the possibilitie of certaintie knowing when it is that these which used to be called the Church have defined finding therefore Altum Silentium where there was so much cause of speaking makes me beleeve that the cause why you have not answered is onely because you could not and then you have a readie Apologie that Nemo tenetur adimpossibilia which I beleeve the rather because I know that to so cleare a judgement as yours that place of Scripture When two or three are gathered together c. which is so often press'd for the Infallibilitie of Councels must appeare to make as much for the Synod of Dort as for the Councell of Trent and to so great a learning as yours it cannot be unknown how few if any of the Ancients have asserted their Infallibilitie and how many both of the Ancients and your Modernes have denied it I am confirmed in this beleife too because you I know would never have accepted that as a sufficient excuse from me if I had avoided to answer an Argument so because Protestants are not agreed upon the point if you had thought it such as that they ought to have been agreed upon it and truelie this is as great and considerable a question as any among us Resp As for the two places of Fevardentius which alloweth many Fathers to have fallen into errors I thinke it will not trouble him who is accquainted with the course of this present Church wherein divers who be thought great Divines fall into errors for which their Bookes are sometimes hindered from the print sometimes recalled or some leaves commanded to be pasted up the reason is the multiplicity of Catholike Doctrine which doth not oblige a man to the knowledge of every part but to the prompt subjection of the instruction of the Church wherefore many men may hold false doctrine inculpably not knowing it to be such even now after the learned labours of so many that have strived to open and facilitate by Method what is true and what is false much more in the Fathers times when there was great want of so many Compilers as these latter ages have produced Repl. First What Fevardentius confesseth proves plainlie that for which I intended it which was the ridiculousnesse of proving their Doctrine to be true by being conformable to that of the Fathers and yet making themselves Judges of those Judges they appeale too and confessing that many of them erred in many points which if they did they might as well doe the same in those about which we differ although they agreed with you and dissented from us Secondlie What both he confesseth and you confesse with him disproves that way of knowing divine Truths which you propose for neither the Doctors of the ancient Church who were sure more likelie to know what was then taken for Tradition then any late Compilers nor of the Modern who had a mind to deliver truth and trac'd and followed your way of finding it could erre in points of faith if Qui docet ut didicit he that teacheth as he hath been taught must still be in the right for publique Tradition no learned man at least can be ignorant not any man say you of what he was taught when a Childe as the substance of his hopes for all eternitie and so cannot in reason have his books either forbidden or pasted up for delivering any thing contrary to it Secondly Who are these Censors who forbid and paste up books certainly not the Universall Church nor yet the Representative the latter is not alwaies in being nor when it is at leasure to consider and judge all authors and of the first these Authors are a part if then they be fallible as they must be if they be not the Church why may not they erre and the Martyr-books speake truth which yet will easily by this meanes be kept from Posteritie if those in the Dictatory Office dissent from it as they will be sure to do if the opinion contradict never so little the power or greatnesse of the Pope upon whose favour these Oecumenicall Correctors must depend or they not long remaine in their places and yet you expect that your adversary should produce succession of their opinions in all ages though nothing be let passe but what a few please and though when in time all of you are agreed as you will soon be or appear to be if one side appear to be gag'd then this consent though thus brought about becomes the consent of the Church and a very notable Motive And since you say that what all are bound to is onely a prompt subjection to the Church why leave you it so in doubt what is the Church as if men were tyed to be subject but must not know to what you say indeed that the adherers to the Church of Rome are now the Church but what they may be you will not plainely declare So that if a Schisme among them should happen we are all as farrto seek as if you had been wholly silent for since the infallibility lies not in the particular Church of Rome and consequently the adhering to her is not ever a sufficient note of the Church as you will not say nor is it among your selves de fide since the Universall Church whatsoever she be can never define any thing and of the authority of the definitions of the Representative and of what constitutes both her and her decrees you refuse to speak what remaines there to which this prompt subjection is to be the
the the form of the Church then the end of the Church an exact conservation making an exact Church and a lesse perfect conserving a lesse perfect Church As for conveighance of Doctrine the whole Church conveighs none whereof many if his be it have had but little conveighed to them Particular Christians especially Pastors teach others which it is every mans duty to do when he meets with them who want instruction which he can give and they are likely to receive yet is not the instruction of others every mans maine end But Mr. Mountague I know perswades him that some body of men are appointed to conveigh this Doctrine which men are to receive onely because they deliver it and this I absolutely deny for we receive no Doctrine from the Church upon the Churches authority because we know her not to be the Church till we have examined her Doctrine and so rather receive her for it then it for her Neither for the conveighance of the Truth is it necessarie that any company of men in all times hold it all because some may conveigh some Truthes and others another out of which by comparing their Doctrine with the Scripture men may draw forth a whole and perfect body of Truth and though they deliver few other Truthes yet in delivering Scripture wherein all necessarie Truth is conteined they deliver all and by that Rule whosoever regulates his life and Doctrine I am confident that though he may mistake Error for Truth in the way he shall nerve mistake Hell for Heaven in the end Seventhly His next reason is their common Achilles the fourth of the Ephesians which he chuseth onely to employ like his Triarios his main Battle leaving his Velites his light-armed Souldiers some places too allegoricall even in his own opinion to stand examination The words are these He hath given some Prophets some Apostles Vers 11.12 13 some Evangelists some Pastors and some Doctors For the instauration of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edification of the body of Christ till we all meet in the Unity of Faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man and unto the measure of the Age of the fullnesse of Christ That we may be no more Children tost and carried about with every wind of Doctrine c. Now out of this place I see not how a Succession may be evinced rather I think it may if that Apostle meant none For first He saith not I will give but he hath given and who could suppose that the Apostles could say that Christ had given then the present Pope and the Doctors who now adhere to him Secondly Allow that by what he hath given were meant he hath promised which would be a glosse not much unlike to that which one of the most wittie and most eloquent of our Modern Divines Doctor Donne notes of Statuimus i abrogamus yet since these severall Nounes are governed by the same Verb and no distinction put it would prove as well a necessitie of a continuall Succession of Apostles Prophets and Evangelists as of Pastors and Doctors which is more then either they can shew or pretend they can so that it seemes to me to follow that these were then given to do this till then and not a Succession of them promised till then to do this and so we receiving and retaining the Scriptures wherein what they taught is contained as we would any thing else that had as generall and ancient a Tradition if there were any such need no more for if he say that men are tost for all the Scripture I answer so are they for all their Doctors nay if these keep any from being tost it is the Scripture which does it upon which their authoritie is by them founded upon their own Interpretation and Reason who yet will not give us leave to build any thing upon ours out of plainer places and though they tell us that we cannot know the Scriptures but from the Church they are yet faine as appeares to prove the authoritie of the Church out of Scripture which makes me ask them in the words of their own Campian and with much more cause Nihilne pudet Labyrinthi Eighthly There followes another reason to this sence that reason not being able to shew man a way to eternall happinesse and without such a one man would faile of the end to which he was ordained it must be proposed by an infallible authority in so plaine a manner as even the simple might be capable of it which being performed by our Saviour it must be conveighed to succeeding Ages by those who heard it from him and whensoever this thread failed mankind was left without a Guide to inevitable ruine I answer That though all this granted it proves not against us for we have the Scripture come down to us relating Christs Doctrine and written by those that heard it which the simple are capable of understanding I mean as much as is plaine and more is not necessarie since other Questions may as well be suffered without harme as those between the Jesuites and the Dominicans about Praedetermination and between the Dominicans and allmost all the rest about the Immaculate Conception and those who are not neither are they capable out of Scripture to discerne the true Church much lesse by any of those Notes which require much understanding and learning as Conformity with the Ancients and such like Ninethly The same answer I give to this serves also to the following words of Saint Austine for whereas Mr. Mountague concludeth that he could not meane the Scriptures as a competent Rule to mankind which consisteth most of simple Persons because there hath been continuall alterations about the sence of important places I answer That I may as well conclude by the same Logick that neither is the Church a competent Guide because in all Ages there have also been disputes not onely about her authority but even which was she and to whatsoever reason he imputes this to the same may we the other as to Negligence Pride Praejudication and the like and if he please to search I verily beleeve he will find that the Scriptures are both easier to be known then the Church and that it is as easie to know what these teach as when that hath defined since they hold no decrees of hers binding de Fide without a confirmation of the Popes who cannot never be known infalliblly to be a Pope because a secret Simony makes him none no not to be a Christian because want of due intention in the Baptizer makes him none whereof the latter is alwaies possible and the first in some ages likely and in hard Questions a readinesse to yeeld when they shall be explained me thinks should serve aswell as a readinesse to assent to the decrees of the Church when those shall be pronounced Tenthly He saith that the Scripture must be kept safe in some hands whose authority must beget our
is but profitable and probable Of the second sort that errors should come in it appears not hard to me especially in those ages where want of Printing made Books and consequently Learning not so common as now it is where the few that did study busied themselves in Schoole speculations onely when the authority of a man of chief note had a more generall influence then now it hath and so as Thucidides saith the Plague did in his time 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the disease that first settled in the head EASILY passed through all the body considering how apt men are to desire that all men should think as they do and consequently to lay a necessity upon the receiving that opinion if they conceive that a way to have it received And then if it were beleeved generally profitable as confession who would be apt to oppose their calling it neccessary for the same cause for which they called it so Besides If this error were delivered by some Father in the hot opposition of some Heretick it may be none would oppose it least the adversaries might take advantage by their dissention and he that disputed for the Orthodox side might lose by it much of his authority The word necessary it self is also often used for very convenient and then from necessary in that sence to absolutely necessary is no difficult change though it be a great one Then the Fathers use the word Hereticks sometimes in a larger sence and sometimes in a stricter and so differ in the reckoning them up some leaving out those that others put in though they had seen the precedent Catalogue and so the doubtfullnesse of the sence of these words might bring in error Names also as Altar Sacrifice Masse may have been used First in one sence and the name retained though the thing signified received change as it was once of an Emperour of Rome Tacitus cui proprium fuit nuper reperta I leave out scelera priscis verbis obtegere whose property it was to cover things newly found with ancient tearmes And the same Author tells us that the same state was as it were cheated out of her liberty because there did remaine eadem Magistratuum vocabula the same titles of Magistrates And I beleeve that if the Protestants beyond the Seas would have thought Bishops as good a word as Super-intendents and so in other such things many who understand nothing but names would have missed the scandale they have now taken These waies I think these things may have come without much opposition from being thought profitable to be done and probable to be beleeved to be thought necessary to be both and how things may have been by little and little received under old names which would not have been so at once under new ones it is not hard to conceive The first of these being no such small fault but that part of the Montanists Heresies was thinking uncommanded fasting daies necessary to be observed which without doubt might lawfully have been kept so that no necessitie had been imposed But my maine answer is that if to be in the Church without known precedent opposition be a certaine note of being derived from the begining let them answer how came in the opinion of the Chiliasts not contradicted till two hundred yeares after it came in To condude If they can prove that the Scripture may be a certainer teacher of truth to them then to us so that they may conclude the Infallibility of the Church out of it and we nothing If they can prove the Churches Infallibility to be a suffcient Guide for him that doubts which is the Church and cannot examine that for want of learning by her chiefe marke which is conformity with the Ancients If they can prove that the consent of Fathers long together is a stronger Argument against us then against the Dominicans If they can prove though it be affirmed by the first of them that such a thing is Tradition and beleeved by all Christians and this assertion till a great while after uncontradicted yet they are not bound to receive it and upon lesse grounds we are If indeed any can prove by any infallible way the Infallibility of the Church of Rome and the necessity under paine of damnation for all men to beleeve it which were the more strange because Justin Martyr and Clements Alexandrinus among the Ancients and Erasmùs and Ludovicus Vives among the Modernes beleeve some Pagans to be saved I will subscribe to it and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If any man vouchsafe to think either this or the Authour of it of value enough to confute the one and informe the other I shall desire him to do it with proceeding to the businesse and not standing upon any small slip of mine of which this may be full and with that temper which is fit to be used by men that are not so passionate as to have the definition of reasonable Creatures in vaine remembring that Truth in likelyhood is where her Author God was in the still voice and not the loud wind and that Epiphanius excuseth himself if he have called any Hereticks in his anger Deceivers or Wretches 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and I request him also to help to bring me to the Truth if I be out of it not onely by his arguments but also by his Prayers which way if he use and I still continue on the part I am of and yet doe neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither am willfully blind nor deny impudently what I see then I am confident that he will neither have reason to be offended with me in this world nor God for that to punish me in the next AN ANSVVER TO THE Lord FAVLKLANDS DISCOURSE OF INFALLIBILITY CHAP. I. NAture being not able to perfect the work of humane kind which shee had begun and bursting at those throwes and springings which her timely child gave to see the light of eternall life whereof the distaste of all things experienced in this world and certain sparklings sowed in our soule had given it a dim notice expected from her mercifull Creator the aid whereof how much greater the wonder was to bee and the necessity now divers thousand yeers by lamentable experience was more deer so much the readier was he and it was to send from his eternall brest his only wisedome to recount us wonders and averre them under the seal of his immutable truth He knew all secrets and could not be touched with suspition of ignorance he was all goodness and free from all calumnie of jealousie or envie who knew him could not mistrust him for beside those great Verdicts alreadie expressed in his favour his works gave assurance of his words he fulfilling in deeds whatsoever he perswaded in words and working to himself what he wished unto others Lo here the high and sage Master of our faith whose Oracles we cannot mis-doubt so we be
either pious men have added or peradventure ambitious men encroached If he does not find a government of so high and Exotick strain that neither mans wit would dare to have attempted it neither mans power could possibly have effected it If he findeth not eminent helpes and no disadvantage to the temporall government I shall think there wanteth one Star in the Heaven of the Church to direct these Sages to Bethlehem But if God Almighty hath in all sorts and manners provided his Church that she may enlighten every man in his way which goeth the way of a man then let every man consider which is the fit way for himselfe and what in other matters of that way he accompteth evidence And if there be no interest in his soule to make him loath to beleeve what in another matter of the like nature he would not stick at or heavy to practise what he seeth clearly enough I feare not his choice but if God send him time and meanes to prosecute his search any indifferent while it is long ago known of what religion he is to be of After this followeth no order of Chapters because it is applied to the discourse which was occasion of it Although if what is already be not satisfaction unto the writing and the Author thereof for whose sake and contentment all that hath been discoursed hitherto hath been set down I confesse that I have not ability to give him satisfaction yet least it should be interpreted neglect If I did not make an application of it unto the writing I shall as breifly as I can for avoiding tediousnesse runne over the discourse And true it is speaking of the Church of Rome as this day it is the true Church of God I answer the doubter she neither hath nor can have any error which he need to feare and be shye of The which two limitations I adde for avoiding questions impertinent to our discourse The first for those which are concerning the connection of the Sea of Rome to the universall Church The latter to avoid such questions as touch that point whether the Church may erre in any Phylosophicall or other such like matter which questions are not so pertinent to our matter Neither doe I remit the Questioner unto Scripture for his satisfaction although I hold Scripture a very sufficient meanes to satisfie the man who goeth to it with that preparation of understanding and will which is meet and required Howsoever this I may answer for them who prove it out of Scripture that because they dispute against them who admit of Scripture and deny the authority of the Church if they can convince it they doe well though they will not themselves admit generally of a proofe our of Scripture as not able to prove every thing in foro contentioso That they say the Church is made infallible that we may have some guide I think it very rationall For nature hath given ever some strong and uncontroulable principle in all natures to guide the rest The Common-wealth hath a Governour not questionable our understanding hath some principles which she cannot judge but by them judgeth of all other verities If there should not be some such principle in the Church it were the onely maimed thing God had created and maimed in its principall part in the very head And if there be such a principle the whole Church is infallible by that as the whole man seeth by his eyes toucheth by his hands Neither can I deny but that the Author well excepteth or assumeth that there is no lesse necessity the Church should be known to be infallible or which is this Church then that there is one For if I should admit absolutely that it is necessary for every man to know the Church is Infallible precedently to the knowledge of which is the true Church I should forget what I had before said that satisfaction is to be given to every one according to his capacity It is sufficient for a Childe to beleeve his Parents for a Clown to beleeve his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes to him of beleeving and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what termes he be with the first The good women and Clownes in Italy and Spaine trouble not themselves to seek the grounds of their faith but with a Christian simplicity seek to live according unto that their Preachers tell them and without question by perseverance come to the happinesse great Clearks by too much speculation may faile of Such therefore know no otherwise the Infallibility of the Church then because she telleth it them to whom they give credit as innocently as any child to his Mother The Church therefore was made infallible because so it was fitting for her Maker so it was fitting for her selfe so it was fit for that part of mankind that had more refined wits not because it was necessary for every one which was to come to her or live in her whereof the greatest part first commeth to her drawn by some of the meanes before delivered and beleeveth her about her infallibility Neither doe I remit him to a generall and constant tradition as if himselfe should climbe up every age by learned Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible Testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full tradition I much doubt Neither doe I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chain giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from father to sonne being a link in it I send him therefore no further then to this present age where he shall beyond all doubtfulnesse find that this doctrine was delivered unto this age by the care of their Ancestors And if we seek upon what termes we find that upon a fixed opinion of damnation in failing and so that they had received it so from their fore-fathers upon the same termes with opinion that it had continued ever since Christ his time by this meanes And he who is able to look into the meanes how this can remaine constantly so many ages may find it not onely the far securer but an evidently infallible succession of doctrine inviolable as long as there is a Church And this doth not onely shew that there is one but which she is and that there can be no other For I suppose no man will be so senselesse as to say the Apostles preached one thing in one part and the contrary in another wherefore it will be agreed that once the Church agreed in her faith This supposed let us set the time when one part changed and will it not be evident that the changing Church being
Questions which must be ended before we can know at any time when she hath defin'd Now I confesse if you had said Tradition teacheth that the particular Church of Rome is so the Admiral ship that we may know any other if it be of God's Fleet because then it must follow her that is be subject to her decrees theirs which joyn with her this would have bin plainly to let me know your mind and we might quickly have examin'd whether there were any Tradition for the Church in this sence to be alwaies obeyed when she Teaches and without you say this you say nothing and will never be able to give any such Note of the Church as the ignorant may without blushing pretend to know it by Because therefore I guesse that when not I but your Adversaries reasons for I am but one of the worst transcribers of them have driven you from your own Fort you must retire to that of your friends or like them which are drowning you will rather catch at a Twigg then sink I will consider this Assertion which I suppose you must lay hold of so far forth as to shew it to be indeed but an Assertion That there hath no such Verbal Tradition nor indeed any come downe seems to me for these reasons Saint Cyprian by opposing the Church of Rome and that with many Bishops about the Rebaptization shewes sufficiently that he and they knew of no such Tradition and then in what Cave must it have lain hid if the chiefe Doctor of that age was ignorant of it and even his Adversaries claim'd it not And that he knew no such appears not onely by his Actions but also by his words for to them who claim'd Tradition for the particular point propos'd though none for the Authority of the Church proposing he answers if it be contain'd in the Gospels Epistles or Acts let it be observed at one blow cutting off not onely that for sure this authority of the Church of Rome is no way taught in the Scriptures but all other unwritten Traditions which Cardinal Perron thought most skilfull in that kind of Fence was not able to ward but Du Plesis objecting it receiv'd no other answer then that the opinion of Cyprian was condemn'd and that Tradition although unwritten maintain'd Which answer though it be as far from befitting the Cardinall as from answering the objection since it is plaine that this opinion was once held by such as were of chiefe estimation among the Orthodox and consequently the contrary was not then the generall and necessary doctrine of Christians and the prevailing of the one since proves not the other false but rather unfortunate or the spreaders faulty yet I confesse I excuse him for as I have learnt from Aristotle that it is ridiculous to expect a Demonstration where the matter will beare but a probability so would it be in me to expect even a probable solution of an Argument the evidence of which will suffer none at all Neither was he I mean Cyprian the first that without blot of Heresie oppos'd the Tradition of the Church of Rome but that courage which he left to others after him when they saw the Christian World joyne in counting him a Saint and a Martyr whom the Bishop of Rome had stiled a false Christ and a false Apostle the same had he received by seeing that the Asian Bishops had also rejected and oppos'd her Tradition and yet Policrates ever had in great honour and the rest never branded with the crime of Heresie nay even the more neighbouring Bishops and who joyn'd with the Pope in the time of celebrating Easter as Iraeneus yet thought the difference not worth excommunication and for want of skill in the Canon Law transgrest so farre as to reprehend for it whereas if to that Church all else had been to conform themselves then Iraeneus ought therefore to have thought the matter of weight enough because she thought it so who were to small purpose made a Judge if she were not as well enabled to distinguish between slight and materiall as between False and Truth though that it seemes she was not for the Church of Rome never refus'd their Communion before though she knew them to hold the same opinion and so as plainly appeares counted that materiall in one Age which she had not so esteemed in others and therefore in the degree at least of holding what she held contradicted herself and followed Traditions And as Cyprian imitated them so did the Affrican Bishops him for a Question hapning between them and the Bishops of Rome about Appeales though they absolutely oppos'd him and in vaine I confesse desired him that he would not bring into the Church Typhum hujus Saeculi the swelling pride of this World and though he laboured infinitely in the businesse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he might bring it to passe yet he and two of his successors were either so unready or so unskil'd in the present Roman Doctrine that Feed my sheeep and thou art Peter were either out of their knowledge or out of their memory and they alleadged not any power jure divino but onely pretended to a Cannon of the Councel of Nice which when the Affricans found not in their coppies for they would not believe the Church of Rome so farre as to trust to hers though now you generally think the Scripture it selfe to have its authority quoad nos onely for her definitions they sent to the East to enquire there and finding their coppies agreeing with theirs they then more resolutely withstood the Pretence which brought at that time nothing to the Popes but repulse and shame And indeed not to object that it is not numbered among any of the ancient Herisies that they differ'd from the particular Roman Church nor is this Rule of being sure at all times to joyne with her ever given by those Fathers who set us waies and Antidotes how to secure our selves against Heresie which could not have been left undone if they had known any such Tradition nor to speak of the Cannon of the Councell of Chalcedon which attributes the power of the Popes to the gift of their Fathers and that againe to Romes being the head City setting all this aside I will aske your selfe if it be not plain that those Fathers who upon the impudent pretence of some Hereticks send men to severall places to enquire after Tradition either send them to all the Apostolicall churches or to save their labour to that to which they were nearest as esteeming them all of equall authority though not jurisdiction for I may say of Rome and them as Tacitus doth of Caelius and the other Commanders Mutato nomine the name onely chang'd Pares jure Roma audendo potentior for what by watching all occasions to greaten herself whereof Cardinal D' Ossat is my witnesse Pag. 208. and 687. what by abusing the respect all men had ever given her in respect of the
adoe accept for unlesse you meane the Church in this sence it concernes not our differences till you can prove that this word makes some such promise For this seemes to me onelie to shew the veracitie of Gods Word without speaking at all of any Churches continuall obedience to it or true interpretation of it or the impossibilitie of her receiving the Traditions of men for the will of God Besides in this Paragraph I observe three things The first That you now draw your Arguments from the stedfast Truth of Holie Writ whereas you neither quote out of it any thing to prove your maine Assertion and in that way which you laid before to finde out Truth by you tooke no notice at all of Scripture but would have all differences decided by onely comparing what men had by verball Tradition like that Dominican of whom Erasmus tels us in his Epistles that when in the Schooles any man refuted his conclusion by shewing it contrarie to the words of Scripture he would crie out Ista est Argumentatio Lutherana protestor me non responsurum This is a Lutheran way of Arguing I protest I will not answer to it Secondlie You now bring the proofe of your certaintie from Gods spirit never failing his Church though you neither define what is there meant by Church nor doe you bring any proofe or ever can that Gods Spirit will stay with any unlesse they please it or that this will not consist with the least error in divine matters whereas before you made it a Physicall or rather superphysicall certaintie that Traditions must be delivered from Age to Age uncorrupted and this not because of any other assistance but ex necessitate Rei Thirdlie You seeme to thinke that aptnesse to startle in the faithfull will serve to secure them from all error whereas I must professe my selfe of opinion that in some times and some cases that may serve to induce it for it being trulie said that there is as much follie beyond wisedome as on this side of it and Nazianzene telling us trulie that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the marke is equallie missed by over shooting as by shooting short I doubt whether over much caution may not have made some doctrines and their Abetters condemned especiallie when they appeared somewhat new some Truths rejcted for feare least they did by consequence contradict some point of Faith when indeed they did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Ethick as Dogs often barke at a friend for an enemie upon the first noise he makes before having considered which he is This made the Ancients so earnest against the now-certaintie of the Antipodes this in after times for the same opinion cost a Bishop his Bishopricke and truth in all probabilitie would have then beene defined a heresie if a generall Councell had been called about it Since then this aptnesse to startle hath inclined Orthodox Christians to condemn not onely those who had affirmed in termes the contrarie to Tradition but even those from whose opinions they thought it would result and consequentlie to exact an Assent not onely to direct Tradition but also to whatsoever else seemed to them reasonable deductions from it This seemes to me a way by which Errors may have entered by shoales the first Ages I mean then Cum Augustinus habebatur inexpugnabilis Dialecticus quòd legisset Categorias Aristotelis not having been so carefull and subtile in their Logick as these more learned times both Arminians and Catvinists Dominicans and Jesuites Papists and Protestants seeming to me to argue much more consequently to their owne Principles more close to their present businesse and every way more rationally then the ancient Doctors used to do I mean those which I have seen And I am confident that if two or three Fathers should rise againe unknown and should return to their old Argument against the Arrians from Cor meum eructavit verbum bonum both Parties would be so farr from receiving them for Judges that neither would accept of them for Advocates nor trust their Cause to their arguing who opposed their common enemy no better Now that this way of making Deductions out of Tradition and those both very hasty and false ones is very ancient appeares even by an example in the end of the Gospell of John for there out of Christs words falsly interpreted a conclusion was drawn and spread among the Bretheren that Saint John should not dye and what they did out of these words of Christ other in other times may have done out of other words of his and their Collection passe for his Doctrine which shewes the great advantage which we have by Gods Word being written since if it had not we could not alwaies have gone to a new examination of the very words which Christ or his Apostles taught and consequently a consequence of them spread in the place of them would have been more incurable then now it is I will also desire you to look in the five hundered eighty fourth Page of the Florentine Councell set out by Binius and there you will find that the Latines confesse that they added the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son to the Creed because the contrary opinion seemed to them by consequence contrary to a confessed Tradition of Christs eternall Divinity to which yet it will appear out of what Cardinall Perron hath excellently showne Con. Reg. Iâ—c Pag. 708. though upon another occasion that it doth not contradict but that this consequence was ill drawne which may have been in other points too and have brought in no small multitude of Errors fince neither was their Logick certaine to conclude better nor were they lesse apt to add to their Creeds accordingly at any other times then they were at that Object I doubt not but whosoever shall have received satisfaction in the discourse past will also have received in the point we seek after that is in being assured both that Christ hath left a Directory in the World and where to find him there being no doubt but it is his holy Church upon Earth Nor can there be any doubt which is his Church since there is but one that doth and can lay claime to have received from hand to hand his holy Doctrine Resp That which makes you expect that your Reader should have received satisfaction by what you have said is that since Christ hath a great care of his Elect he must consequently most strongly of any thing have rooted his Church Now I having shewed that by your own confession men may be of his Elect that are out of your Church I seemed to my selfe to have likewise proved that there is no necessity of any Churches being their Director I know you generally think this the more convenient way to have left such a guide that because otherwise Dominus non fuisset Discretus or in Epictius his Phrase Arrian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you conclude that he hath but we though indeed in
taught them If they were not then necessary how have they grown to be so since Besides I appeal to your Conscience whether it appear that the doctrine of the Exchequer of Superabundant merits of which the Pope is Lord Treasurer and by vertue of which he dispenseth his pardons to all the Soules in Purgatory appear to have been known even to any of the best Christians and whether if it had been known to them as a Tradition being a Doctrine which necessitates at least Wisdome and Charity a continuall practice of sueing for them and of giving them it were possible that of what they knew such infinite Volumes of Authors should make no mention Object Suppose some private Doctrine of an Apostle to some Disciple should be published and recorded by that Disciple and some others this might well be a Truth but never obtain the force of a Catholique Position that is such as it would be a damnation to reject because the descent from the Apostle is not notorious and fit to sway the body of the whole Church Resp I confesse that to have been no more generally delivered will prove that the Apostles thought not such a Doctrine necessary else their Charity would not have suffered them to have so much concealed it but yet to any such Doctrine it is impossible that any Christian who believes the testimony that it came from the Apostles should deny his assent because it were to deny the Authority upon which all the rest is grounded for the Church pretends to her Authority from them and not they from her and howsoever such a Doctrine although not necessary could not be damnable as you make this Besides here will first arise a Question not easie to be decided how great a multitude of Witnesses will serve to be notorious and fit to sway the body of the Church especially so many having not for a long while been thought fit even by Catholiques though attesting doctrines since received by you all and considering that multitude of your Church which believe the immaculate Conception in as high a degree as it is possible without excommunicating the deniers who either walk not by that which you count the onely Catholique Rule or else claime such a Tradition who yet are not thought fit to sway the rest Secondly I pray observe how easie it was for the two first Ages at least the chiefe of them and all that are extant to have given assent to Traditions so unsufficiently testified or to have mistaken Doctrines under that notion for so they did to this of the Chiliasts and then after for it to spread till it were generall and last as long as men last upon their authority and when once it is so spread how shall we then discover how small an Originall it had when peradventure the head and spring of it will be as hard to find as that of Nilus so that the greatest part of what you receive might possibly appear to be no certainer nor better built if we could digg to the foundation Wherefore since the delivery of a Tradition by subsequent Ages hath its validity onely from the authority of the first me thinks you should either think that they received none but upon better grounds or else think these grounds good Thirdly I know not why you resolve this opinion of the Chiliasts to have had onely such a private Tradition for though they name John the Disciple and mention certaine Priests who heard it from him yet they deny not a more general delivery of it but peradventure least men might think that the generall opinion that it came from the Apostles might arise from places of Scripture which fallacie their testimony when not so fully expressed was still in danger of concerning any point but that these books were written by these men they therefore thought it fit to name to us their witnesses that it came from Christs owne mouth and in what words And if they had done so much on your side for the differences between us I believe you would now have few Protestant adversaries left for you would have converted the greater part and by that have been enabled to burn the smaller Object The second Question may be How it cometh to passe that some things which at first bindes not the Churches beliefe afterwards commeth to bind it For if it were ever a Tradition it ever must needs be publique and ever bind the Church and if once it were not it appears not how ever it could come to be for if this age for example have it not how can it deliver it to the next that followeth But if we consider that the scope of Christian Doctrine being great and the Apostles preaching in so great varieties of Countries it might happen some point in one Country might be lesse understood or peradventure not preacht which in another was often preacht and well both understood and retained we may easily free our selves from these brambles For the Spirit of Tradition residing in this that the testimony be exceptione majus and beyond all danger of deceit It is not necessary to the efficaciousnesse of Tradition that the whole vniversall Church should be witnesse to such a truth but so great a part as could be a warrant against mistaking so that if all the Churches of Asia Greece or Affrick or Aegypt should constantly affirm such a Tradition to have been delivered them from the Apostles it were enough to make a Doctrine exceptione majorem Whence it ensueth that if in a meeting of the vniversall Church it were found that such a part hath such a Tradition concerning some matter whereof the rest had either no understanding or no certainly such a Doctrine would passe into a necessary bond of Faith in the whole Church Resp Your sword is so sharp and your shield so weak that I can hardly believe they came out of the same forge but when I observe how much you have a better right hand then a left and that not onely you have raised an objection which you cannot lay but your answer to it multiplies more I cannot but compare you to him in Lucian Philos who travelling with a Magician that had no servant and instead of one was daily wont to say to a Pestle Pestle be thou a man and it would be so and when his occasions were served would bid it return to be a Pestle and was obeyed thought one time to imitate the Magitian he being abroad and made indeed the Pestle a man and draw water but could not make it return to the former state but it continued still to draw wherefore angry and afraid he took up an axe and clove the Pestle-man in two whereupon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in stead of one water-drawer there lept up two For first I pray consider what could you have found more certaine to destroy all which you had before laboured to settle about the Infallibilitie of your Tradition then this distincton of Exceptione Major
this you speak of be now it for you will not say she alwaies is and not to quarrell with you for giving me an accidentall and mutable guide that being a thing which you suppose so necessary to be alwaies known I will joyn issue upon this with you whether she be to be known to be a guide by any Infallible Notes for such are required by reason to beget such an assent as is required by you all other being tearmed by your selves not Faith but Opinion To your Contra-interrogation therefore who I am that is in whose Name I speak I answer and professe my self one of the notably ignorant but though I act my own part onely when I speak in his person yet for once I will adventure to answer you in the name of the severall persons you speak of and will shew that none of them have sufficient cause to receive the guide which you propose upon the reasons which you alleadge Object If the ignorant man speaketh I will shew him in the Church of God decencie and Majestie of ceremonies above all other Sects and Religions whereby dull capacities are sweetly ensnared to beleeve the truth they heare from those whom they see to have the outward signes of Vertue and Devotion Resp To this I answer in the ignorant mans person that is in my own thus I for my part neither see what you say you shew me for in all decency and Majestie of ceremonies the Kings Chappell seems to me to equall the Queens and our Cathedrall Churches much to surpasse your cock-lofts and if I did yet the decency of them would not prove your Church to be a good guide so well as a good mistresse of ceremonies and if by their majestie you mean their Magnificence then that would onely prove her rich and not orthodox since this is such a note that her doctrine remaining as true as it is one persecution would serve to destroy it and with it all that meanes which you allow the Ignorant to find his guide by And whereas you say that dull capacities are by this sweetly ensnared to beleeve the Truth I answer that by the same meanes they may be as sweetly and as easily ensnared to beleeve falshoods unlesse you could shew that Majestie and Truth are inseparable Companions Object If the unlearned ask I shew him the claime of Antiquity the multitude the advantages of Sanctity and Learning how the World was once of this accord and those who opposed when they first parted first began the contrary Sects how the points of difference be such as on the Catholique side help devotion and on the contrary side diminish the same and such like sensible differences which will clearly shew an advantage on the Catholiques side which is the proportionall motive to his understanding Resp I see indeed you claime Antiquitie but do you think it reasonable that I should take your word Our Divines whom because I know more I have more cause to trust then you in a case of which I my self can take no cognizance absolutely deny it and to me you cannot disprove them unlesse I had at least some learning to enable me to judge who quotes that trulie which now I cannot construe For multitude I find not what that proves it may work upon my feare rather then upon my assent yet I am told that many more Christians disagree from your Church in this maine Question of her being a guide then she consists of that the Turks are more then both and the Pagans more then all three so that if they relate the state of the world aright multitude must rather seem an argument against truth then for it And forasmuch as I can see my self your Religion is the least in this Kingdome and I know no other For the advantages of sanctitie and learning to the first I answer that since in a Countrie where the State is their adversarie and where for feare of scandale and hope of gaining numbers to their Church to help both to the suretie and ornament of it by commending their Doctrine by their lives in likelyhood they are more vigilant against vice then where they have no such thornes against their brests to keep them awak even here I can find no such advantage as you pretend I have no cause to guesse that I should find it where the incitement of emulation and such like are absent and the charmes of greatnesse wealth power and by consequence likelyhood of impunity are present For the advantage of learning I answer that speaking to me with the fore-knowledge of my being unlearned I wonder you should make use of such a motive which how true soever it were in it self I am not capable of discerning to be so any more then a blind man is likely to assent to an argument drawn from Colours of which he could have no possible notion Now whereas you say that the world was once of this accord it is more then I know we are told that whole Churches in the East had long denied this when Luther first left you and howsoever that it could not be brought in time by arts propt by power to accord in an error is more then you have proved Whereas you say that those who opposed this when they first parted first began the contrary Sects I answer that our men pretend that they began no new Doctrine but onely scoured off the rust which time and worldly ends in some and negligence in others had suffered to grow on Which Question againe remaines to be tried if you refuse Scripture as your side useth to do by a Jury of such who are for the most part untranslated or those which are by Parties and whose language I cannot spell nor consequently determine by their evidence Now whereas you say that the points in controversie on your side help Devotion and on ours diminish it I wish you had instanced which and wherein for I for the most part see nothing towards it they being meere speculative opinions and not reduceable to life as especially this whereof we most differ which is your Churches being a generall guide Those which most may seem such are either Confession which yet we denie onely to be necessary not profitable if well used which is practised by some of us and recommended to all and which as you have tempered it making contrition sufficient for his salvation who hath till his hour of death lived in all sin and making attrition with absolution of the same force as contrition and requiring to attrition as I am told you do onely sorrow for sin though arising from the feare of Hell so some love of God being joyned to it which none can want but an Infidell will not help Devotion much but rather diminish it or Monastick life which was grown into great excesse and disorder which yet many wise and moderne Protestants think might as well have been reformed as the other parts of the Church without totall obolition and so
upon this is left no Question or Fasting which if you think Protestants are against I pray read Bishop Andrews his Lent Sermons and which if it be not so much used among us as it should is not so much the fault of the Religion as of the Men and all these things considered I find none of your motives to shew a maine advantage on your side and therefore I have yet no cause to leave my owne And if in some of these things you should seeme to have more Truth then we yet that would not free you from having more error in other points then this comes to much lesse from having any at all without the beliefe of which I should not be received among you though I were willing to come And this lieth upon you to prove and that not by probable but by infallible arguments if you require as they say your side useth to do an assent of that Nature Object To the Grammarian I will give two Memorandums first that seeing the Catholick's were first in possession both of the Scriptures and the Interpretations The adverse part is bound to bring such places as can receive no probable Exposition by the Catholickes For who knoweth not that is conversant in Criticks how many obscure and difficult places occurre in most plaine Authors and the Scripture of all Bookes the greater part of the men that wrote them especially the New Testament being not eloquent and writing not in their native Tongue for the most part are subject to much impropriety The other Memorandum is that to prove a Catholique point by Scripture it is sufficient that the place brought beare the Exposition the Catholique giveth and if it be the more probable by the very letter it is an evincent place The reason is because the question being of a Christian law the Axiome of the Jurists taketh place that Consuetudo optima Interpres Legis so that if it be manifest that Christian practise which was before the controversie bee for the one sence and the words be tolerable no force of Grammer can prevaile to equalize this advantage The Grammarian therefore who will observe these Rules I turne him loose to the Scriptures and Fathers to seeke there what is the Faith of Christ and proprieties of her Church to know her by Resp To your first Memorandum I answer that you have grounded it wholly upon begging the question for if those of your Religion had first been in possession of the Scriptures then the Christians had been of it in the Apostles times which if you could prove you would need to prove no more but all would easilie follow and then for your consequence that is equallie false for though I confesse to make any Doctrine a point of Faith it is required that the place be as plaine as you please yet to the making it the more probable opinion and consequentlie excluding the contrarie from being necessarie so much is not required The greatest cause of the obscuritie of those bookes in which Criticks are conversant is the negligence and ignorance of Transcribers so that some Authors would scarce know their own Bookes if they were revived whereas the great care of Christians about so deare a pledge hath much if not wholly hindered the same cause from perverting and so obscuring Scripture At least if it have not it seemes your Church is not so faithfull a Guardian of her deposit as her deare friends moved by partiallitie or ends would make us beleeve Besides till now I ever thought that Eloquence rather lead men to speake improperlie then the want of it since ignorant persons keepe themselves within the bounds of what preciselie they meane whereas the eloquent wander into figures which are so many and have gotten such footing in language whilst in the search of significancie proprietie is lost that those who use them are obliged to those who will please to understand because all they say may beare two sences the one proper the other improper And though it be true that they have over-flowne even into the language of the ignorant yet it is as true that both they are much lesse used among these and that they had not hence their beginning but from Eloquence And though the Apostles write not in their native Tongues yet they write in an inspired language so that they were not likely to commit at least any such soloecismes as should destroy the end of the Inspirer which was that they should be understood by it To your second Memorandum I answer that since every man is free till some thing binds him you who pretend that we are bound to receive more doctrine as necessarie then appeares to us to be so are in all reason to give us plainlie evincent proofe that what you thus require God requires too for till then to returne you to another Axiome for yours praesumitur pro libertate whereas wee the burden of the Negative proofe not lying upon us if we bring probable Arguments we doe it ex abundanti and bring more then we need to bring And whereas you stand upon Customes having power in Law matters I answer that in all cases that is not of force for we hold that it must not prevaile against a Statute which shewes that they may be contradictorie and as Nullum tempus occurrit Regi is thought to be a good civill topicall Law so me thinkes Nullum tempus occurrit veritati is a good publique divinitie Law your owne Scripture too telling us that Truth is stronger then the King Besides where it is of force it is in such cases as the law hath appointed that it should be so and if you can prove out of Christs Law that there it is so appointed to be in matters of Divinity wee shall willinglie yeild but seeing that our law which allowes this force to custome sets downe also in how long time it is before it become of force and I have cause to thinke that Christ would have been 〈◊〉 carefull as our law and have set down this too if he had had any such meaning and if it were setled to be a custome of such a standing as by Saint Austine sometimes is spoken of as that in no time it be known that ever it was otherwise in most of your affaires this would stead you a little though one side have burnt the evidences of the other to which in likeliehood you owe it if this stead you in any of questions whereof Scripture and Antiquitie are wholly silent or meerly speculative and unreducible unto act of which sort are the greatest between us or not concerning the lawfulnesse but the necessity of an Action to the first kind no ancient custome can belong nor other to the others then a custome of Interpretation of some text concerning it not enough to conclude upon besides that it is not that which you speake of since daily your men differ and defend their differing from all that went before them about more
chance to misse and therefore want not your guide who either is not or as hard to find as the way and againe when he hath defined the certaine meaning of that definition as hard to find as herself Neither is a company of men thus beleeving maimed in the head though having no other more uncontroulable Principle If your guide were evident of her self as those Principles are by which we judge all things else then your Similitude would hold a little whereas being neither knowable in her self nor proveable by ought else what you have said onely shewes what an ill match is made when Witt is set against Truth Resp It is sufficient for a Child to believe his Parents for a Clown to believe his Preacher about the Churches Infallibility For Faith is given to mankind to be a meanes of believing and living like a Christian and so he hath this second it is not much matter in what tearmes he be with the first Repl. To what you say I answer that I confesse that it is not possible that without particular Revelations or Inspirations the ignorant even of the Orthodox party should receive their Religion upon very strong grounds which makes me wonder that even from them you should exact an assent of a higher nature and a much greater certaintie then can be ministred to them by any arguments which they are capable of yet if they believe what they receive with an intention of obedience to God and supposall that their opinions are his Revelations and use those meanes which they in their Conscience think best to examine whether they be or no though it be when they find themselves unable to search by trusting others whom they count fittest to be trusted I beleeve they are in a very saveable estate though they be farr from having of me truth of their Tenets any Infallible certaintie and the same I think of those which are in error for since you cannot deny but that a Child or a Clown with the same aptnesse to follow Gods will may be taught by his Parents or his Preacher that what God forbids he commands that Christ's Vicar is Antichrist or the Church Babylon and scarce teacheth any truth though it could not teach the least error why should such a one be damned for the misfortune of having had Hereticall Parents or a deceiving Preacher For no more it seemes is required of such then to give his beliefe to those And indeed the same reason extended will excuse him who though learned impartially aimeth at Gods will and misseth it for though you seeme to insinuate by the cause you give of what you say that so men believe and do what they heare God command he careth not upon what grounds yet I who know that God hath no other gaine by our so doings then that in it we sacrifice to him our soules and affections cannot believe but that they shall be accepted who give him that which he most cares for and obey him formally though they disobey him materially God more considering and valuing the Heart then the Head the end then the actions and the fountaine then the streames And truely else he who through stupidity or impotence abstained from any vice or through negligence or prejudice miss'd some error would be as well accepted of by God as he that by a care of his waies and of obedience to him who should rule them did avoide the first and by a studious search the second I cannot part from this Theame without one consideration more and that is that if so Fallible a Director as you speak of may be cause enough of assent to one Truth why may they not be so to another and why shall not the beleefe of our ignorants upon their testimonie that the Scripture is the Word of God be as well founded as that of yours to the Infallibility of the Church upon the same And yet it is daily objected to us that this beleefe of ours is not surely enough founded since not received from their Church although the unlearned among us receive it from their Parents and Preachers and the learned from Tradition as from the first of those your unlearned do and from the second of which your learned pretend they do receive the authority and infallibility of the Church it self Although we be so much more reasonable then you that we require them not to be so sure upon it as they are of what they know by sence but onely to give them so much credit that they may give up their hearts to obedience Resp Neither do I remit him to a generall and constant Tradition as if himself should climbe up every age by learned Writers and find it in every one I take it to be impossible testimonies one may find in many ages but such as will demonstrate and convince a full Tradition I much doubt Neither do I find by experience that who will draw a man by a rope or chaine giveth him the whole rope or chaine into his hands but onely one end of it unto which if he cleave hard he shall be drawn which way the rope is carried Tradition is a long chaine every generation or delivery from Father to Son being a link in it c. Repl. Of this opinion I was wholly before First upon my own small observation which also perswaded me that no controverted opinions had so much colour for such a Tradition out of antiquity as some which now are by both parts condemned And after by consideration of what hath been so temperately learned and judiciously writen by our Protestant Perron D' Aille But though I think that nothing is wholly provable by sufficient testimonies of the first ages to have had Primary and generall Tradition except the undoubted books of Scripture or what is so plainly there that it is not controverted between you and us yet I think the Negative is easie to be proved because any one known person dessenting and yet then accounted a learned and pious Catholique shews the Tradition not to have been generall and that the Church of this Age differs from that of those times if it Anathematize now for what then was either approved of or at least thought not so horrid but it might be borne with And again though we agree upon what will not serve to convince a full Tradition yet we disagree about what will serve for allowing there were any controverted opinions delivered with equall Tradition to the Scripture which I deny to have beene but would receive if it so appeared yet sure you beginne at the wrong end in the examination of what those are which ought to be done by considering the testimonies of the first ages and not of the last for in your own similitude of a rope though to helpe me to climbe by if you put but one end into my hands yet you must shew me that the other end is somewhere fastened or else for ought I know instead of getting up by it
mean imposed as a punishment and not in way to prevent mischiefe and oppresse it in the head Repl. I suppose it small satisfaction to a poor man carried to the stake for his Conscience to know by which member of a distinction he is put to death and that this as little excuseth you as it satisfies them I hope to shew before we have ended the consideration of this present Paragraph Resp If the Circumcelians were the first that is ancient enough for the justification of the fact although for Banishment which also he seemeth to reprehend we know the first that could suffer it did suffer it Arrius I mean by the hand of Constantine whom he praiseth for a speech he uttered before he knew the consequence of the danger and seemeth to reprehend for his after and better witts Repl. I wish to you what Erasmus wisht to Augustinus Steuckius which is that you were but equall in probando diligens as you are in asseverando fortis For how unlikely is it that we should give you credit without proofe onely 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the antiquity of a thing which began so long after Christs Apostles were all dead is enough to prove it lawfull Howsoever it would at most but prove it lawfull to put such Hereticks to death as force men to do so in their owne defence for such were they Besides I object not onely against this custome the not being ancient for I conconfesse there might have been before a power to do so too though not used to the uttermost though in likelihood what perswaded you to use it would have perswaded them to the same if they had thought they had it but as being also condemned by Hillary and Athanasius and other Orthodox For though some punishment of a lesse degree were inflicted upon others too by their own side as you trulie instance when their power prevailed yet Constantine saies not onely in an Edict for libertie of opinions which he who was then Pope never appeared to stomack as his successor undoubtedly would now doe the like 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let no man trouble another but let every one do as his own soule will but also gives this concluding reason against you for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For it is one thing willingly to take upon them this combate for immortality and another to force them to it with punishment and so in whatsoever he did contrary to this in any case wherein this reason held his words condemne his action And whereas you say that when Constantine made so slight of the question between Arrius and Alexander it was because he knew not the consequence of the danger I shall desire to know of you whether you must not confesse that there is now no King of your Religion so ill instructed in it though none of them be never so learned or curious as Constantine was who if any man in his dominion should arise denying Transubstantiation would not presently know the danger of the consequence and resolve him for an Heretick and to the stake instantly and not speak against his opinion onelie as impertinent and de lana caprina and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if this had been as resolved a thing then among Christians to have come from Tradition as Transubstantiation is now amongst Papists he would necessarilie as soon have discovered it too Howsoever I believe his after-witts to have been his worser witts in punishing though not in condemning of Arrius and to me it yet seemes for to be sure not to speak Heretically I will not speak obstinately that to have laboured in stopping of disputes on both parts and tying them to Scripture Phrases and to speak of God onelie in the Word of God had been at least in respect of Unity not a worse way then to have given an example to what after followed I mean the frequent explication with Anathema to boote of inexplicable misteries Neither would then so many questions have so long troubled the Church which for their slightnesse were unworthy ever to exercise the Schooles But for that or any other meer error as it may be for ought any one knowes unlawfull in any to punish at all I by no meanes like not to put to death for the same seemes to me it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sin above measure sinfull though even the act of it proceeded from an opinion of doing God some service and that opinion from a meer error too then I conceive but a materiall no formall sin for the same cause and so neither this materiall Murtherer nor that materiall Heretick be guilty before God who onely can distinguish and to whom it is fit to be left Howsoever the long doubt of some and opposall of other Orthodox to this course and that arising not from their Policie or Compassion but their Conscience not as thinking it unprofitable or unfit but unlawfull shews that there was then no Tradition that the Apostles taught it to be lawfull so to use Hereticks upon which onelie all the Infallibilitie which you claime for any beliefe or custome of your Church is founded Resp Saint Austine justifieth such proceedings against Hereticks Repl. Truely for putting them to death unlesse when they first assaulted which makes a wide difference for then it was not done as to Hereticks but as to Assassines from whom Nature teaches us to defend our selves and consequentlie to re-offend them whensoever Religion barres it not experience shewing us the danger of meerly defending to be neer to that too of not doing it at all I know not that ever he did nor do I beleeve it That some degree of punishment should be inflicted upon them I confesse he at last consented but chiefly to force them to come and see what the Church did whose actions the Hereticks impudently belied as if they set pictures upon the altar and did what you both doe and defend and they did not i. e. denied it Howsoever we have Saint Austine against Saint Austine and not onely his authority but his reasons more valid by much then that when he saith that such oppressions would make them think themselves vi victos non veritate convictos overcome by force not convicted by Truth and consequently dislikes it ne fictos Catholicos habeamus quos apertos Hereticos novimus least they become from open Hereticks but fained Catholicks Reasons which though these be not all we have in my opinion it was as impossible for him reasonably to answer when he was living as it would be now for him to do it when he was dead Besides as he useth these strong arguments against it so he is himself a strong example against it for the Church had lost this her so notable Champion if they then had been as severe to the Manichees as you are to us Resp Saint Gregory vseth the like against Pagans if I remember and the Church laterly hath rather encreased then decreased in the practice of it
permit which being or depending upon matter of Fact cannot be known enough to be judged before examination of witnesses and the like be ended and if they willingly deferre the ending they are confess'd to be in fault by all men but those who hold Perjury to be none But you seem to conceive our grounds faulty as not leading even to a possible Unity whereas to a possible one I am sure they do since what is concluded out of them by many may be by all nay indeed am confident that all who receive the Scripture for the onely rule and believe what is there plain to be onely necessarie would if they truely beleeved what they professe and were not lead aside either by prejudice or private ends or some Popish relicks of holding what they have long been taught or following the authority of some by them much esteemed persons either alive or dead soon agree in as much as is necessarie and in concluding no necessity of agreeing in more there being no doubt but it would soone appear plainly what is plaine Besides if no grounds be sufficient for Unitie which produce not the effect then it seemes the grounds of your grounds those Arguments by which you prove that there is a Judge and a generall Councell is it are insufficient since they are not able to make all Christians about this question Again although a Judge and this Judge be received yet this is still an insufficient ground for Unitie since the Greek Church agree thus farre with you which is as farre as you agree with one another and yet are not so bound by it to any universall Unitie with them but that they esteem you Hereticks and are esteemed so by you and if you say that it is not because the grounds upon which the Infallibilitie of the Church are built lead not sufficientlie to Unitie that we joyne not with you in beleeving them to be infallible not because the determination of generall Councels is not a sufficient meanes of Unitie that the Greek Church admitting their authoritie admits not of your opinions but it is the fault of us and of them hardening our hearts against the truth then we may as well say that some of those who agree in our grounds yet disagree from our doctrine not that the grounds lead not to Unitie but that our Adversaries will not be lead or if as you doe and some others of you sometimes you confesse that they through an innocent error dissent from you and doe this without any imputation in this respect to your grounds I hope it will be lawfull for us to allow the same possipilitie without any disadvantage or prejudice to ours Besides say you though we agree to day yet we may not to morrow which to prove were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 paines whollie lost we confesse For though Tully make it an expression of his contempt to Piso in an Epistle to Atticus Ita nihil est ut plane quid erit nesciat yet I take it to be a true saying of man in generall who knowes little of present things and nothing of future but this is common to us both for if we change not our opinions we shall agree as we doe and if you change yours you shall not which is possible for not onelie that opinion of the Infallibilitie of your judges decrees may it self be altered which holdeth together all the rest but some of you may holding that ground like the Greek either change their opinions concerning the authority of such or such a Councell as beleeving it unduelie called factiouslie carried or not generall as is pretended or not so consenting as is requisite or differ from the rest concerning the sence of the decrees for whereas you say you agree that the Church is an infallible Mistresse and when she interposeth her judgement the controversie is ended I answer that first some of you with whom I have spoken my selfe hold that the Churches authoritie in defining extends no further then to such points whereof Tradition is of one part as in many controverted there is I beleeve no such and that this rule she may transgresse and so erre Secondlie Neither the Dominicans nor their Adversaries are very readie to remain in suspence to await her decision but define all readie concerning her definitions Cum utraque pars tenax contendat suam non aliam posse definiri sententiam either part tenaciouslie urging that the contrarie opinion cannot be defined which if they did to fright the Pope from defining least the condemned partie being even before should after make a Schisme they obtained their end Thirdlie What are you the nearer to Unitie for your Infallible Mistresse the Church when you neither agree of any certaine and proper markes to know her by nor when it is that she interposeth her judgement some take it to be the particular Church of Rome others of which number you are all which communicate with her supposing the first to be true yet not being de fide it will serve but ill by your rules to build our faith upon and even when she delivers her opinion is not certainlie agreed whether the people of Rome be to have Votes or onelie the Clergie or of them onelie the Pope with the Cardinals or the Pope onelie without them if the Pope whether onelie in his Chaire and what circumstances arc required to his decreeing in Cathedra would beget more questions If all that communicate with her as you say it is as things now stand First I would know whether they be sure to be at all times the Church to that you refuse to derermine and so inclusivelie denie Secondlie It is not possible that such a multitude should ever give any sentence explicitelie nor can we ever know that it hath even tacitelie done so if they be to decree onelie by representation then how large a companie represents them with all their power of whom that companie is to consist how many of them are to agree to make it a binding sentence c. are things yet undefined and like to be and if any goe about to determine them their power being it selfe still a question could not end these Therefore whereas you say that we have no definitive sentence besides that truly to have one and not to know when we have one is much alike I answer that whensoever the Scripture shall seeme to us to have defined we are according to our doctrine readie to yeeld and so the controversie is ended and sure the Scripture may be said to be a definitive sentence as well as the written Councell of Trent and till then though we differ about interpretations of not plaine places we have as much Unitie as you who are not resolved upon the sence of manie decrees of that and other Councels and if a desire and diligence to finde the true meaning of them and an aptnesse to assent when it is found be thought to secure among you those who mistake
have entred or easilie might doe so this shewing how they may steale in teacheth how to keep them out as it is an aide to the saving of a Town to discover the breaches which cannot be guarded without they be first known Resp For the Fluxibility of humane Nature is so great that it is no wonder if errors should have crept in the wayes being so many but it is a great wonder of God that none should have crept in This neverthelesse I may say if the Author will confesse as I thinke he will not deny but that it is disputable whether any error in sixteen Ages hath crept in this very thing is above Nature For if there were not an excellency beyond the nature of corruptible things it would be undeniably evident that not one or two but thousands of errors had quite changed the shape of the Church in so many yeares tempests dis-unions want of Commerce in the body of the Church Repl. The greater wonder it were if your Church had no error the greater it is to me that upon one at most but probable Reason you should require all men to beleeve she hath none Neither doth it appeare to me disputable whether she have or no but evident that she hath not by Demonstrations yet by Probabilities of that multitude and weight upon which you say and say trulie that in all other cases we relie and venture that we most esteem whereas indeed you as you are of the imposing Partie ought to bring at least such proofes that you are fallen into none and as you are of the Infallibilitie-pretending-partie your proofes are likewise to rise from probable to Infallible Neither doe I conceive it to be probablie argued it is disputable whether this bodie of men have ever let in any error therefore it can never let in any since it is at least as disputable whether the Grecians have let in any yet you will not allow that upon this we should adjudge to her Infallibilitie Nay if it were demonstrative that your Church had yet never erred yet it would but unwillinglie follow that she never could since all things necessarie are so plaine without the confession of which you seeme to tax God and it is naturallie so plaine what is plaine that I cannot but thinke it a miracle that some one bodie of Christians among so many should be free from any such dogmaticallie-defended error especiallie if Truth were so indifferentlie sought after as it ought to be and Passion were not often called to counsell and Reason shut out of doores Resp But this one Maxime that she receiveth her Faith by Tradition and not from Doctors hath ever kept her entire And he that will shew the contrary must shew how it should come to passe that those who lived in such an Age would say unto our Children this we received from our fore-fathers as taught them by our fore-fathers to have been received from Christ and his Apostles from hand to hand which if it could not be the question is resolved that no error is in the Church of God which holdeth her faith upon that Tenure Repl. Not to repeat usque ad nauseam what I have heretofore answered as that others differing from you hold upon the same Tenure that your selves have not alwaies held nor hold not upon it c. I will onelie tell you what Cardinall Perron tels me of the Jewes out of Isidore and that is that they seeing in the book of Wisedome so cleare proofes of Christ plotted together to put it out of the Canon which serves not so much his turne if it were so as it makes against yours and shews how that might come to passe which you judge impossible the Posteritie of the Jewes having been deceived by this Complot although pretending at least and for ought appeares beleeving that the Tradition of their Church is still uncorrupted Resp And truely if the Author desires to examine divers Religions let him look their maine ground wherein they relie and see whether that be good or no And I think amongst Christians he shall find but two Tradition and Scripture Repl. First I allow not of your division for not to say now that you relie not onely upon Tradition these Protestants whose part in this I take depend not onelie upon Scripture but upon Universall Tradition too from which they receive that and would more if more seemed as clearly to them so to be delivered Secondly I think it reasonable not onely to examine what their Principles are but whether they do constantly follow them for a man may write awrie that hath a streight Ruler if he observe it not carefully Resp And the Catholiques onely to relie upon Tradition and all the rest upon Scripture and he shall see that relying upon Scripture cannot draw to an Unitie those who relie upon it and more then one cannot relie upon Tradition Repl. If all that relie upon Tradition be Catholicks you must admit the Eastern Churches into your Communion although you now account them both Scismaticks and Hereticks If all Catholicks do relie upon Tradition as their onelie grounds and Tradition be so sure and infallible and unmistakable a deliverer as you would perswade us how come so manie differences between you some ever counting those things matter of Faith which others do not which differences shew if they all relie on these Questions upon the ground you say they do that more then one may relie upon Tradition and neither can Tradition any more then Scripture draw to an Unitie those who relie upon it if either neither part do or either do not then Tradition is not the Common Tenure of Catholicks not onelie in different opinions but even in such as are most de fide and as both parts think nothing but a definition and some scarce that to make the Holders of the contrary to them Hereticks since if it were neither could one part of Catholicks relie upon any other then the Catholick ground neither is it to be doubted but that side which builds their opinion upon an Hereticall foundation against another beleeved upon a Catholick ground would long agone have been among you exploded and the Pope have been not onelie with so much paines perswaded but even of himselfe readie to have past his censure upon them if not for their superstructions yet for their foundation Resp If I will be a Christian I must be of one side Repl. If you mean I must be of one side that is take one of these grounds I answer That I take both one from the other Scripture from Tradition though not from the present Tradition of a Part but from the Universall one of the first Christians opposed by none but by them who were instantlie counted by the generallitie heterodox and as soon opposed as known If you mean that I must be of one side in points I whollie denie any such necessitie Resp By falling on the one side I see my fortune in thousands who
answers that ever I could meet to this Objection I repeat no more these places being so positive to our point This confession of Invisibilitie in our Church for so many ages did much perplex me it seemed to me even to offend Naturall reason such a derogation from Gods power or providence as the sufferance of so great an Ecclipse of the light of this true Church and such a Church as this is described to be seeming to me repugnant to the maine reason why God hath a Church on Earth which is to be conserver of the Doctrine Christs precepts and to conveigh it from age to age untill the end of the world Therefore I applyed my study to peruse such arguments as the Catholicks brought for the proofe of a continuall visibility of the true Church down from the Apostles time in all Ages and apparance of Doctors teaching and administring the Sacrament in proofe of this I found they brought many provisoes of the Scripture but this text most literall of the fourth of the Ephesians Christ hath placed in his Church Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints till we meet in the Unity of the Faith and next the discourse upon which they inferre this necessary visible succession of the Church seemed to me to be a most rationall and convincing one which is to this effect Naturall Reason not being able to proportion to a man a cause that might certainly bring him to a state of supernaturall happinesse and that such a cause being necessary to mankinde which o herwise would totally faile of the end it was created for there remained no other way but that it must be proposed unto us by one whose authority we could not doubt of and that in so plaine a manner as the simplest may be capable of it as well as the learned This work was performed by our Saviour from whose mouth all our Faith is originally derived but this succeeding age not being able to receive it immediate from thence it was necessary it should be conveyed unto them that lived in it by those that did receive it from Christs own Mouth and so from Age to Age untill the end of the world and in what Age soever this thred of doctrine should be broken it must needs be acknowledged for the reason above mentioned that the light which should convey makind through the darknesse of this world was extinguished and mankind is left without a Guide to infallible ruine which cannot stand with Gods providence and goodnesse which Saint Austine affirmes for his opinion directly in his book de Util. Cred. Cap. 16. saying If divine providence doe preside over humane affaires it is not to be doubted but that there is some authoritie constituted by the same God upon which going as upon certaine steps we are carried to God nor can it be said he meant the Scriptures onely by these steps since experience shewes us the continuall alteration about the right sence of severall of the most important places of it that what is contained there cannot be a competent rule to mankind which consisteth more of simple then learned men and besides the Scriptures must have been supposed to have been kept in some hands whose authority must beget our acceptance of it which being no other thing then the Church in all Ages we have no more reason to beleeve that it hath preserved the Scriptures free from all corruption then that it hath maintained it selfe in a continuall visibility which Saint Augustine concludeth to be a marke of the true Church in these words in his book Cont. Cecill 104. The true Church hath this certaine signe that it cannot be hid therefore it must be known to all Nations but that part of the Protestants is unknown to many therefore canno be the true no inference can be stronger then from hence that the concealement of a Church disproves the truth of it Lastly not to insist upon the allegation of the sence of all the Fathers of the Church in every severall Age which seemed to me most cleare that which in this cause weighed much with me was the confession and testimony of the approved Doctors themselves of the Protestant Church as Hooker in his Book of Eccles Pol. pag. 126. God alwaies had and must have some visible Church upon Earth and Doctor Field the first of Eccles cap. 10. It cannot be but those that are the true Church must be known by the profession of truth and further the same Doctor sayes How should the Church be in the world and nobody professe openly the saving truth of God and Doctor White in his defence of the Way chap. 4. pag. 790. The providence of God hath left Monuments and Stories for the confirmation of our faith and I confesse truly that our Religion is false if a continuall descent of it cannot be demonstrated by these monuments down from Christs time this appeareth unto me a direct submission of themselves to produce these apparent testimonies of the publique profession of their faith as the Catholiques demand but this I could never read nor know of any that performed for Doctor White himselfe for want of proofe of this is faine to say in another place in his Way to the Church pag. 510. The Doctors of our faith hath had a continuall succession though not visible to the world so that he flies from his undertaking of a conspicuous demonstration of the monuments of his faith to an invisible subterfuge or a beleife without apparance for he saith in the same book in another place pag. 84. All the eternall government of the Church may faile so as a locall and personall succession of Pastors may be interrupted and pag. 403. We doe not contest for an externall succession it sufficeth that they succeed in the doctrine of the Apostles and Faithfull which in all ages did imbrace the same Faith so as here he removeth absolutely all externall proofe of succession which before he consented to be guided by I cannot say I have verbally cited these Authors because I have translated these places though the Originall be in English yet I am sure their sence is no way injured and I have chosen to alledge Doctor Whites authority because he is an Orthodox Professor of the Protestant Church the reflection of the state of this question where I found the Protestants defend themselves onely by flying out of sight by confessing a long invisibility in their Church in apparance of Pastors and Doctors the same interpretation left me much loosened from the fastnesse of my professed Religion but had not yet transported me to the Catholique Church for I had an opinion that our Divines might yet fill up this vacancy with some more substantiall then I could meet with so I came back into England with a purpose of seeking nothing so intentively as this satisfaction and to this purpose I did covertly under another mans name send this my scruple to one whose learning and sufficiency I had
much affiance in in these termes whether there was no visible succession to be proved in the Protestant Church since the Apostles time down to Luther and what was to be answered to that Objection besides the Confession of invisibility for so many ages to this I could get no other answer but that the point had been largely and learnedly handled by Doctor White and many other of our Church upon this I resolved to informe my selfe in some other points which seemed to me unwarrantable and suspitious in the Ceremonies of the Romane Church since I had such an inducement as so little satisfaction in a point that seemed to me so essentiall and in all these scruples I found mine own mistake in the beleife of the Tenents of the Romane Church gave me the onely occasion of scandall not the practise of their doctrines and to confirme me in the satisfaction of all them I found the practise and authority of most of the ancient Fathers and in the Protestant refutations of these doctrines the recusations of their authorities as men that might erre so that the question seemed then to me whether I would rather hazard the erring with them then with the latter Reformers which consequently might erre also in dissenting from them I will not undertake to dispute the severall Tenents controverted nor doubt that your Lordship will suspect that I omitted any satisfaction in any of them since my resolution of reconciling my selfe to the Romane Church is not liable to any suspition of too forward or precipitate resignation of my selfe my judgement perchance may be censured of seducement my affection cannot be of corruption Upon these reasons I did soone after my returne last into England reconcile my selfe to the Romane Catholique Church in the beleife and convincement of it to be the true ancient and Apostolic all by her externall markes and her internall objects of faith and doctrine and in her I resolve to live and dye as the best way to Salvation When I was in England I did not study dissimulation so dexterously as if my fortune had read it to me nor doe I now professe it so desperately as if it were my fortunes Legacie for I doe not beleeve it so dangerous but it may recover for I know the Kings wisedome is rightly informed that the Catholique Faith doth not tend to the alienation of the Subject it rather super-infuseth a Reverence and Obedience to Monarchie and strengthens the bands of our obedience to our Natural Prince and his Grace and Goodnesse shall never finde other occasion of divertion of them from the naturall usuall exercise of themselves upon those that have the honour to have beene bred with approbation of fidelity in his service nor can I feare that your Lordship should apprehend any change in my duty even your displeasure which I may apprehend upon the mis-interpreted occasion shall never give me any of the least recession from my duty in which profession I humbly aske your blessing as Your Lordships obedient Sonne Paris 21. Novemb. 1635. The Lord of Faulklands Answer to a Letter of Mr. Mountague justifying his change of Religion being dispersed in many Copies I Was desired to give my opinions of the Reasons and my Reason if I misliked them having read and considered it I was brought to be perswaded First because having been sometimes in some degrees moved with the same Inducements I thought that what satisfied me might possibly have the same effect upon him Secondly because I being a Lay man a young man and an Ignorant man I thought a little Reason might in liklyhood work more from my Pen then more from theirs whose Profession Age and Studies might make him suspect that it is they are too hard for him and not their Cause for his Thirdly Because I was very desirous to do him service not onelie as a man and a Christian but as one whom all that know him inwardly esteeme of great parts and I am desirous somewhat to make up my great want of them by my respect to those that have them and as an impartiall seeker of Truth which I trust he iâ— and I professe my self to be and so much for the cause of this Paper I come now to that which it opposeth FIrst then whereas he defends his search I suppose he is rather for that to receive praise then to make Apologies all men having cause to suspect that gold which were given with this condition that the Receiver should not trie it by any Touchstone Secondly He saith that there being two sorts of Questions the one of Right or Doctrine the other of Fact or Story As whether the Protestants Faith had a visible appearance before Luther he resolved to begin his enquiry with the matter of Fact as being sooner to be found because but one and easier to be comprehended To this I answer by saying that if they would not appeale from the Right Tribunall or rather Rule which is the Scripture those many might easier be ended then this one we building our Faith onely upon plaine places and all reasonable men being sufficient of what is plain but if they appeal to a consent of Fathers and Councells whereof many are lost many not lost not to be gotten many uncertaine whether Fathers or no Fathers and these which we have and know being too many for almost any industrie to read over and absolutely for any memory to remember which yet is necessarie because any one clause of any one Father destroies a consent and being besides liable to all the exceptions which can be brought against the Scriptures being the Rule as difficulty want of an infallible Interpreter and such like and being denied to have any infallibility especially when they speak not as witnesses which a consent of them never doth against us by one partie which the Scripture is allowed to have by both then I wonder not if he think such a way so uncertaine and so long that he was willing to chuse any shorter cut rather then travell it Neither do I beleeve this other to be so short or so concluding as he imagines for if he consider the large extent of Christian Religion so that we know little from any indifferent Relator of the opinions of the Abissins so great a part of Christendome if he consider the great industry of his Church in extinguishing those whom they have called Hereticks and also their Books so that we know scarce any thing of them but from themselves who are too partiall to make good Historians if the consider how carefully they stop mens mouthes even those of their own with their Indices expurgatorii it will then appear to him both a long work to seek and a hard one to find whether any thought like Luther in all Ages and that he concludes very rashly who resolves that there was none because he cannot find any since they might have been visible in their times and yet not so to us for men are not