Nor can indeed in any true sense the Pope of Rome be termed Peter's Successour For if he be his Successour he is Successour in his Work or in his Power The Work of the Apostle Peter was by preaching the Gospel to found Churches to Christ and to that end was to go to several places but the Pope of Rome succeeds not in this he neither goes up and down unless in a pompous Procession or to a worse end nor preacheth the Gospel nor founds any Churches thereby nor doth think it his business but to stay at Rome and there to live in pomp and wealth and luxury and to lord it tyrannously over the Flock of God Nor is he Successour in his power Peter had power to give the Holy Ghost Acts 8. to strike Ananias and Sapphira dead Acts 5. But the Pope cannot do these things Nor in the Government of the whole Church For this Peter onely had not nor above other Apostles but together with the rest Nor was Peter's or the Apostles power any such visible Monarchy as the Pope claims to receive Appeals from all Churches to appoint Legates to hear parties in all controversies of faith to be an infallible Judge of such controversies an infallible Expounder of the Scriptures determining what is Heresie and what of Faith calling general Councils crowning Emperours deposing Princes dispensing with Oaths Marriages of persons in near degrees otherwise prohibited impose Laws about Fasting and many other things which God never appointed Such an Headship of the whole Church as the Pope claims Peter never had Nor is any such thing proved or so much as offer'd to be proved by H. T. his Catalogue which how insufficient it is hath been alread shewed I go on to his Arguments here SECT II. From being the Foundation Matth 16. 18. and feeding the Sheep of Christ John 21. 15 16 17. neither Peter's nor Popes Supremacy is proved The first Argument saith H. T. is this The foundation hath a preheminence of firmitude and stability before the rest of the building which is founded on it and the Shepherd is Head of his Flock and above his Sheep But St. Peter next after Christ himself was the Foundation of the whole Church and Pastour of the whole Flock therefore St. Peter next after Christ had a preheminence over the whole Church and was Head of the whole Flock and above all the other Sheep of which number were the rest of the Apostles Answ THe Headship and pastoral power which H. T. would prove to be due to the Pope is not a guidance onely by teaching but a princely dominion so as that all may appeal to him none from him his sentence must be obeyed by all under pain of damnation in matters of faith and must be judged infallible and 't is likely he holds with Bellarmine lib. 4. de Rom. pont cap. 5. that if the Pope should erre by commanding vices or forbidding virtues the Church should be bound to believe vices to be good and virtues to be evil unless it would sin against conscience and if he dissent herein from Bellarmine yet in the Canon Law distinct 40. such an absolute dominion is given him that though he should draw innumerable souls with him to Hell no man must say to him Why dost thou so and some Flatterers of the Pope have given him all power in Heaven and Earth yea and more than Christ had in Purgatory also allowing no Appeal from the Pope to God as having one Consistory with God calling him our Lord God the Pope nor did I ever read or hear that any Pope hath by any Censure corrected such blasphemous Titles but they have by their commands contrary to Gods dispensing with his Laws deposing Emperours and innumerable other practises shewed that they owned such power as theirs Now sure this power was never given to Peter nor any such like power under the term of a Foundation which is for the ruine not for the establishing of the Church nor under the charge of feeding especially of anothers Sheep of whom he is no Owner or Lord. Is this to feed Christ's Sheep to do what he will with them appoint what Penance he will put what Laws he please on the Sheep to excommunicate deprive of Civil and Ecclesiastical Dignity and Office at pleasure such a Supremacy is indeed so like that which Paul foretold concerning the man of sin 2 Thess 2. 4. that he opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped so that he as God sitteth in the Temple of God shewing himself that he is God that till I meet with some more likely than the Popes to be there meant I shall take it be a part of my Creed that the Pope of Rome is the very Man of sin there meant And for this H. T. who gives such a supreme Headship to Peter and the Pope over the other Apostles so as to make him a Shepherd to rule excommunicate deprive John James Paul as his Sheep it is so monstrously false an Assertion as none but he that hath sold himself to teach Lyes would ever assert it As for his Syllogism it is most grosly naught as having four terms at least The term hath a preheminence of firmitude and stability before the rest of the building which is founded on it being different from this in the Conclusion had a preheminence over the whole Church and so likewise are these the Foundation and the Foundation of the whole Church and therefore the Major should have been the Foundation of the whole Church hath a preheminence over the whole Church the Minor thus Peter next after Christ is the Foundation of the whole Church and the Conclusion thus Peter next after Christ had a preheminence over the whole Church or else thus The Foundation hath a preheminence of firmitude and stability before the whole Church But Peter next after Christ is the Foundation therefore Peter had a preheminence of firmitude and stability before the whole Church now neither of these Conclusions had been the point to be proved but might have been granted and the Assertion not gained And in the other Metaphor the Syllogism hath the same fault For in the Major it is Head of his Flock and above his Sheep in the Minor it is Pastour of the whole Flock and in the Conclusion not Head of his Flock and above his Sheep but Head of the whole Flock and above all the other Sheep and there is added too this tail of which there is no offer of proof of which number were the rest of the Apostles Now to discover besides the fallacy in the form the deceit in the matter of this Argument it is to be considered 1. That the Metaphor of a Foundation doth not at all import Rule or Government but inchoation and support and therefore is unfit to prove that Rule and Power of Government which H. T. derives from it 2. That he that is a Shepherd is Head or Lord
Faith or Catholick Church but not any longer And this Authour may as some in case of Marriage conceive he is obliged to keep faith with Inâ—idels and yet not with Hereticks And for the determination of the Council of Trent Sess 15. 18. neither durst Protestants then trust to the safe conduct then given and before and since sad instances of Papists perfidiousness have given too much occasion to Protestants to suspect the lurking of a Snake under the grass I mean some hidden deceit under a covert of fair words especially when we consider this Authour a little before counted the definition of the Council of Constance to be of faith Sess 15. 18. In which Sess 19. that Council as it is in Binius hath these words The present holy Synod doth declare that no prejudice to the Catholick faith or to Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction is generated or impediment can be or ought to be made by any safe conduct granted by the Emperour Kings and other secular Princes to Hereticks or defamed of Hereâ—ie thinking so to recall the same from their Errours with whatsoever Bond they have bound themselves but that the said safe conduct notwithstanding it may be lawfull for a competent Judge and Ecclesiastick to inquire of the Errours of such persons and otherwise duly to proceed against them and to punish them as much as justice shall perswade if they shall refuse stifly to revoke their Errours although trusting to their safe conduct they have come to the place of judgement who otherwise would not have come nor doth he that so promiseth when he hath done what lies in him remain obliged by this in any thing Which surely amounted then to as much as this and hath been thousands of times objected by Princes and others that publick faith is not to be kept with Hereticks And how little reason Protestants have to trust Papists not onely the actions of former Papists for a thousand years past but also of late their actings in Ireland Poland Piedmont shew Whom he means by the Popes flatterers or particular Doctors I do not well understand should he call Bellarmine Baronius or such like men so perhaps he may be served as Francis a St. Clara and others were I judge H. T. to be a gross Flatterer in maintaining the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility there being in this tenet no better than blasphemous Antichristian flattery ascribing to some of the worst and oftentimes most ignorant men that which is due to the Son of God And for his Corollary I deny the Major and Minor both sith that may be a true Church which hath neither local personal Succession nor conspicuous Visibility nor such Unity Universality Infallibility Sanctity Power of Miracles Universal Bishop as H. T. requires as necessary to a true Church nor hath he made it plain that these marks do agree to the present Roman Church or Bishop and no other but his mistakes in these are shewed I follow him in the rest ARTIC VIII Unwritten Tradition now no Rule of Faith The unwritten Tradition which H. T. terms Apostolical is not the true Rule of Christian Faith SECT I. The Argument for Apostolical Tradition unwritten as the Rule of Faith from the means of planting and conserving Faith at first is answered H. T. intitles his eighth Article of Apostolical Tradition and saith Our Tenet is That the true Rule of Christian Faith is Apostolical Tradition or a delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles and nothing ought to be received as Faith but what is proved to have been so delivered which we prove thus The first Argument That is now the true Rule of Faith which was the essential means of planting and conserving it at first But oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books was the essential means of planting and conserving it at first therefore oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books is the true Rule of Faith The Major is proved because the Rule of Faith must be immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is The Minor is proved because the first Gospel was not written till eight years after the Death of Christ or thereabouts in which space the Apostles had preached and planted the Faith of Christ in many Nations over almost all the World Add to this that many Ages were passed before all the Books of Scripture were dispersed and accepted for Canonical by the whole Church so that when any difference arose in points of Faith among the Christians of the first Age they were not to inquire what had been written but whether the Apostles so taught Answ THis Doctor whether it be by reason of his ignorance or heedlesness or malignity to the holy Scriptures determines worse than his fellows yea against the Doctrine of the Trent Council and Pope Pius the fourths Bull. For whereas in the Trent Council Sess 4. it is said that the truth and Discipline of Christ and his Apostles is contained in written Books and Traditions without writing and would have both to be received with equal affection and reverence of piety and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull requires the admission of the sacred Scripture and Apostolical Tradition H. T. concludes that written Books are not the true Rule of Faith but oral and Apostolical Tradition If he had said they had not been the entire Rule of Faith he had agreed with the Trent Council and the Popes Bull but now he contradicts them as well as the Protestants and his Argument doth as well conclude that the holy Scripture is no part of the Rule of Faith as that it is not the whole But leaving him to be corrected by his fellows let 's view his Dispute Setting aside his non-sense speech of being received as Faith in stead of being received as the object of Faith and taking Apostolical Tradition to be meant of that which is truly so called I grant his Tenet and say with him that the true Rule of Christian Faith is Apostolical Tradition that is the Doctrine which the Apostles delivered or that delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles and that nothing ought to be received as Faith that is a thing to be believed with a Christian divine Faith which all Christians are bound to believe but what is proved to have been so delivered For though in general any divine revelation is to be the object of Christian Faith by whom or what way soever it be delivered and God hath delivered divers revelations in the Books of the Old Testament which are objects of Faith yet sith now Christ and his Apostles have delivered those divine revelations as the oracles of God and what the Apostles preached and thought needfull for us to know and believe to salvation is written and these Writings are conveyed from father to son by hand to hand we grant the Tenet being meant of them and yield further that if they can
not to do so still why doth this Authour allege Scripture for the Churches Infallibility the Popes Supremacy c. and tells us here pag. 113. There is no better way to decide Controversies than by the Scripture expounded by the Church and according to the Rule of Apostolical Tradition But this is an evidence of Gods infatuating these Romanists that though they have no shew of proof for Peter's Supremacy and consequently the Popes without the Scripture and therefore allege it yet determine it not to be the Rule of Faith and so make void their own proof and the very Rule of Faith which they would fain establish SECT II. Unwritten Traditions are not proved to be the true Rule of Faith from the assurance thereby of the Doctrine and Books of Christ and his Apostles But let us view what he adds A second Argument is That is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of these things But by Apostolical Tradition we may infallibly be assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and by no other means Therefore Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith The Major is manifest because in the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith The Minor is proved because a full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether infallible since sensible evidence in a world of Witnesses unanimously concurring is altogether infallible how fallible soever men may be in their particulars and such a report such an evidence is Apostolical Tradition for all the Doctrinos Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote therefore infallible Answ THe Popish Tenet is that unwritten Traditions of other points than what are in the written Books are the Rule of Faith that so what they cannot prove out of Scripture of Peter's being at Rome being Bishop there Purgatory-fire Invocation of Saints Adoration of the Host mixing Water with Wine in the Eucharist and many more which Popes and Popish Councils obtrude on the Church of God as Apostolical Traditions may be received as Objects of Faith But here H. T. concludes Apostolical Tradition is the true Rule of Faith and proves it of no other Apostolical Tradition but that whereby the Books written are known to be the Apostles which I might grant and yet H. T. gain nothing for his purpose sith Apostolical Tradition may be the true Rule of Faith and yet not Apostolical Tradition unwritten much less that which Popes and Councils call Apostolical Tradition which is every corruption that hath been any long time received in the Roman Church and this Apostolical Tradition infallible that the Books of holy Scripture were written by the holy men whose names they bear and that the things in them related are certain and yet other Traditions of other things not so But to his Argument I say the Major is not true nor is it proved by his reason which in form is this That is the true Rule of Faith in which are contained all things that are of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith The Conclusion which followeth from these premises is not his Major that is the true Rule of Faith by which we may be infallibly assured both what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote and without which we can never be infallibly assured of those things nor the Conclusion set down therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith for these terms that by which we may be assured of the Doctrines or Books the infallible means of knowing them are not the same with the Books or Doctrines in which are contained all things that are of Faith and therefore the Major is not proved but indeed the very Protestant Doctrine which he gainsays is proved unawares thus That in which are contained all things that are of Faith is the true Rule of Faith But in the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are the true Rule of Faith Which proves directly what H. T. denies that the Scripture is the true Rule of Faith and shews that he mistook the means of Faith for the Rule of Faith between which there is manifest difference the means of Faith being any outward or inward efficient principal or instrumental by which a person comes to believe the Rule is that by which we know what we are to believe the same means may be the means of believing contrary things Caiaphas and Balaam may prophesie right things of Israel and be a means of expectation of the Messiab and yet also be a means of laying a stumbling-block to overthrow them A messenger that brings a grant wherein a Prince grants a thing is the means of belief and so is the Seal but the Rule of believing is the words of the grant Thomas his seeing and feeling were the means of his believing Christ's Resurrection but the Rule was Christ's words 2. I deny his Minor For though I grant such a full report as he speaks of is infallible nor do I deny that there is such a a report or such an evidence for all the Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and all the Books they wrote yet I say 1. That this is not the Apostolical Tradition which Papists assert for with them any thing used in their Church a long time and approved by a Pope or a Council confirmed by him is an Apostolical Tradition though it have not such report or evidence 2. That there are other means by which we may be assured what Doctrines Christ and his Apostles taught and what Books they wrote besides this full report as 1. The inward testimony of the holy Spirit 2. The innate characters of the Doctrine and Books themselves foretelling things to come opening the Mysteries of God advancing Gods glory enlightning and converting the soul with many more which shew whos 's the Doctrine and Books were Yet by the way I observe 1. That notwithstanding he makes here such an Infallibility in the report and evidence of sense yet pag. 205. he denies evidence of sense infallible in the Sacrament and thereby overthrows his Position here 2. From his words here I argue against his opinion of Transubstantiation thus A full report from whole worlds of fathers to whole worlds of sons of what they heard and saw is altogether
Scripture or many Protestant ones are not and thus I frame my discourse All Protestant Tenets say you are sufficiently contained in Scripture but many Catholick Doctrines say I denied by Protestants are as evident in Scripture as divers Protestant Tenets therefore many Catholick Doctrines denied by Protestants are sufficiently contained in Scripture He that has hardiness enough to deny this Conclusion let him compare the Texts that recommend the Churches authority in deciding controversies and expounding Articles of Faith with these that support the Protestant private spirit or particular judgement of discretion let him compare the places that favour priestly Absolution with those on which they ground their necessity not to stand upon the lawfulness of Infant-baptism let him compare the passages of the Bible for the real presence of our Saviours body in the Eucharist for the primacy of St. Peter for the authority of Apostolical Traditions though unwritten with what ever he can cite to prove the three distinct persons in the blessed Trinity the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father the procession of the holy Ghost from both the obligation of the Sunday in stead of the Sabbath so expresly commanded in the Moral Law and when he has turned over all his Bible as often as he pleases I shall offer him onely this request either to admit the Argument or teach me to answer it Answ H. T. sure hath a singular eyesight which sees such an evidence in this Argument as that he sees nothing more evident What is not this more evident that the whole is bigger than a part that God made the World that the Word was made Flesh Sure an Argument ad hominem is no demonstration specially when what the man holds at one time upon second and better thoughts he relinquisheth nor is an argument ad hominem fit to establish any truth but somewhat to lessen the opinion of the man who is thereby convinced of holding inconsistencies and therefore the cause is not given into H. T. and his fellows hands that unwritten traditions are a Rule of Faith or that Popish Doctrine is grounded on Scripture because some Protestant tenets have no better proof thence than some Popish tenets denied to be contained in the Scripture But that I may gratifie H. T. as much as in me lieth in his request I tell him The Syllogism is in no Mood or Figure that I know nor if I would examine the form of it do I doubt but that I should finde four terms in it at least and then H. T. it is likely knows his Syâ—logism is naught Nor do I know how to form it better unless it be formed dis-junctively but it belongs not to me to form his Weapons for him To it as I finde it I say that if he mean that all Protestant tenets simply are sufficiently contained in Scripture who ever he be that saith so yet I dare not say so But this I think that all or most of the tenets which the Protestants hold against the Papists in the points of Faith and Worship which are controverted between them are sufficiently contained in the Scripture and all of them ought to be or else they may be rejected And for his Minor I deny it if he mean it of those Protestant tenets in points of Faith which are held by all or those that are avouched by common consent in the harmony of their confessions excepting some about Discipline Ceremonies and Sacraments And for his instances to the first I say I am willing any Reader who reades what is written on both sides in the fifth Article here should judge whether hath more evidence in Scripture the Churches imagined infallible authority in deciding controversies or that each person is to use his own understanding to try what is propounded to be believed without relying on any authority of Pope general Council or Prelates who are never called the Church in Scripture And for the second I do not take it to be a Protestant tenet that Infant-baptism is necessary and for the lawfulness I grant there is as much evidence in Scripture for Priests judiciary sacramental authoritative Absolution as for it that is none at all for either And for the third there are Protestants that grant a real presence of our Saviour's body in the Eucharist as the Lutherans and some Calvinists grant also a real presence to the worthy receiver but not bodily but for the real presence by Transubstantion there is not the least in Scripture of it self as Scotus long ago resolved And for the Primacy of St. Peter it hath been told this Authour that a Primacy of order of zeal and some other endowments is yielded by Protestants but Supremacy of Jurisdiction over the Apostles is denied and it is proved before Article 7. to have no evidence in Scripture And for the authority of Apostolical traditions though unwritten if there were any such truly so called I should not deny it but that there are any such which are a rule of faith now to us he hath not proved in this Article nor brought one Text for it but some far-fetcht Reasons of no validity But I presume his brethren will give him little thanks for gratifying so much the Antitrinitarians Arians Socinians as to yield that those points which are in the Nicene and Athanasius his Creed and were determined in the first general Councils are no better proved from Scripture than Transubstantiation the Popes Supremacy and unwritten Traditions being a Rule of Faith Are not these Texts Matth. 28. 19. 1 John 5. 7. John 1. 1. 1 John 5. 20. and many more which Bellarmine lib. 1. de Christo brings to prove the Trinity of persons the Sons consubstantiality the Spirits procession more evident than this is my Body for Transubstantiation Thou art Peter for the Popes Supremacy and H. T. his Scriptureless reasoning for unwritten Traditions Bellarmine lib. 4. de verbo Dei cap. 11. and elsewhere acknowledgeth the tenets about Gods nature and the union of natures in Christ to be plainly in Scripture As for Sunday being in stead of the Sabbath he should me thinks allow somewhat in Scripture for it Col. 2. 16. Acts 20 7. 1 Cor. 16. 1 2. Revel 1. 10. more evident than for his real presence Peter's Supremacy unwritten Traditions But I see prejudice doth much to sway men and make them see what others cannot The Crow thinks her own Bird fairest Yet again saith H. T. The same Syllogism may with equal evidence be applied to the negative as well as positive Doctrines on either side All Catholick points denied by Protestants are sufficiently say you condemned in Scripture But many points imbraced by Protestants are as clearly say I condemned in Scripture as divers they deny in opposition to Catholicks therefore many points embraced by Protestants are sufficiently condemned in Scripture Where does the Bible so plainly forbid Prayer for the Dead as this darling Errour and fundamental Principle of Protestancy that any one
all their Worship and in their invocating of Saints and Angels as Mediatours to God they are departed from the two great points of Christianity 1 Tim. 2. 5. 1 Cor. 8. 6. Ephes 4. 5 6. and thereby are become Pagans so by their substituting of another Rule of Religion than the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles in their Writings to wit unwritten Traditions which are nothing else but the Determinations of Popes and Councils approved by him they do prove themselves not to be Disciples of Christ which is all one with Christians Acts 11. 26. and accordingly are not to be judged a church of Christ but Papists which name Bellarmine lib. de not is Eccles cap. 4. doth not disown or the Popes Church truly Antichristian SECT VI. Sayings of Fathers and Councils prove not unwritten Traditions a Rule of Faith H. T. recites the sayings of eight Fathers and two Councils for Tradition The first of Irenaus lib. 3. cap. 4. doth not at all prove that we have now unwritten Traditions for a Rule of Faith but that if the Apostles in stead of which fraudulently as I fear H. T. puts If the Fathers had left us no Scripture at all ought we not to follow the order of Tradition which they delivered to whom they committed the Churches To understand which it is to be noted that Irenaeus having proved Valentinus his Doctrines of Aeones or more Gods and Lords than one to be false out of the Scriptures chap. 2. he speaks thus of the Valentinian Hereticks When they are reproved out of Scriptures they are turned into accusation of the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right nor from authority and because they are diversly said and because the truth cannot be found out of these by those who know not Tradition For that truth was not delivered by Letters but by living voice which is the very Plea for Traditions which H. T. here useth for which cause Paul said We speak wisdom among them that are perfect as they took themselves to be and said They were wiser than either Presbyters or Apostles and would neither consent to Scriptures nor Tradition and then cap. 3. shews the Tradition of the Apostles by what was preached in the Churches founded by them and to avoid prolixity refers to Linus Anacletus Clemens at Rome and to Polycarpus and his Successours at Smyrna and after useth the words mentioned chap. 4. which do not at all mention Tradition in all after ages as a Rule but the Tradition from the Apostles to them that knew the Apostles and that onely in the main point of Faith concerning God the Creatour and onely upon supposition there had been no Scripture and that after he had alleged the Scripture to stop the course of Hereticks that declined the Scripture Whence it is apparent 1. That Irenaeus counted Scripture the constant Rule of Faith 2. That he counted Tradition unwritten a Rule onely upon supposition that the Apostles had not left us Scripture 3. No Tradition to be that Rule but what was from men acquainted with Apostles 4. To be used onely in case men were so perverse as to decline Scripture which is our case in dealing with Papists which moved Bishop Jewel in his Sermon at Paul's Cross to offer that if the Papists could prove the Articles then enumerated by antiquity of the first five hundred years after Christ he would subscribe which neither Harding nor Bellarmine nor Perron nor any of the Romanists could or can do The words of Tertullian lib. de praescript advers Haeret. cap. 21. 37. are indeed that the Doctrine is to be held which the Church had from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God But he expresseth how he means it when he saith in the same place But what the Apostles have preached that is what Christ hath revealed to them I will also prescribe that it ought to be no otherwise proved but by the same Churches which the Apostles themselves built they themselves by preaching to them as well by living voice as they say as by Epistles afterwards Which plainly shews that Tertullian mentioned no other Doctrine to be received from the Churches than what the Apostles after wrote nor from any other Churches than those which the Apostles by preaching built by which he means the Corinthian Philippick Thessalonian Ephesian as well as Roman chap. 36. And though he use against Valentinus Marcion and other Hereticks the Tradition of those Churches yet chap. 8. he plainly directs to the Scriptures as the way to finde Christ by using his words to the Jews John 5. 39. Search the Scriptures in which ye hope for salvation for they do speak of me This will be Seek and ye shall finde Which being considered it will appear that Tertullian was far from asserting unwritten Traditions of things not contained in Scripture delivered in these later ages and called Apostolical by Popes and Councils the Rule of Faith Cyprian's words lib. 2. Epist cap. 3. ad Cacilium in some Editions Epist 63. shew his mistake about Traditions as he counted the mingling of Water and Wine in the Eucharist to be the Lord's tradition so he did also Rebaptization in which the Romanists desert him neither shew he held unwritten tradition a Rule of Faith yea arguing against them that used Water without Wine he proves the Lord's tradition out of Scripture and urgeth it against them and though his Reasons be frivolous yet these expressions shew he adhered to the Scripture as his Rule But if it be commanded by Christ and the same be confirmed and delivered by his Apostle that as oft as we drink in commemoration of the Lord we do the same thing which the Lord also did we are found that it is not observed of us which is commanded unless we also do the same things which the Lord did and mingling the Cup in like manner recede not from the divine magistery Again I marvel enough whence this hath been used that against the Evangelical and Apostolical Discipline in some places Water is offered in the Lord's Cup which alone cannot express Christ 's Blood Whence may be perceived that even in Cyprian's days corrupt usages came in by following other Traditions than those that are written In the same Epistle Cyprian adds this remarkable speech Wherefore if Christ alone be to be heard we ought not to attend what any one before us hath thought is to be done but what Christ who is before all neither ought we to follow the custome of a man out the truth of God sith God speaks by the Prophet Esay and saith Without reason do they worship me teaching Mandates and Doctrines of men Origen's words do not prove unwritten Traditions a Rule of Faith when he saith In our understanding Scripture we must not depart from the first Ecclesiastical tradition Tract 27. in cap. 23. St. Matthai nor Athanasius when he saith This Doctrine we have demonstrated to have been delivered from hand to hand by
of the Roman Church or Popes or oecumenical Councils Infallibility 88 4. None of these Texts Matth. 28. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Matth. 16. 18. John 14 26. John 16. 13. Acts 15. 28. do prove the Infallibility in Points of Faith of the Catholick or Roman Church or the Pope or a general Council approved by him 90 5. There may be good assurance of the Word of God and its meaning and of our Salvation without supposing the Churches Infallibility 93 6. Neither can the Church oblige men under Pain of Damnation to believe her Definitions of Faith nor is there any such Judicature as H. T. asserts to be ascribed to her nor do any of the Fathers words cited by H. T. say it is the words of Irenaeus Cyprian lib. 1. Epist 3. August contr Epist Fundam cap. 5. c. are shewed not to be for it but some of them plainly against it 97 7. The Objections from Scripture and Reason against the Infallibility which H. T. ascribes to the Church are made good against his Answers 106 8. The Objections of Protestants against the Churches Infallibility from Fathers and Councils are vindicated from H. T. his Answers 124 ARTICLE VI. THe Roman Church is not demonstrated to be the true Church by her sanctity and Miracles 131 Sect. 1. The Texts brought by H. T. to prove that the true Church is known by sanctity and Miracles are shewed to be impertinent ibid. 2. The sanctity of men in former Ages proves not the holiness of the present Roman Church 132 3. The imagined holiness of Benedict Augustine Francis Dominick proves not the verity of the now Roman church 134 4. The Roman church is not proved to be the true church by the holiness of its Doctrine but the contrary is true 136 5. The Devotion of the Romanists shews not the holiness of the Roman church it being for the most part will-worship and Pharisaical hypocrisie 139 6. The power of working Miracles is no certain mark of the true church 143 7. The Popish pretended Miracles prove not the truth of their church nor the Miracles related by some of the Fathers 144 8. The Objections against the proof of the verity of the Roman church from the Power of Miracles are not solved by H. T. 147 ARTICLE VII THe Pope's or Bishop of Rome's Supremacy or Headship of the whole church is not proved by H. T. 151 Sect. 1. Neither is it proved nor probable that Peter was Bishop of Rome or that he was to have a Successour ibid. 2. From being the Foundation Matth. 16. 18. and feeding the Sheep of Christ John 21. 16 17. neither Peter's nor the Pope's Supremacy is proved 152 3. The Text Matth. 16. 18. proves not any Rule or Dominion in Peter over the Apostles but a Promise of special success in his Preaching 156 4. John 21. 16 17 18. proves not Peter's Supremacy over the whole church 159 5. Peter's charge to confirm his Brethren Luke 22. 31. and his priority of nomination prove not his Supremacy 161 6. The late Popes of Rome are not Successours of Peter 164 7. The Sayings of Fathers and Councils prove not Peter's or the Popes Supremacy 165 8. The holy Scriptures John 19. 11. Acts 25. 10 11. Luke 22. 25. 1 Cor. 3. 11. overthrow the Pope's Supremacy 169 9. Cyprian Hierome Gregory the councils of Constantinople Chalcedon Nice are against the Pope's Supremacy 176 10. Of the Emperours calling Councils Pope Joan Papists killing Princes excommunicate not keeping faith with Hereticks 18◠ARTICLE VIII THe unwritten Tradition which H. T. terms Apostolical is not the true Rule of Christian Faith 187 Sect. 1. The Argument for Apostolical tradition as the Rule of Faith from the means of planting and conserving Faith at first is answered ibid. 2. Unwritten traditions are not proved to be the true Rule of Faith from the assurance thereby of the Doctrine and Books of Christ and his Apostles 190 3. The obligation of the church not to deliver any thing as a Point of Faith but what they received proves not unwritten Tradition a Rule of Faith 191 4. Counterfeits even in Points of Faith might and did come into the church under the name of Apostolick tradition without such a force as H. T. imagines necessary thereto 195 5. The Romanists can never gain their cause by referring the whole trial of Faith to the arbitrement of Scripture but will be proved by it to have revolted from Christianity 198 6. Sayings of Fathers and Councils prove not unwritten Traditions a Rule of Faith 202 7. Objections from Scripture for its sufficiency without unwritten Traditions are vindicated from H. T. his Answers 205 8. H. T. solves not the Objections from Reason for the Scriptures sufficiency without unwritten Traditions 212 ARTICLE IX PRotestants in not holding communion with the Roman church as now it is in their worship in not subjecting themselves to the Pope as their visible Head in denying the new Articles of the Tridentin Council and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull are neither guilty of Schism nor Heresie But Papists by ejecting them for this cause and seeking to impose on them this subjection are truly Schismaticks and in holding the Articles which now they do are Hereticks 220 Sect. 1. H. T. his Definitions of Schism and Heresie are not right ibid. 2. Protestants are not proved to be Sectaries by the first beginning of Reformation 221 3. The Sayings of Fathers prove not Protestants Hereticks or Schismaticks 224 4. H. T. hath not solved the Objections acquitting Protestants from Schism and Heresie and condemning Papists 226 FINIS Ecclesia Christi est quae luscipit à Christo doctrinam seu cujus fides sundatur authoritate Christi Thomas Whitsonus Bucci Tract 1. Sect. 7. Watson quodlib p. 252 260 343.
when Athanasius and others were not And he might have so interpreted the Speeches he allegeth of Hospinian and the rest I have not all the Books he citeth but some of their words I finde not as this Author would have them Bishop Jewel having said pag. 208. And to be short all the World this day crieth and groaneth after the Gospel adds And all these things are come to pass at such time as to any mans reason it might seem impossible when all the World the People Priests and Princes were overwhelmed with ignorance when all Schools Priests Bishops and Kings of the World were sworn to him that whatsoever he took in hand they would uphold it Which Speeches are to be understood onely of the Western Empire as when it is said Luke 2. 1. A Decree went out that all the World should be taxed it is meant onely of the Roman Empire and when John 12. 19. The World is gone after him it is meant by an Hyperbole of a great part so the words of Bishop Jewel are to be understood as is usual in such rhetorical expressions though the words are not as this Authour sets them down that the whole World Princes Priests and People were bound by Oath to the Pope Jewel Serm. on Luke 11. In like manner when Calvin saith lib. 4. instit c. 18. sect 18. that the abominations of the Mass presented to drink in a golden Cup hath so made drunk all the Kings and People of the Earth from the first to the last he alluding to the words Revel 18. 3. is to be conceived as in that Scripture and many more to be understood by an excess of Speech a great part in comparison of whom the rest are as if they were not To the same purpose were the words of Perkins Exposition of the Creed vol. 1. pag. 260. col 2. c. as the whole period recited shews which is this And during the space of nine hundred years from the time of Boniface the Popish Heresie to wit of the Popes Supremacy spread it self over the whole Earth and the faithfull Servants of God were but as an Handfull of Wheat in a Mountain of Chaff which can scarce be discerned The next words of Dr. White himself in the same period shews his meaning to be of freedom wholly and of appearing conspicuously and to the World visibly to be seen by all and separated from the rest For thus it follows And whether any company at all known or unknown were free from it wholly or not I neither determine nor greatly care Nor do I question but that the same is the meaning of the rest if their words were rightly cited and the Reader might perceive how they are wrested by H. T. against their meaning and they wrote those expressions in like meaning with those passages of holy Scripture which complain of corruption as universal when the greatest or most conspicuous part are so as Psalm 12. 1. Micah 7. 2. Phil. 2. 21. SECT II. The Argument of H. T. to prove the nullity of the Protestant Churches for want of Succession is turned against the Roman Church H. T. further argues thus Without a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same Faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time a continued Succession cannot be had But Protestants have no continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another from Christ and his Apostles to this time in the profession of the same Faith or Tenets the nine and thirty Articles or any other set number of Tenets expresly holding and denying all the same points Therefore Protestants have no continued Succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time The Major is manifest because it proceeds from the Definition to the thing defined The Minor is proved because Protestants have never yet been able nor ever will to assign any such number of men whom they have succeeded in their nine and thirty Articles or Luther in his Augustan Confession when he revolted from the Catholick Church no nor yet any one single Diocese or Biscop Answ 1. THis Argument is thus justly retorted Without a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same Faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time a continued Succession cannot be had But Papists have no continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another from Christ and his Apostles to this time in the profession of the same Faith or Tenets the Canons of the Trent Council the Articles in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth or any other set number of Tenets expresly holding and denying all the same points therefore Papists have no continued Succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time The Major is manifest because it proceeds from the Definition to the thing defined The Minor is proved because Papists have never yet been able nor ever will to assign any such number of men whom they have succeeded in their Trent Canons and the Articles of the Creed injoyned to be professed and sworn to in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth If any man pretend to such a Catalogue let him name none but such as held explicitely the Doctrine of the Tridentin Canons the Roman Catechism the Articles of the Creed injoyned by Pope Pius the fourth his Bull all granting and denying the same points that the late Faction of Romanists or Italian popish Sectaries granted and denied or that our new Reformers the Jesuites deny and grant for if they differ from them in any one material point they cannot be esteemed Catholiks Let him not name Christ John Baptist Peter Paul or any the Apostles or the Roman Church in their days For they did not admit and embrace the now called Apostolick Ecclesiastick traditions unwritten and other observances and constitutions of the Roman Church nor held it the right of the Roman Church to define the true sense and interpretation of holy Scripture to be received by all nor truly and properly seven Sacraments of the new Law instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ and necessary to the salvation of mankinde nor allowed the received Rites of the Roman Church used in solemn administration of all the Sacraments nor all the things which concerning original sin and justification were defined and declared in the Council of Trent nor did acknowledge that in the Mass is offered to God a true proper and propitiatory Sacrifice for the quick and the dead and that in the holy Eucharist is truly really and substantially the body and blood with the soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ and that there is made a conversion of the whole substance of the bread into his body and of the whole substance of the wine into his blood which conversion the Roman Church calleth Transubstantiation nor that under one kinde onely all and whole Christ and the true Sacrament is received nor that there is a Purgatory
not fail but be in some place or other more or less conspicuous in greater or smaller numbers yet it is not proved that the church militant definite of this or that place shall not fail nor is there a word in Scripture to prove this the priviledge of the Roman church or those that are in communion with the See of Rome that they cannot fail nor erre in faith nor do the words of Fathers rightly understood prove it But Scripture and experience do plainly refute it What hath been alleged is examined the rest will be in its place I proceed to that which remains in this Article Object The Catholick succession was one succession for the first five centuries Answ You may as well tell me of a white blackmore a Catholick is not a Protestant nor a Catholick succession a Protestant succession Who ever heard of a Protestant Pope The Catholick church was always governed by a Pope in the first five centuries as now it is and hath defined our tenets and condemned yours as you have seen It is the very essence of a Protestant as a Protestant to protest against the Catholick church as Lutherans and you have done To this I reply To an objection of such moment as this is the answer is but meer trifling For he knows that we mean by catholick succession not that which he calls catholick succession to wit of Popes of Rome but that the teachers who are reputed catholick whether of the Greek or Latin churches who have succeeded one after another in the five first centuries of years from Christs incarnation according to the account now used taught not the doctrine now professed in the Bull of Pope Pius the fourth or in the Tridentin canons but that in all or most of the points in difference between Protestants and Papists they taught the doctrine which Protestants now hold which hath been proved by Jewel and many other Protestant writers And in this sense it is no more absurdity to call a Protestant a catholick then to call a spade a sapde a straw a straw Protestants are truely Catholicks Papists are but falsly called Catholicks affecting the name as some that were of the Synagogue of Satan said they were Jews and were not but did lye Revel 3. 9. and impudently claiming that which they have no right to that they may be it as a stalking horse catch ignorant people who are taken with shews and confident talk being unable to sift out truth and discern it from pretences A Catholick succession is in true construction a Protestant succession and the Popes of Rome it self Protestant Popes teaching in such writings as remain not the now Papal doctrine but in the main the Protestant though by some of them excessively magnifying their See and promoting rites of mens invention way was made for the after corruptions of the Papacy The term Pope was in former times given to other Bishops Presbyters yea and Deacons too besides the Bishop of Rome though now the title is appropriated to him who deserves not the name of Papa or Father as it was heretofore used as an honourable title of the reverend and godly teachers and officers in the church of God nor any other way I know except it be in the sense in which an Italian said of Innocent the eighth Octo nocens pueros genuit totidemque puellas Hunc merito poteris dicere Roma patrem Many of whose predecessors and successors have made it their work to advance their bastards rather then beget children to God by preaching the Gospel It is a notorious falshood that the catholick church was alwayes governed by a Pope in the first five centuries if he mean by Pope a Bishop of Rome It s manifest by many instances that the African and Asian churches were not governed by him in the second third fourth and fifth centuries sith they did oppose him as appears by the contentions between Victor and Polycrates and others That which we have seen in H. T. or Bellarmin or any other writer of the Popish party hath not yet made it so much as probable that the Catholick church hath now defined the now Roman tenets or condemned the Protestants nor is it of the essence of a Protestant as such to Protest against the Catholick church but against the errors and abominations of the now Roman party Nor hath H. T. or any other proved that the Protestant teachers protest against manifest revealed verities and the very fundamentals of the Christian faith however they do protest against the fundamentals of the new Popish faith the Popes monarchy transubstantiation c. H. T. adds St. Augustin St. Hierom and many others are divided in their opinions whether Linus or Clement immediately succeeded Peter Answ Be it so yet they all agreed in this that the succession was morally continued to which it is a thing indifferent whether Clement immediately succeeded him as he well might being his scholar or first Linus then Cletus and then Clement which is now the more common opinion of the church I reply what he means by morally continued I understand not nor know I any sense of that speech which serves to take away the force of the objection which is that if it be uncertain who succeeded Peter immediately then the tradition of the church unwritten or not written in the Bible is uncertain and that too in a main point which is fundamental with the Romanists the succession of their chief Pastors upon which the truth of their church and the rule of their faith depends and consequently the rule of the Romanists whereby to know what we are to believe hath a meer sandy foundation not being sufficient to build a divine and firm faith upon and the Protestants are no more to be blamed than the Romanists if they do not so exactly set down and prove their succession of Bishops as the Papists require sith the Papists themselves are deficient in their own catalogue and if the Protestants can prove their faith out of Scripture though they prove not such a succession as is demanded they may as well be concluded a true church as the Roman which answers the two first Articles of H. T. his Manual of controversies Besides the most ancient tradition they have to wit Irenaeus l. 3. adver haeres c. 3. saith that Peter and Paul founded the church in Rome and then delivered the Episcopacy of the church to be administred to Linus which was done in their life time and so Linus did not succeed Peter as Bishop of Rome for he was Bishop while Peter lived and so if Peter died Bishop of Rome there were more Bishops together and Irenaeus makes them successors of Paul as well as Peter nor were they successors to them as having the same office with them For they could not be Bishops of particular places fixed there as now the term is used it stood not with their commission which enjoyned them to go into all the world and to
preach the Gospel to every creature nor were they successors to them in their Apostleship for that particular office ceased with the first Apostles So that the truth is this conceit of succession is but a vain conceit though it be much magnified by H. T. and other Romanists for want of solid proof of their several doctrins out of Scripture or primitive antiquity I go on to the next Article ARTIC III. Popish Church visibility not necessary Such visibility of Succession as the Romanists require is not proved to be necessary to the being of a true Church SECT 1. Exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministers is not necessary to the being of a visible Church what H. T. requires of Ministers preaching and administring Sacraments is most defective in the Roman Church Our Tenet saith H. T. is that the Catholick and Apostolick Church of God hath had not onely a continued but also a visible Succession from Christ to this time c. which we prove thus 1. A Society of men which hath always in it exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministers preaching baptizing and administring Sacraments must of necessity be always visible But the Church of Christ is a society of men which hath always in it exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministere Therefore the Church of Christ must of necessity be always visible The Major is proved by evident reason because those are all outward and sensible actions which are inconsistent with an invisible society of actors The Minor is proved by Scripture Go ye teaching all Nations baptizing them c. And Behold I am with you all days c. St. Matth. 28. v. 20. He gave some Apostles some Prophets some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors to the consummation of the Saints Ephes 4. 11 12. Answ THe Tenet and the Conclusion of the Argument differ the Tenet asserting what hath been the Conclusion what of necessity must be the Tenet having for its Subject the holy Catholick and Apostolick Church of God the Conclusion the Church of Christ indefinite and both Tenet and Conclusion is granted but not in this Author's and other Romanists sense It is granted there hath been a Succession but not a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same Faith meaning the now Roman from Christ and his Apostles to this time which H. T. in the former Article makes the Definition of Succession And visibility of each particular Church is granted but not of the Catholick as Catholick which as such is to be believed not seen And this visibility it is granted to be of some at some times not in the same splendor or conspicuity at all times nor to all persons But Protestants deny it visible always to all in so glorious and conspicuous an estate as Bellarmine asserts when he saith in his Book de Eccles Milit. cap. 2. That the Church is an Assembly of men so visible and palpable as is the Assembly of the People of Rome or the Kingdom of France or the Common-wealth of the Venetians so that we might grant his Tenet and Conclusion were it not that fraudulently there is more intended than is expressed which is needfull to be discovered For answer to it as it is the Major is granted if it be understood of visibility simply but if meant of such a conspicuous visibility as the Romanists assert it is to be denied In the Minor it is to be observed 1. That a distinction is made between exterior Consecration and Ordination which I judge to be done that thereby may be implied the distinction of Bishops who are consecrated not ordained from Presbyters whom they ordain not consecrate to have been always in the Church of Christ which is not right 2. That it is asserted that the Church of Christ is a society of men which hath always in it exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministers which is because he holds a true Church hath always such Ministers But as I said before that is not true no not in the Church of Rome in the vacancy of the See which hath been sometimes long and therefore it is not necessary to the being of a true Church that always the exterior Consecration and Ordination be continued and if it may be intermitted one two or ten years and yet the Church a true Church it may be an hundred and therefore the Minor is not to be granted if meant of exterior Consecration and Ordination of Bishops distinct from Presbyters and such a perpetuity as is without the least intermission nor do any of the Texts prove it For the Precept Matth. 28. 19 20. proves onely it ought to be not that it shall be and the Promise if it do prove that a Succession shall be yet it doth not prove such a Succession as shall have exterior Consecration and Ordination but such assistance in Preaching and Baptizing as shall uphold and prosper them in that Work nor is this assured to any one place but indefinitely to any persons in any place where this Work shall be continued And the other place Ephes 4. 11 12. proves not a certainty of the event which is asserted in the Minor but if the Gift be meant of Institution of what ouâ—ht to be it notes onely a certainty of Duty if of Donation of Abilities it notes not an exterior Consecration and Ordination but an act to be immediately from Christ himself or by his Spirit and so doth not prove a futurity of such Succession by outward Consecration and Ordination as H. T. brings it for Nevertheless this Author doth disadvantage his own party by this argâ—ing For 1. by this arguing he plainly makes the marks of the Church by which it is visible Preaching Baptizing and administring Sacraments which doth by good consequence infer that the Protestants do rightly make the Preaching of the Word and the administring of the Sacraments the notes of the visible Church which will make well for the Protestants by whom these are observed but ill for the Ministers of the Roman Church chiefly the Bishops of Rome who neither preach nor baptize nor administer Sacraments but do other acts of other kindes Nor to speak truth is almost any of their Preaching the Preaching of the Gospel but the Rites of the Roman Church extolling the Virgin Mary and other Saints excellency little of the Gospel or if any part of it it is likely the History of the Gospel in an historical fashion little of the mystery but in stead thereof such Doctrines of humane satisfactions for sin merit of good works are preached as do overthrow the Gospel And for Baptizing though Bellarmine tells us lib. 2. de bonis oper in partic cap. 17. that at Rome the old Custome is not abolished of Baptizing the Catechumeni at Easter but among the Papists chiefly in the City of Rome there is no year in which many catechized persons are not baptized at Easter yet the truth is there is
and infallibility in matters of faith yet were they each consonant to other in all their doctrines of faith and whatever was taught by any of them was stedfastly believed by all I reply H. T. saith in his Epistle to the reader that it is agreed by all parties that Christ our Lord hath founded and built a Church in his own blood which was the onely Mâ—stris of divine faith and sole repository of all revealed truths at least for an age or two which if true then the Apostles were in that age to depend on their decrees But here he eats his words in the Epistle the Church was the sole Mistris of divine faith here the Church was to depend on the Apostles as on the first masters and proposers of faith How these hang together I understand not That which he saith here of the Apostles is very true understanding by masters not Lords but teachers The Church neither now nor in any age was Mistris of faith it is not the Church in right sense that is the teacher or propounder of divine truths but the learner It is the meer sophistry of Papists to term the Pope and Prelates the Church and to call a hundred or two of Bishops some of them meer titulars without any Diocesse such as never knew what the office of a Bishop was nor ever preached the Gospel to any people the Catholick Church The concession that the Apostles had each of them a peculiar prerogative of divine assistance and infallibility in matters of faith proves that this was not Peters prerogative and if it were a peculiar prerogative to each Apostle then it descends not to any successors and so by this Authors own words the infallibility of the Pope or council is a meer figment Nor is infallibility to be sought from any but Christ and his Apostles doctrin who do still propound matters of divine faith to us in the holy Scriptures Nor hath the Church of Rome any more priviledge of keeping or conveying to us the truths revealed by the Apostles then that at Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Alexandria or any other which the Apostles founded and therefore Ireneus Tertullian and such of the Fathers as direct us to repair to the Apostolick Churches for establishment against hereticks direct us to other Churches where the Apostles preached besides the Roman It is further objected the Church hath now no new revelations nor can â—he make now any new points of faith therefore we are not bound to believe her definitions H. T. Answers I grant the antecedent but deny the consequence for though she can make no new points yet she can explicate the old and render that clear which was before obscure and can define against new herefies I reply The grant of the antecedent is sufficient to prove that if the Church as it is termed teach any other points of faith then were revealed to the Apostles we are not bound to believe her definitions and consequently she must prove her definitions by Apostolical tradition and not only say they are Apostolical ere we are bound to believe them it being still to be heeded which Paul saith Gal. 1. 8. If he or an Angel from heaven or any man preach I may adde or believe any other Gospel then what was preached by Paul and received by the Galatians he is accursed and consequently each person is to examine and judge for himself whether that which is preached or defined for him to believe by Pope or council agree with the Apostles Gospel or no and if the Church can onely explicate the old then an heresie cannot be made by a council which was not before and if Pope John the two and twenteth his tenet condemned in the council of Constance were heresie after the council condemned it it was so before contrary to what Bellarmin saith l. 4. de Rom pontif c. 14. and it follows he that can best explicate the old and render it clear which was before obscure hath the best title to infallibility and if the Church or Pope have no new revelations then he must explicate by study and so not by prerogative of his chair but by ability in languages arts and other knowledge in which if he have lesse knowledge as certainly some if not all the Popes for a thousand years have had one of them as Alpâ—onsus a Castro saith not understanding Grammer and one of them being necessitated to substitute another to do divine offices for him by reason of his ignorance in literature there is lesse reason to adhere to their explications then to others who have more skill therein Arias Montanus Vatablus and such other learned men are to be relied more upon for explications and definitions in points of faith then the Pope or Bishops if they be such as were in the Trent council of whom it is manifest by Frier Pauls history of that council that there were scarce any of them learned in the Scriptures especially in the main point of the Gospel concerning justification by faith then it is unjust to tye men to follow the Fathers who had lesse skill then others in interpreting Scripture as the learned of the Roman party do often shew in their writings then did Innocent the third ill to make a new point of faith in defining transubstantiation which was but an opinion before as Scotus and Tâ—nstal have asserted then it is monstrous tyranny beyond all that ever any tyrants before practised to burn to death men women children old and young Bishops and Noblemen for not holding it then are the Popâ—s and Popish party guilty of shedding a sea of blood in England France Belgia Germany Italy Spain Poland and elsewhere for denying transubstantiation the Popes supremacy and such other new tenets as Popes have thrust on the Christian Churches then hath Pope Pius the fourth done wickedly in imposing on men a new Creed and Popish Doctors do ill in justifying it and not opposing it But is not this a mockery to say the Church may not do it and yet they do it and H. T. avoucheth it what else are their tenents of receiving the eucharist under one kinde of worshipping images of purgatory invocation of Saints indulgences service in an unknown tongue monastick vows with many more but new points of faith and is it not all one to make new points of faith as by authority onely without any agreeablenesse to the meaning of the words so to explicate the Scriptures as that they shall be wrested to maintain that which is not there taught and that condemned as heresie which is not contrary to them Rightly said Chillingworth Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. num 1. Tyranny may be established as well by a power of interpreting laws as by making them and so doth the power of Rome set up the greatest tyranny that ever was in the world by usurping this vast power of being an infallible interpreter of Gods laws though in their Prefaces to their corrected editions of their
used some of them perhaps fell out according to the course of such diseases as are said to be cured that of the healing of two Cappadocians hath too much suspicion of counterfeiting and Augustin himself though he relates somethings of his own knowledge yet makes none of them like the miracles of Christ and his Apostles which were more frequent and open and manifest in the presence of the adversaries as the raising of Lazarus and many more were and therefore he allegeth them for the stopping of their mouths who called for miracles rather then for any evident proof of religion using this very preface in the beginning of the Chapter Why say they are not those miracles now done which ye say have been done I may say indeed they were necessary before the world should believe for this that the world might believe Whosoever as yet seeks after prodigies that he may believe is himself a great prodigy who the world believing believes not But whatever be to be thought of the relations of Augustin in that place certain it is that Augustin ch 9 10. useth them not to give testimony to the confirmation either of the truth of the Roman Church or any of their doctrines nor for the worshipping of Stephen the Martyr or any other of the Saints but only to prove the resurrection of Christ to which they in their death gave testimony and therefore are all impertinent to the purpose of H. T. to prove the verity of the Roman Church by them SECT VIII The objections against the proof of the verity of the Roman Church from the power of miracles are not solved by H. T. But H. T. takes on him to answer objections thus Ob. Miracles have ceased ever since Christ and his Apostles Answ You contradict the plain promises of Christ made to his Church without limitation as also the histories and records of all Christendom I Reply 1. The objection is not as H. T. frameth it but that so frequent and manifest working of miracles as was in the days of Christ and his Apostles and which may be a note of the true Church or doctrine without consonancy to the Scripture hath ceased and therefore by this mark of it self the Roman Church is not proved to be the true Church 2. The contradictory to this is not proved by Christs promises or the Churches records For 1. The Promises John 14. 10. Mark 16. 17. are indefinite in respect of persons and time and an indefinite proposition is true in a contingent matter if verified but of some at some times and therefore these promises may be true of some believers onely and of the time wherein the Apostles lived and consequently by the promises it cannot be proved that there must be a power of working miracles in the Church in every age 2. That they cannot be understood of any age after the Apostles unto this day is manifest because they are not true of any age after that For however some miracles have been done yet not greater then Christ did which is promised John 14. 10. nor was the speaking with new tongues which is promised Mark 16. 17. in any age but that in which the Apostles lived 3. These promises are as much made to believers in other Churches as the Roman but now they grant there 's no power of Miracles in any other Church and therefore they must yield to understand the words with such a limitation as may make the Proposition true though there be no power of Miracles in the Roman Church 4. There 's no promise of the power of Miracles to confirm the truth of the Roman Church nor of any other point but the Christian faith and therefore none of the Miracles done by virtue of those promises prove the truth of the now Roman Church or Doctrine but onely the true faith which is believed by Protestants who believe the Creed as well as Papists As for the Records there are very few of them of any certainty after the Apostles days and Popish Writers themselves do confess that not onely in their Legends but also in their Liturgies fabulous things have crept so that by saying Miracles are altogether now ceased or else are very rare and are unfit to demonstrate the verity of any present Church is no contradicting Christ's promises or any good Records of Christendom H. T. adds Object Signs and Miracles were given to Unbelievers not to Believers therefore they are now unnecessary Answ No they are not for they very much confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church they excellently demonstrate his omnipotence and there be many disbelievers still the more is the pity I reply that Tongues are for a sign to them that believe not is the Apostles saying 1 Cor. 14. 22. not for them that believe and there is the same reason of other Miracles and therefore is this justly urged by Protestants that to believers to prove the truth of Christian Doctrine or of the Christian Church Miracles are unnecessary Now the Answer of H. T. is quite from the point when he tells us that they are necessary for other ends And yet it is not true that Signs and Miracles are necessary to confirm the immediate care and providence of God over his Church sith God doth by his ordinary provision either of Teachers or Christian Princes shew his immediate care and providence over his Church and by his daily works of the motion of the Sun and other acts of governing the World demonstrates his omnipotence nor by his Miracles and Signs hath he shewed so much his immediate care and providence over his Church for the guiding and protecting of them as his care of unbelievers by bringing them into his Church And it is true that there are many dis-believers still the more 's the pity and if God did see it good it would be a blessed hing if he did vouchsafe the gift of doing Miracles to convert the Indians Moors Tartars to the faith of Christ and we wish it were true which the Jesuits boast of Francis Xavier his Miracles in the East Indies though Franciscus a victoria relect 5. Sect. 2. and Josephus Acosta lib. 4. de Indorum salute cap. 4. 12 Blab out that which gives us cause to think that the Relations are but feigned things tending to magnifie the Pope and the Jesuits there being no such evidence of those things from any persons of credit who have traded or travelled into those parts But be they what they will it is certain God never intended Miracles to prove the Popes Supremacy or the verity of the Roman Church but the Christian faith and therefore till both or either of them be proved from Scripture if we be disbelievers we must be disbelievers still knowing this that if there should be never so great Miracles in shew done by Popes or Friers yet we are bound not to believe them without proof of their Doctrine from Scripture and that if any though an Angel from
thou me more than thou lovest them or more than they love me And this probably was put to him to minde him of his former forward Profession and shamefull denial 2. That Christ made Peter a Head or gave him a supreme Dominion under the term of Feeding But 1. The words are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies not to rule but onely to provide pasture or to eate as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also doth Jude 12. being intransitive both of them where they are enjoyned to Apostles Bishops or Presbyters note teaching not imposing Laws on persons excommunicating depriving and such like acts as Popes claim as belonging to them as Pastours as may appear by viewing the places Ephes 4. 11 12 13 14 15 16. 1 Pet. 5. 1 2 3. Acts 20. 28 29 30 31. Mark 6. 34. 1 Pet. 2. 25. and therefore if it prove Supremacy of Power Jurisdiction and Government in Peter it proves every Bishop and Presbyter to be also a supreme Head and Governour over the Church of God 2. That Peter had no such Headship of Government and Jurisdiction given him in those words John 21. 17 18. is proved by the description of the persons to whom these acts of feeding were to done they are the little Lambs and Sheep of Christ not Goats now to the Lambs and Sheep of Christ no act of lordly rule such as imposing Laws excommunicating depriving or the like acts in which the Pope placeth his power of Jurisdiction could be lawfully done nor did Peter any such acts but teaching them being guides to them directing exhorting and comforting them which the Pope regards not to do were to be done to them Wherefore it is plain that lordly rule was not appointed by Christ but fatherly care and tenderness in that injunction and that which Christ enjoyned in his Commission to Peter is that which the Pope neither regards to do noâ— thinks it his work but another thing to wit princely dominion which Christ forbade 3. The third thing supposed is that because the terms are indefinite my Lambs my Sheep therefore he meant all his Lambs and Sheep even the whole Catholick Church which if true then it is false which Paul saith Gal. 2 7. that the Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to him and the Gospel of the circumcisiou unto Peter and vers 9. James and Cephas and John did sin against Christ's command in giving to Paul and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Heathen and James Cephas and John to the Circumcision and Paul did ill to style himself the Teacher of the Gentiles 1 Tim. 2. 6. and he should have boasted in another mans line or rule 2 Cor. 10. 15. sith all places had been within Peter's line or rule and he did ill to say Rom. 15. 15. that the grace of God was given to him that he should be the Minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and never mention Peter's Supremacy no not in that very Epistle which he wrote to the Church of Rome so much as once naming him who was if Papists say true the Universal Bishop and Bishop of Rome and sate there at that time when he wrote that Epistle nor doth Paul salute him when he salutes many of less note As for that which H. T. infers from the not exempting of any therefore he comprehends all the Sheep and Lambs of Christ it is very frivolous For an indefinite term is not all one with an universal unless the matter so require it but in such kinde of speecheâ— as these it notes onely indefinite particulars as Gal. 2. 10. they agreed that we should remember the poor that is so many as we could and when Christ bids Matth. 10. 8. Heal the sick cleanse the lepers raise the dead it is meant without exceeption of any yet not an injunction to heal every individual or to raise every dead person but such as there was occasion of healing and raising And when Mark 16. 15. the Apostles are bid to preach the Gospel to every creature the Command is to preach to any one without exception yet not to every individual which had been impossible so here Peter is bid to feed any indefinitely yet not all universally which had been an impossible task 4. It is supposed that John 21. 16 17. was a Commission conferring power authority rule and that over the very Apostles themselves and that as a privilege conferred on Peter for his special dilection of Christ Whereas the thing enjoyned him is work requiring skill and care not dignity or authority of empire and hath nothing in it of jurisdiction as a Judge or Commander but of faithfulness and diligence as a servant and guide And in this the Apostles were equal to him H. T. himself confesseth here pag. 97. The Apostles were equal in their calling to the Apostleship to which this of feeding the Sheep of Christ belonged and therefore Peter reckons himself but a fellow Elder and requires other Elders to feed as well as himself 1 Pet. 5. 1 2. Acts 20. 28. the Elders of Ephesus are appointed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to feed the Church of God which is as large an exppression as is John 21. 16 17. and therefore doth infer as much Headship in them as in Peter And Paul counted himself not behinde the very chiefest Apostles 2 Cor. 12. 11. and Peter added to â—im nothing Gal. 2. 6. and therefore Paul derived nothing from him but was equal to him And to bid Peter to feed the Apostles had been to bid him feed the Shepherds The Doctrine of the Gospel is not termed the Doctrine of Peter but of the Apostles in common Acts 2. 41. even when Peter had converted persons and they were together nor did they go to preach with Peter as their Shepherd or by his direction but by agreement Gal. 2. 9. yea they sent Peter to Samaria Acts 8. 14. nor was this work of Feeding John 21. 16. 17. a privilege conferred on Peter for his special dilection but a task enjoyned to him because of his more open denial three times charged on him as he thrice denied Christ and used as a stay of Peter's weakness rather than a mark of his worthiness much less a proof of his Supremacy SECT V. Peter's charge to confirm his Brethren and his priority of nomination prove not his Supremacy THe second Argument of H. T. is this He that is by Gods appointment to confirm others in the faith and is generally set bâ—fore others in the Scripture must needs be greater than those others in power and dignity But St. Peter by our Saviour's own appointment was to confirm the Apostles in the faith and is generally preferred before them all in the holy Scriptures therefore St. Peter was above the rest of the Apostles in power and dignity and therefore the Head and Primate of the rest Answ The Conclusion it self might
prove there are Traditions truly Apostolical besides those which are written and this Tradition that those Books which we call holy Scripture are divine Writings we will embrace them as things to be believed But then 1. We say it is manifest that in the Apostles days there were Traditions put on the Apostles which were not theirs 2 Thess 2. 1. 2. That the Apostolical Tradition written is sufficient for faith to salvation 3. That unwritten Traditions are uncertain and much corrupted 4. That there is no certain Rule to know which are Apostolical Traditions but by the Scripture or Apostolical Writings 5. That neither the Popes nor Church of Rome nor general Councils determination is a sufficient assurance of Apostolical Tradition unwritten 6. That therefore to us now the holy Scripture is the onely Rule of Christian faith and life And to the Argument of H. T. I answer 1. By denying the Major giving this as a Reason because the means of planting and conserving faith though it were the essential means yet is not the rule of faith necessarily there being great difference between these two The means of faith is any way God useth to beget it as by dreams visions the speech of Balaam's Ass his Prophecy Caiaphas Prophecy the Star which guided the Wise-men Matth. 2. the Wives good conversation 1 Pet. 3. 1. yet these are not the Rule of Faith but the divine revelation it self And if it were supposed any one of these or any other were the essential means of Faith that is that means by which Faith is and without which it were not yet it were not therefore the Rule of Faith but the divine revelation or truth delivered by that means And to the proof of the Major which seems to be thus formed That is the true Rule of Faith which is immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is But the essential means of planting and conserving it at first is immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is Ergo. I answer 1. By denying the Major there are many things immutable and the same in all Ages as the Faith it self is and yet are not the true Rule of Faith as namely Gods Decrees and purposes the being of the Heavens the obedience of the Angels c. 2. By denying the Minor For whether the immediate Declaration of God to Adam Gen. 3. 15. or Christ's preaching by himself were the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first or any other yet it is not immutable and the same in all Ages as Faith it self God's Declaration immediately or Christ's preaching by himself are not the same in all Ages yea Heb. 1. 1. it is said that God hath spoken to us in divers manners ways and times by the Prophets and in these last days onely hath spoken to us by his Son vers 2. chap. 2. 3. The salvation was at first begun to be speken by the Lord and since was confirmed by them that heard him which shews the means to be variable by which Faith is planted and conserved The Apostle tells us 1 Pet. 3. 1. that without the Word those that believe not the Word may be won by the conversation of the Wives so that their good conversation was at first a means of converting them and yet that was not to be the Rule of their Faith Whence it may appear that this Argument goes upon these false Suppositions 1. That there is some means essential to the planting and conserving of Faith at first 2. That the same means is essential to the planting and conserving of Faith at first 3. That this means is immutable and the same in all Ages as Faith it self 4. That what is the means of planting and conserving Faith at first must be the true Rule of Faith 2. I deny the Minor that oral and Apostolical Tradition not written Books was the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first And to his proof I answer that by oral and Apostolical Tradition in his Tenet he means a delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles now if it be granted there was no Gospel written till eight years after the death of Christ or thereabouts it must be granted also that there was no delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles but onely their preaching viva voce with living speech in their own persons and therefore if that which was according to H. T. the essential means of planting and conserving Faith at first must be the true Rule of Faith still and no other then that Rule must neither be unwritten nor written delivery of Doctrine from father to son by hand to hand from Christ and his Apostles but their own personal Tradition viva voce which now ceasing there is no Rule of Faith at all left but the Quakers device of each mans light within him to be his Rule must take place But to me the Rule of Faith is divine revelation by what means soever it be delivered be it the Law written in the heart or in the Book by the signer of God in Tables of stone or delivered by an Angel in a Dream Vision Apparition by Christ or his Apostles or any other But sith God hath been pleased to order it be it sooner or later that what Christ and his Apostles taught should be written we are assured God would have us to take it for the Rule of our Faith and if Scripture be not the Rule of our Faith Christ and his Apostles did not well to commend it to us Luk. 16. 31. Joh. 5. 39. and to commend them that searched the Scriptures Act. 17. 11. nor the Apostles to direct us to them 1 Pet. 1. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 4. nor to allege them Act. 3. 22. 13. 33 34 35. nor Christ to have used them against the Tempter Matth. 4. 4. 7. 10. nor to have imputed errour to the ignorance of them Matth. 22 29. nor to have sent the Revelation of John to the seven Churches of Asia with declaration of blessedness to the observers of it and denunciation of a curse to the corrupters and infringers of it Revel 1. 1 3. 22. 18 19. nor the Apostles to write a Letter to the Churches Act. 15. 23. nor the Apostles to write several Epistles to several Churches And if many Ages though I think H. T. therein doth exceed were passed before all the Books of Scripture were dispersed and accepted for Canonical by the whole Church yet it is certain some were and they must be the Rule of Faith which were accepted And when any difference arose in points of Faith among the Christians of the first Age though they were to inquire of the Apostles what they taught yet when they could not speak with them they made use of their Letters written as Acts 15. 31. 1 Cor. 7. c. And if we are
Apostle warned them Gal. 1. 8 9. neither therefore the warning given them nor any state of the Church in this life yields sufficient security of not being deceived nor deceiving others The Church and Teachers thereof may not onely be men and have reason but also good men and conscionable and warned not to deliver any thing but Christ's and his Apostle's Doctrine to be believed under pain of Damnation and yet may build Hay and Stubble and be saved as through fire though their Building suffer loss keeping the Foundation and repenting of all sins and errours though some be secret and unknown to them Let us see what is in the next Argument which he terms the last Argument for Traditions SECT IV. Counterfeits might and did come into the Church under the name of Apostolick Tradition without such a force as H. T. imagines necessary thereto even in points of Faith To make saith H. T. a whole world of wise and disinterested men break so far with their own nature as to conspire in a notorioâ—n Lie to damn themselves and their posterity which is the onely means to make an Apostolical Tradition fallible such a force of hopes or fears must fall upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature in them But such a force of hopes or fears can never fall on the whole World or Church at once which is dispersed over all Nations therefore it is impossible for the whole World or Church at once to conspire in such a Lie or consequently to erre in Faith Answ THis Argument concludes for the Churches Infallibility which was the fifth Article not for Traditions as is pretended in this Article But that the Church militant and all their Teachers setting aside the Apostles are fallible is proved before and how the whole Church of later ages may be not onely fallible but also deceived and deceive others without breaking with their own nature so far as to conspire in a notorious Lie to damn themselves and their posterity and without such a force of fears or hopes falling upon them all at once as may be stronger than nature to them hath been shewed before both by reason and experience and our Lord Christ hath told us it would be that while men sleep the Enemy would come and sow Tares Matth. 13. 25. and the Apostle tells us 1 Cor. 11. 19. that there must be Heresies by Gods permission that they which are approved may be made manifest Jude 4. there were certain men crept in unawares ordained of old to this condemnation 2 Pet. 2. 1. 1 John 4. 1. And accordingly it fell out in the Christian Church as Eusebius notes out of Egesippus lib. 3. hist cap. 29. The Church of Christ remained a pure and uncorrupt Virgin unto the times of the Apostles but after their decease and those that heard them there was a conspiracy of corrupters which did lurk before that boldly vented knowledge falsly so called much of which was published under the name of Apostolical Tradition Irenaeus lib. 2. advers haeret cap. 39. saith In his days it was reported as from John that Christ lived to the fiftieth year of his Age by all the Elders of Asia which met with John the Disciple of the Lord that John delivered it to them Nor is this to imagine men to break with their nature but to follow their nature which is in all corrupt in the best imperfect As for what H. T. tells us of a whole World of wise and disinterested men it is an Utopia in a countrey called no where but in H. T. his brain Surely the wisest and disinterested men of Fathers and other Preachers have still stood to the Scriptures and have disowned unwritten Traditions as not being a true Rule of Faith Popes and Popish Councils who have been the sticklers for Traditions unwritten as they have been none of the wisest with any holy wisdom but serpentine craft so have they bent all their endeavours to uphold Traditions for their interest of greatness and gain being necessitated to 〈◊〉 unwritten Traditions because their Doctrines cannot be maintained out of Scripture He that shall reade the History of the Council of Trent written by Frier Paul of Venice in which Council Traditions unwritten were first equalled to Scripture may perceive that if ever there were a pack of deceivers and deceived men it was at Trent the Bishops generally being unlearned in the Scriptures many of them meer Canonists and such as understood not the Disputes in the Congregations and the Divines a company of wrangling Sophisters inured onely to School-principles and arguings without skill in the Scriptures and the Popes Legates and Italian Bishops depending on the Court of Rome never applying themselves to search out truth but to hinder any the least breaking forth of it if it opposed any profit or advantage of the Popes and Court of Rome and any thing that tended to justifie the Protestants whom they would never permit to speak for themselves nor were they willing any thing should be concluded but what the Pope of all that ever were in the World the most notorious corrupter and Tyrant in the Church of God liked And he that shall reade the Book not long since published intituled the Mystery of Jesuitism will finde that the chiefest Leaders now in the Popish Churches the Jesuits who are for the Traditions of the Church of Rome are wholly bent though against Scripture and Fathers to carry on their own interest by any devices whatsoever without regard either to Rules of Scripture or of Morality delivered by infidel Philosophers So that the talk of H. T. concerning a World of wise and disinterested men among Popish Teachers is like the talk of a company of honest Women in a society of notorious Whores or of just men in a Band of Robbers H. T. adds It is the assurance of this impossibility that moves the Church of the present Age to resolve her Faith and Doctrines into the precedent Age and so from Age to Age from sons to fathers up to the mouth of Christ and his Apostles teaching it saying We believe it because we have received it Answ 1. This resolution of Faith not into the Scriptures testimony but the testimony of the next age and so upwards and thereby judging what Christ and his Apostles taught can beget no other than a humane Faith sith in this way Christ and his Apostles are supposed to teach what the succeeding ages have taught nor is it any better than an uncertain way sith in some ages it cannot be known what was taught in many points of controversie for as much as this Authour confesseth pag. 25. There was no general or provincial Council that decided any Controversies of moment in the tenth Age which and the next before it are by Genebrard and Bellarmine counted unhappy for want of learned men nor can this be any other than a fraudulent device to draw men from immediate searching into the Scriptures for
their Faith and prepossessing them with the Doctrines of the present age which once received very few except men very learned and impartial inquisitours into the truth will be able to examine and in effect that which the Pope and his Council have or shall determine must be taken for unquestionable nor is this reasonable but against all right way of understanding that we should apply our selves to know what Christ and his Apostles taught sixteen hundred years ago rather by the present and precedent ages after the times wherein they lived than by their own Wriâ—ings as if a man might better know what Legacy his great grand-father â—ave an hundred years ago by the testimony of men now living than by his â—wn Will upon record 2. The pretence for this resolution is but imaginary and fictitious and refuted by experience Surely if there were such an impossibility as this Authour speaks of the whole World had not been corrupted as it was in Noaâ—'s and Abraham's days nor the Church of Israel as it was in the days of the Judges of Elias Manasseh our Lord Christ at his coming in the flesh in the time of Athanasius when as Hierom said The whole world groaned that it was become Arian there would not be such a falling away as the Apostle foretold 1 Tim. 4. 1. 2. Thess 2 4 at which time the Rhemists grant in their note on that place that even the service of Christ shall be suppressed And therefore the impossibility here supposed by H. T. is but imaginary out of inadverteney of what the Scripture hath related and foretold and ignorance of the great corruption of man and the power of the old Serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceiveth the whole World Revel 12. 9. 3. But what Church is there that so resolves her Faith none that I know of besides the Roman or rather the Court of Rome For I do not yet think that either the Greek Asiatick or African Churches do so resolve their Faith no nor yet some of those Churches who do hold communion with the Roman See nay I hardly think the Church or Court of Rome it self doth resolve it's Faith such as it is as H. T. here speaks I instance in one main point that the Pope is above a Council For sure if that be their resolution they will be cast sith the precedent age I mean the fifteenth century did deliver by hand to hand from father to son that a general Council is above the Pope as the two so termed general Councils of Basil and Constance did expresly determine And in other points in difference between Protestants and Papists if they go from age to age upwards Papists would finde themselves destitute of Tradition unwritten as well as written in the half communion Papal indulgences worship of Images and many more besides So that however this Authour pretend Tradition of a world of fathers to a world of sons when he and his party are put to it they have not any ancient universal Tradition elder than the sixteenth century for the chief point of the Papacy the Popes Supremacy and Infallibility and therein the Pope and his packed Council of Trent are the great World he means at which were at some determinations of great moment about fifty Bishops such as they were and some of them but titular and in other points there hath been no Tradition but what hath been gainsaid and therefore in fine the Papists faith is resolved into the Popes and Council of Trents determination which is the Catholick Church with Papists as is manifest by the words of this Authour here p. 70. where he makes the Church which he counts infallible A Council called out of the whole World and approved by the Pope which he judgeth the Trent Council to be pag. 76. and if the Catholick Church do resolve its faith into the catholick churches tradition what is this but to resolve its faith into its own tradition at least the catholick church represented in an oecumenical council approved by the Pope must resolve its faith into it self Pius the fourth and the Trent Bishops must resolve their faith into their own tradition and so must believe what they believe in points of Christian Faith because they hold so and judge themselves infallible and if so it would be known whether they did believe the same things before they did determine them in a council if not they defined what they did not believe if they did then it would be known upon what tradition they did believe them if they name the tradition of the foregoing age the same questions will be put and the answer must be either at last to resolve it into Scripture or some fallible men or the process will be endless or it must rest in the determination of the present church catholick properly so called or general council or Pope or else the questions wil return and the arguing will be circular Yet there are these Reasons why Papists make shew of this way of resolving their faith into the churches tradition unwritten 1. Because they would not have their Doctrines and Faith tried by the holy Scriptures alone nor in the first place nor by the Doctours of the first five hundred years 2. Because they know that few either of the learned or unlearned can track them in this way it being impossible for any but men of very great reading and very accurate criticks to discern truth in this way by reason of the multitude of Nations in which the Church hath been whereof some are unknown to some other Churches the impossibility to know what each church throughout the World held in every age the difficulty of travel the variety of Languages the multitude and uncertainty of Authours especially since they have been gelded and altered by the Indices expurgatorii and practises of Monks and other Scribes the foisting in bastard treatises under the names of approved Authours For which reason it is that they decline as much as they can trial of their Doctrine by Scripture pretending difficulties where there are either none or such as might be removed though by their course they cast men into insuperable difficulties and when they are necessitated to let people have the Scripture in the vulgar Language by reason of importunity of adversaries yet they so pervert it by corrupt Translations and notes as in the Rhemist's Testament is manifest that people have much ado without much diligence to finde out their deceits SECT V. The Romanists can never gain their cause by referring the whole trial of Faith to the arbitrement of Scripture but will be proved by it to have revolted from Christianity Yet H. T. hath the face to say But if we refer the whole trial of faith to the arbitrement of Scripture I see nothing more evident than that this one Argument ad hominem gives the cause into our hands since it clearly proves either many controverted Catholick Doctrines are sufficiently contained in
however ignorant however unstable ought to reade the holy Scriptures and unappealably judge of their sense by his private interpretation Where is it so plainly forbidden to adore Christ in what place soever we believe him to be really present as it is to work upon the Saturday Thus if the Bible be constituted sole Rule of Religion Protestants clearly can neither condemn the Catholick nor justifie their own Answ The Conclusion may be granted that many points embraced by Protestants are sufficiently condemned in Scripture without any detriment to the Protestant cause Protestants do not pretend to Infallibility but that the tenets in point of Faith which in opposition to Papists their Harmony of Confessions avoucheth are sufficiently condemned in Scripture is more than H. T. or any other can prove To his Syllogism I answer by denying his Minor And to his instances I answer the Prayer for the Dead which Protestants say is forbidden plainly in Scripture is Popish Prayer for the Dead to have them eased or delivered out of Purgatory now this we say is condemned plainly in Scripture 1. Because it supposeth a belief of a Purgatory-place in Hell which is an Errour and every Errour is condemned in Scripture as contrary to truth 2. All Prayer is condemned which is not agreeable to the Rules of Prayer now the Rules of Prayer in Scripture are that we should pray in Faith James 1. 6. Ask the things which are according to the will of God 1 John 5. 14. Not for him that sins unto death vers 16. But to ask for deliverance out of Purgatory when there is no such place nor God hath promised any such thing is not in Faith nor according to Gods will but is as vain as to ask for him that sins unto death it is all one as to pray that the elect Angels or Devils should be delivered thence which were a Mockery of God 3. God forbids Jeremiah to pray for that which he would not hear him in Jer. 14. 11. therefore Prayer for the Dead to be delivered out of Purgatory in which God will not hear is by parity of reason condemned as if a man should pray that the Reprobate should not be damned or the Elect should not be saved The Protestants say not that every one however ignorant or unstable ought unappealably to judge of the sense of all Scriptures by his private interpretation There are plain Scriptures and Points fundamental and of these they say they may and ought to judge of their sense each one by his own private interpretation if by it be meant his own understanding but not if by it be meant a peculiar fancy such as no man else conceives nor the words import but they say in difficult places and points not fundamental they ought not to judge of their sense unappealably that is so as not to use the help of the learned in which number Fathers and Councils have their place and especially their own Teachers to finde out the meaning of them yet when they have used means they may and must suspend any judgement at all or stick to that which in their own understanding seems most probable or else they must go against their own conscience which were sin or they must be Hypocrites saying they judge that to be so which they do not yea there should be an impossibility in nature granted that a man at the same time doth judge that to be the sense of the same thing which he doth not but they deny that a man ought so to rest on any Pope or Councils or Doctours judgement as to hold what they hold without any other proof though it be in their apprehension against Scripture sith that is plainly condemned Matth. 23. 10. And they hold that every man that hath the use of natural understanding ought to reade the Scripture John 5. 39. Col. 3. 16. Rom. 15. 4. 2. Tim. 3. 15 16. and to judge their sense in this manner and this is no Errour much less a darling Errour of Protestancy Nor can H. T. prove it any where condemned in Scripture As for the place 2 Pet. 3. 16. to which his words seem to allude it proves not the reading of the Scripture or judging of the sense to be condemned yea ver 3. 15. proves the contrary that Christians should reade Paul's Epistles in which those things are which are hard to be understood onely it condemns the wresting of them to their perdition by the unlearned and unstable which Protestants do condemn as well as Papists It is not forbidden to adore Christ in what place soever he is but 1. It is an Errour contrary to an Article of Faith to conceive Christ in a Wafer-cake on earth called the Host by Papists whom we believe to be in Heaven at the right hand of God and of whom it is said that the Heaven must contain him till the times of the restitution of all things Acts 3. 21. and so it is forbidden to adore that Bread as if Christ's Body were there it being a belief of an Errour contrary to an Article of Faith 2. It is flat Idolatry to adore with divine Worship a piece of Bread though taken to be the Body of Christ it being forbidden Matth. 4. 10. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him onely shalt thou serve Nor can the imagination of a person acquit the person that does it from Idolatry For if it could the Worship of the golden calf which the Israelites proclaimed to be the Gods that brought them out of Egypt Exod. 32. 8. and worshipped God thereby vers 4. 5 8. Micah's Worship of his molten Image of the Silver which he dedicated to the Lord Judges 17. 2 3 4 and Jeroboam's Worship of the golden Calf 1 Kings 12. 28. yea all the Idolatry of the Heathens who worshipped those things which were no Gods should be excused because they thought them Gods or intended to worship God by them As for working upon the Saturday it is true it was forbidden to the Jews but we conceive it not forbidden to us because the Jewish Sabbath is abrogated Col. 2. 16. And if H. T. do not think so he doth Judaize and if he hold the Lord's day and the Saturday Sabbath too he agrees with the Ebionites mentioned by Eusebius lib. 3. hist â—ap 27. so that it is utterly false that if the Bible be constituted sole Rule of Religion Protestants clearly can neither condemn the Catholick no justifie their own Bâ—t it is rather true which Dr. Carleton in his little Book of the Church avouched that the now Roman Church is proved not to be the true Church of Christ because in the Trent Council the Romanists have altered the Rule of Faith And for my part to my best understanding I do judge that the Romanists are not to be reckoned amongst Christians though they call themselves so but that as by their worshipping of Images burning Incense to them praying to a Crucifix adoring the Host and almost
wherein are general Warnings of not receiving additions to the Scripture yea though the names of Moses and Paul were pretended especially when the Traditions do adulterate the written Word as Popish traditions about Images Fasting single life of the Clergy Monastick Vows and others of their Traditions do Yet he adds Object We may have a certain knowledge of all things necessary to salvation by the Bible or written Word onely Answ No we cannot for there have been are and will be infinite Disputes about that to the worlds end as well what Books are Canonical as what the true sense and meaning is of every Verse and Chapter Nor can we ever be infallibly assured of either but by means of Apostolical tradition so that if this be interrupted and failed for any one whole Age together as Protestants defend it for many the whole Bible for ought we know might in that space be changed and corrupted nor can the contrary ever be evinced without new revelation from God the dead Letter cannot speak for it self I reply this profane Wretch it seems takes delight in this blasphemous Title which he gives to the holy Scripture often in reproach terming it the dead Letter which he hath no Warrant to do For though it is true that Ro. 7. 3 6. 2 Cor. 3. 6. the Law or old Covenant be termed the Letter and is said to be dead and killing yet this is not meant of the holy Scripture of the Law because it is written but because it was abrogated in the Gospel as killing by its Sentence Sinners that continued not in all things written in it Gal. 3. 10. And yet it can speak for it self as well yea incomparably better than any Writings of Popes Councils or Fathers from whence he hath his Traditions which are as dead a Letter as the Scripture And in this his expression there is so much the more iniquity in that he prefers before the holy Scripture the uncertain reports of credulous superstitious men and the Decrees of doating Popes as more lively than the holy Scripture inspired of God And for this man who but the next Page before confessed that the words of the Apostle which tell us that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the holy written Letters were able to make Timothy wise to salvation 2 Tim. 3 15. to be meant of the old Scripture and yet here to say that we cannot have a certain knowledge of all things necessary to salvation by the Bible or written Word onely what is it but flatly to gainsay the Apostle which is the more impiously and impudently done in that he ascribes that to uncertain unwritten Tradition which neither he nor any of his Fellows are able to shew where it is or how it may be certainly known which he denies to holy Scripture As for his Reason it is frivolous For a man may have a certain knowledge of that of which there will be infinite Disputes to the Worlds end else hath he no certain knowledge of the Popes Supremacy Infallibility power in Temporals superiority to a Council of which yet there have been and are likely to be infinite Disputes As there have been Disputes about the Canonical Books so there have been about unwritten Traditions as about the time of keeping Easter Rebaptization c. Nor is it true that there are infinite Disputes about the true sense and meaning of every Verse and Chapter of the Bible Sure among Christians there is no dispute of many fundamental truths which every Christian acknowledgeth and yet if there were it is no other thing than what is incident not onely to Philosophers Writings but also to the Popes Decrees about which there are infinite Disputes among the Canonists to the Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent about which there were Disputes between Catharinus Soto Vega Andradius and others to the Popes Breves as to Pope Paul the fifth his Breves about the Oath of Allegeance which were not onely disputed by King James and other Protestants but also by Widrington and other Popish Priests and to his Monitory and Interdict of Venice disputed by Frier Paul of Venice and others against Bellarmine Baronius and others And if we can never be infallibly assured of either the Canonical Books or their sense but by Apostolical tradition unwritten then can H. T. never be assured of the Popes Infallibility or Supremacy but by it and if so then the Scripture is not his ground of it and so he cannot demonstrate the truth of his Catholick Religion by Texts of holy Scripture as he pretends in his Title-page and therefore they are impertinently alleged by him he should onely allege Tradition which whether it be Fathers Councils or Popes sayings it cannot assure better than the Scripture they being more controverted than it and therefore by his reasoning there can be no certainty in his Faith and then he is mad if he suffer for it as he is who suffers for any mans saying who may be deceived But we are assured both of the Books of Canonical Scripture not onely by Apostolical tradition unwritten but also by universal tradition and the evidence of their authour by their matter and of the meaning without Popish tradition not onely by common helps of understanding and arts gotten by study and the benefit of later and elder Expositours but also by the Spirit of God assisting us when we seek it duly And for the interruption of this Tradition the Protestants do not pretend it to have been one whole age or day though it have been sometimes more full than at other times and we have infallible assurance that the whole Bible hath not been changed or corrupted so but that by reason of the multitude of copies and special providence of God the chiefest points are free from change and what is corrupted may be amended so far as is necessary for our salvation And considering Gods providence for the keeping of the Law we assure our selves the Lord will preserve the Scripture which me thinks to H. T. should give good assurance sith pag. 119 he saith The Church is by Christ the Depository of all divinely revealed veritie necessary to be known by all and hath the promise of divine assistance to all whereby and by other arguments it may be evinced without new revelation from God that though H. T. his apostolical tradition unwritten should have failed for any one whole age together yet the whole Bible should not in that space be changed or corrupted And this is Reply enough to his venemous Answer to that Objection which tends to depress the Scriptures authority which confessedly comes from God to exalt the authority of the worst of men the Popes of Rome as the stories of their Lives proves sufficiently It is further urged Object Many other signs also did Jesus in the sight of his Disciples which are not written in this Book but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that
all which we may easily come to know by means of Apostolical tradition without which we can have no infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine I reply neither the Church nor her Ministers can sufficiently propose to any man for the Word of God any other than the Scripture by which we may have infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine without oral Tradition unwritten And to say that the whole Church in general and not each man in particular is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde is to speak contradictions Yet once more saith H. T. Object You dance in a vicious Circle proving the Scripture and the Churches infallibility by Apostolical tradition and tradition by the Scripture and the Churches infallibility Answ No we go on by a right Rule towards Heaven We prove indeed the Churches infallibility and the credibility of the Scriptures by Apostolical tradition but that is evident of it self and admits no other proof When we bring Scripture for either we use it onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem I reply if this be so then doth H T. in his Title-page pretend demonstration of his falsly called Catholick Religion by Tents of holy Scripture in the first place onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem but it is oral Apostolical tradition which he principally relies on for his demonstration as being evident of it self and admits no other proof which oral Apostolical Tradition being no other than what Popes and Councils approved by him have approved it follows that what Papists call Catholick Religion is not what the Scriptures teach but what Popes and their Councils define into which their Faith is ultimately resolved No marvel then they decline Scripture or if they use it do it onely because of Protestants importunity not because they think it is to be rested on and if so sure H. T. plays the Hypocrite in pretending to demonstrate his Religion out of Texts of holy Scripture If other Papists would stick to this which H. T. here saith we should take it as a thing confessed that Popery is not Scripture doctrine but onely unwritten Tradition and to have for its bottom foundation the Popes determination and so to be imbraced upon his credit which sure can beget no other than a humane faith and in fine doth make the Pope Lord of their Faith which is all one as to make him their Christ and that is to make him an Antichrist Therefore I conceive other Romanists will disown this resolution of H. T. and seek other ways to get out of this Circle and herein they go divers ways Dr. Holden an English man and Doctor of Paris in his Book of the Analysis of divine Faith chap. 9. rejects the common way and sticks to that of universal Tradition which by natural reason is evident and firm But when he hath urged this as far as he can this must be the evidence that what all say and was so manifestly know by so many Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought must be infallibly true But the being of Christ the Mossiah and his Doctrine from God as the holy Scriptures declare is avouched by all the Church and manifestly known by Miracles therefore it must be true which is no other than Chillingworth's universal Tradition confirming the truth of the Scriptures and deriving our Faith from thence which if Papists do relinquish and adhere to the Popes resolutions whether they be with Scripture or without they do expresly declare themselves Papists or Disciples of the Pope not Christians that is Disciples of Christ I conclude therefore that H. T. and such as hold with him according to the Principle he here sets down are not Believers in Christ whose Doctrine is delivered in the Scripture but in men whether Popes or Councils or the universal Church or any other who delivers to him that oral Tradition which is his Rule as being evident of it self and admits no other proof though I have shewed it to be uncertain yea not so much as probable I go on to the next Article ARTIC IX Schism and Heresie are ill charged on Protestants Protestants in not holding Communion with the Roman Church as now it is in their Worship in not subjecting themselves to the Pope as their visible Head in denying the new Articles of the Tridentin Council and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull are neither guilty of Schism nor Heresie But Papists by rejecting them for this cause and seeking to impose on them this Subjection are truly Schismaticks and in holding the Articles which now they do are Hereticks SECT I H. T. his definitions of Heresie and Schism are not right H. T. intitles his ninth Article of Schism and Heresie and begins thus Nothing intrenching more on the Rule of Faith or the Authority of the Church than Schism or Heresie we shall here briefly shew what they are and who are justly chargeable therewith Our Tenet is that not onely Heresie which is a wilfull separation from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church but also Schism which is a separation from her government is damnable and sacrilegious and that most Sectaries are guilty of both Answ I Think Infidelity doth more intrench on the Rule of Faith than Heresie and Heresie may be where there is no intrenching on the Authority of the Church in this Authour 's own sense as when a man living in communion with the Roman Church and owning the Pope or being the Pope himself is an Arian as Pope Liberius or a Monothelite as Pope Honorius And for his definition of Heresie it is in mine apprehension too obscure and imperfect For it neither shews what is the Catholick Church the separation from whose Doctrine makes Heresie nor what Doctrines of it the separation from which makes Heresie nor what separation in heart or profession or other act nor when it is wilfull when not nor how it may be known to be wilfull Nor doth this definition agree with their own Tenets who acquit many from Heresie who wilfully separate from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church as they define it to wit that which is defined by a general Council approved by a Pope As for instance The Popish French Church is acquitted from Heresie yet they hold a Council to be above the Pope contrary to the last Lateran Council approved by Pope Leo the tenth Nor is this definition at all proved by this Authour but taken as granted though it may be justly questioned And for the use of the terms Heresie and Hereticks in the Ancients it is certain that many are put in the Catalogue of Hereticks by Philastrius Epiphanius Augustin and also by other Writers elder and later and those opinions termed Heresies which were not so The like faults are in the definition of Schism in not setting down which is the Catholick Church what is her government what separation of heart or outward
universal Church profess that Tradition is against the Papal Monarchy and other Points depending on it they cast Tradition behinde their backs 4. They cry up the Fathers and when we bring their judgements against the substance of Popery they sometime vilifie or accuse them as erroneous and sometime tell us that Fathers as well as Scripture must be no otherwise understood than their Church expoundeth them 5. They plead for and appeal to Councils and though we easily prove that none of them were universal yet such as they were they call them all Reprobate which were not approved by their Pope let the number of Bishops there be never so great And those that were approved if they speak against them they reject also either with lying shifts denying the approbation or saying the acts are not de fide or not conciliariter facta or the sense must be given by their present Church or one such contemptible shift or other 6. At least one would think they should stand to the judgement of the Pope which yet they will not for shame forbids them to own the Doctrine of those Popes that were Hereticks or Infidels and by Councils so judged And others they are forced to disown because they contradict their Predecessours And at Rome the Cardinals are the Pope while he that hath the name is oft made light of And how infallible he is judged by the French and the Venetians how Sixtus the fifth was valued by the Spaniards and by Bellarmine is commonly known 7. But all this is nothing to their renunciation of humanity even of the common senses and reason of the world When the matter is brought to the Decision of their eys and taste and feeling whether Bread be Bread and Wine be Wine and yet all Italy Spain Austria Bavaria c. cannot resolve it yea generally unless some latent Protestant do pass their judgement against their senses and the senses of all sound men in the World and that not in a matter beyond the reach of sense as whether Christ be there spiritually but in a matter belonging to sense if any thing belong to it as whether Bread be Bread c. Kings and Nobles Prelates and Priests do all give their judgement that all their senses are deceived And is it possible for these men than to know any thing or any controversie between us and them to be decided If we say that the Sun is light or that the Pope is a man and Scripture legible or that there are the Writings of Councils and Fathers extant in the World they may as well concur in a denial of all this or any thing else that sense should judge of If they tell us that Scripture requireth them to contradict all their senses in this point I answer 1. Not that Scripture before mentioned that calleth it Bread after the Consecration thrice in the three next Verses 2. And how know they that there is such a Scripture if all their senses be so fallible If the certainty of sense be not supposed a little Learning or Wit might satisfie them that Faith can have no certainty But is it not a most dreadfull judgement of God that Princes and Nations Learned men and some that in their way are consciencious should be given over to so much inhumanity and to make a Religion of this brutishness and worse and to persecute those with Fire and Sword that are not so far forsaken by God and by their reason and that they should so sollicitously labour the perversion of States and Kingdoms for the promoting of stupidity or stark madness 8. And if we go from their Principles to their Ends or Ways we shall soon see that they are also against the Unity of the Church while they pretend this as their chiefest Argument to draw men to their way They set up a corrupted Faction and condemn the far greater part of the Church and will have no unity with any but those of their own Faction and Subjection and fix this as an essential part of their Religion creating thereby an impossibility of universal concord 9. They also contradict the Experience of many thousand Saints asserting that they are all void of the Love of God and saving Grace till they become subject to the Pope of Rome when as the Souls of these Believers have Experience of the Love of God within them and feel that Grace that proveth their Justification I wonder what kinde of thing it is that is called Love or Holiness in a Papist which Protestants and other Christians have not and what is the difference 10. They are most notorious Enemies to Charity condemning most of the Christian World to Hell for being out of their subjection 11. They are notorious Enemies to Knowledge under pretence of Obedience and Unity and avoiding Heresie They celebrate their Worship in a Language not understood by the vulgar Worshippers They hinder the People from Reading the holy Scriptures which the ancient Fathers exhorted men and women to as an ordinary thing The quality of their Priests and People testifie this 12. They oppose the Purity of divine Worship setting up a multitude of humane Inventions in stead thereof and idolatrously for no less can be said of it adoring a piece of consecrated Bread as their God 13. They are Opposers of Holiness both by the foresaid enmity to Knowledge Charity and purity of Worship and by many unholy Doctrines and by deluding Souls with an outside historical way of Religion never required by the Lord consisting in a multitude of Ceremonies and worshiping of Angels and the Souls of Saints and Images and Crosses c. Let Experience speak how much the Life of Holiness is promoted by them 14. They are Enemies to common Honesty teaching the Doctrines of Equivocations and Mental Reservations and making many hainous sins venial and many of the most odious sins to be Duties as killing Kings that are excommunicated by the Pope taking Oaths with the foresaid Reservations and breaking them c. For the Jesuits Doctrine Montaltus the Jansenist and many of the French Clergy have pretty well opened it and the Pope himself hath lately been fain to publish a condemnation of their Apology And yet the power and interest of the Jesuits and their followers among them is not altogether unknown to the World 15. They are Enemies to Civil Peace and Government if there be any such in the World as their Doctrine and Practise of killing and deposing excommunicate Princes breaking Oaths c. shews Bellarmine that will go a middle way gives the Pope power in ordine ad spiritualia and indirectly to dispose of Kingdoms and tells us that it is unlawfull to tolerate heretical Kings that propagate their Heresie that is the ancient Faith How well Doctor Heylin hath vindicated their Council of Laterane in this whose Decrees stand as a Monument of the horrid treasonable Doctrine of the Papists I shall if God will hereafter manifest In the mean time let any
man reade the words of the Council and judge And now whether a Religion that is at such open enmity with 1. Scripture 2. The Church 3. Tradition 4. Fathers 5. Councils 6. Some Popes 7. The common senses and Reason of all the World even their own 8. Unity of Christians 9. Knowledge 10. Experience of Believers 11. Charity 12. Purity of Worship 13. Holiness 14. Common Honesty 15. And to Civil Government and Peace which might all easily be fully proved though here but touched I say whether such a Religion should be embraced and advanced with such diligence and violence and mens souls laid upon it is the controversie before us And whether it should be tolerated even the propagation of it to the damnation of the peoples souls is now the Question which the juggling Papists have set a foot among those that have made themselves our Rulers and there are found men among us that call themselves Protestants and godly that plead for the said Toleration and consequently for the delivering up of these Nations to Popery if not to Spanish or other foreign Powers which if they effect and after their contrary Professions prove such Traitors to Christ his Gospel and their posterity as they leave the Land of their Nativity in misery they shall leave their stinking names for a reproach and curse to future Generations and on such Pillars shall be written This pride self-seeking uncharitableness and schism hath done If thou marvel Reader that the learned Authour of this Book and I do joyn thus against the common Adversary after our own Differences in the one point of Infant-baptism thou dost but marvel that we are Christians and have not made shipwrack of our Faith and Charity and on the account of our Imperfections and little Differences cast away our salvation and the Churches peace Be it known to you that we are some years elder than when our Differences begun and therefore if we have made no progress in Holiness we are unexcusable And we know that he that is strongest in holy Love is strongest in Grace Marvel not then if we get some little increase by the opportunities and mercies we possess and if we forget not that we are Members of the same Christ and Heirs of the same Kingdome where we hope to live in perfect Love when we draw nearer to it and see that long we cannot be thence and when we see what havock the Devil hath made in the Churches of Christ and the Souls of multitudes seemingly religious by uncharitableness and Schism I am sure the Soul that is most for Unity and Love is likest to those that are in Heaven This also is my Answer to the Papists that I know will make it my Reproach that I hold so much Communion with Anabaptists that is that I am not as uncharitable and schismatical as they that confine the Church to their deluded Faction We own nothing in each other that we discern to be evil but we unanimously practise so far as we are agreed If sin have left England and Europe any hopes the Lord have mercy upon a divided self-destroying Generation and suffer not the sins of men professing godliness to drive away the Gospel and send it to America according to Mr. Herbert's sad conjecture in his Church Militant And O that Professours of Godliness would consider both what they have done and how much of Holiness doth consist in Charity Unity and Peace and leave not to the Papists the temptation or honour of seeming more unanimous and peaceable than we lest they seem to themselves and others more holy than we Experience and Judgements will leave us the most unexcusable people under Heaven if we prevent not our own and the Churches ruine by a speedy diligent return to Charity and Peace As these are the thoughts which I judged most necessary on this occasion to communicate so are they the matter of my daily Prayers Reader the times require thee to be well versed in the Controversies with the Papists If thou love thy Faith and Soul be not lazy but as there are multitudes of excellent Treatises at hand against Popery be not through negligence a stranger to them And among others in this Treatise thou wilt finde the Adversary solidly confuted and the vanity of his Reasonings detected which briefly I did in his most material parts in my Key for Catholicks And among the many excellent Treatises against them with which Shops and Libraries abound I commend to the Countrey Reader that would see much in a little room and know the true grounds of confuting Popery two little Treatises viz. Dr. Challoner's Credo Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam and Dr. Moulin's Answer to Cotton's Questions with the Questions and Challenges annexed And for Arguments against Toleration of Popery Dr. Sutliffe's Answer to the Lay Papists Petition for Toleration and Powel's Answer to the same Whose side the Scriptures are on reade a little Book called The abatement of Popish Brags by Alexander Cook Reade also their own Catholick Moderatour proving Protestants no Hereticks and the Catholick Judge or Moderatour of the Moderatour by John of the Cross c. Shortly I hope you may have Dr. Moulin's excellent Treatise of the Novelty of Popery translated by his Reverend Son and now going to the Press The Lord grant that mens refusing to receive the Truth in the Love of it to their Salvation and their base subjecting it to their pride and worldly interests provoke not God to give them over to believe such Lyes as are here detected and to withdraw the Gospel from an unworthy Nation Amen Novemb. 11. 1659. RI. BAXTER Errata Page 4. margin reade White or de Albiis sonus p. 5. l. 22. r. Ephes 1. 23. p. 8. l. 2. r. Ezek. 37. p. 9. l. 30. r. being p. 13 l. 20. r. six l. 22. r. he p. 15. l. 3. 5. r. primacy l. 5. r. last l. 9 10. r. inconsequent l. 34. r. removed p. 16. l. 7. r. better l. 9. r. primacy p. 17. l. 6. r. decreed p. 19. l. 33. r. brings p. 21. l. 5. r. Milevis p. 24. l. 24. r. ninth p. 25. l. 9. r. Marozia l. 41. r. Gandavensis Andegavensis p. 26. l. 11. r. ego p. 32. l. 3. r. Ivo p. 36. l. 30. r. to the. l. 35. r. councils p. 39. l. 37. r. the. p. 43. l. 28. r. Armenians p. 50. l. 26. r. rood l. 38. r. second p. 52. l. 12. r. Dr. p. 54. l. 17. r. way of p. 55. l. 1. r. Thuanus p. 58. l. 14. r. commemorative p. 59. l. 41. r. our p. 65. l. 29. r. conspicuity p. 66. l. 14. r. hath said p. 70. l. 20. r. ambiguity p. 73. l. 19. r. palpable p. 80. l. 8. r. by which p. 91. l. 46. r. truth p. 95. l. 12. r. Bannez p. 96. l. 11. r. doth not p. 98. l. 46. r. of p. 110. l. 32. r. conceits p. 111. l. 22. r. according l. 23. r. vealeth l. 40. r. faction
chief Pastors Councils Nations converted and publique Professors of her Faith But his catalogue proves not that which it is brought for For 1. many hundreds of years there hath been no one of the Roman Popes or very few who have been Pastors at all in the church of God they have been Statesmen have meddled with the civil affairs of many kingdoms disturbed the Empire and many Kingdoms advanced their base sons who are tearmed their nephews and their kindred made wars with christian Princes but have not preached the Gospel nor expounded the Scriptures to the people though even the Council of Treâ—t decree Sessâ—â— de reform c. 1. Sess 23. de reform c. 1. that they ought to be resident because they ought to feed their flock with the Word with Sacraments with Prayers and good Works which is the onely feeding which can denominate men pastors of the church of God But the Popes have for a long time shewed themselves neither to have skill nor will thus to feed the flock by preaching the Gospel but use to stay the flock of Christ by their Bulls Excommunications and Inquisitions 2. Of those he reckons up p. 32. from the year 1300. five or six of them cannot be termed the Roman churches Pastors but hireâ—ings which forsook it they being absent from Rome and inhabiting Avignon in France many hundred miles from Rome seventy years together 3. Some of them who are reckoned in the catalogue could not be Pastors at their entry one to wit Benedict the ninth being a boy almost ten years old as Baronius terms him Ann. 1033. num 6. Another John the thirteenth a lad eighteen years old at most as Baronius Ann. 955. num 2. 3. reckons when they first were Popes And if a great many of their own best Writers in their times do not bely them there was one of the Popes a woman and sate some years as Pope 4. Their succession is a very uncertain thing For 1. It is certain that Jesus Christ was never Pastor of the Roman church as Bishop there seated and it is very audaciously if not blasphemously done by H. T. to reckon him as chief Pastor of the Roman church and to make Peter and others as Successors to him in his pastoral Office as if it were ceased in his own Person and transferred to another as his Successor Nor is it likely that Peter was ever at Rome or Bishop there notwithstanding some of the Ancients by uncertain tradition have conceived he was For neither were the Apostles settled any where as Bishops of one place nor were they to be it being against their commission and peculiar work of planting churches in many places And Peter being the Apostle of the circumcision Gal. 2. 7. and his being many years in the parts about Judea of which the Scripture makes express mention it is very improbable that he was at Rome at all certainly not so as to sit there as Bishop so many years as some Writers do write of him And it is more likely if any where he was Bishop of Antioch where it is certain he was Gal. 2. 11. and as good authority there is of his being Bishop there as of his being Bishop of Rome and therefore the succession to Peter was rather to be there than at Rome nor is there any proof of translation of Peter's See from Antioch to Rome 2. Concerning the succession after Peter there is so much uncertainty as may shew how miserable a people they must needs be who have no better proof for their church than such uncertain succession For 1. There is no certainty but difference among their own Writers who was next after whether Linus or Clemens or whether both together and the like concerning the order of Cletus Anacletus Clemens as may be seen in Platina and Onuphrius and others 2. It is manifest that the succession hath been through dissention about the election sometimes a great while interrupted as Baronius confesseth Ann. 853. num 63. It hath fallen out that the See of Rome hath been void above two years and five moneths the election being delayed through contention 3. There have been many Schisms very near thirty in which there have been two or three Popes at once one opposing cursing and condemning the other and no clear certainty who was the right Pope Nations and Princes being divided some adhering to one some to another 4. A great part of their succession even by the confession of their own Writers is of Monsters as they term them more truly to be termed devils incarnate rather than men so abominably wicked that hell hath not worse in it not worthy of the name of Christians much less of Pastors of the church of God not worse surely in any church I think not the like for wickedness any where so that the succession of such Pastors is fitter to prove the Roman party a Synagogue of Satan the very seat of Antichrist than the onely true church of God Methinks no man that thinks well of Christ should imagine he would trust the Government of the Universal church with such men but rather if he intended to commit that care to any one have chosen a better race than the Popes have been to manage it 5. Their succession is also by their own Writers said to be with such wicked practices of poysoning predecessors corrupting Cardinals power of notorious whores dealing with the devil Simony and bribes fightings and bloodshed as proves them Successors to Nero rather than to Peter So that if a man would draw an Argument to prove the Roman church to be the Mother of barlots and abominations of the earth as Rome is stiled Rev. 17. 5. by the confession of their own Writers the story of the succession of the Popes and their lives might convince one that is not bewitched with their sorceries that such hath been for many hundred years together the Church of Rome 6. It is also false that those he calls cheif Pastors have had a continued succession in the profession of the same Faith with the now Roman sith it is not denied that Pope Liberius joyning with the Arians and subscribing to the condemnation of Athanasius as Hierom in his Chronicle and Catalogue of writers in that of Fortunatianus testifies did as Bellarmin acknowledgeth l. 4. de Rom. Pont. c. 9. by interpretation if not expresly consent to the Arian heresie and Pope Honorius the first in the sixth Synod at Constantinople Act. 12. 13. Pope Agatho being President was condemned as a Monothelite by hundreds of Bishops and after by other Synods besides what is charged on sundry other Popes even by Popish writers as Anastasius John the 22. c. As for H. T. his Catalogue of Councils Nations converted and publick Professors of the Romish Faith it proves much less that the Church now in communion with the See of Rome has had a continued succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the
existence of his body For the existence of his body in heaven is personal and local there to be apprehended by the faith and spirit of men In the Sacrament the existence of his body is not personal or local to be apprehended or received of our bodies after a personal or corporal manner but after a Sacramental manner that is where our bodies receive the sign and our spirit the thing signified And Illyric cat test verit tells us that it is said to be their opinion that the transubstantiation is not made in the hand of the conficient but in the mouth of him that receives it worthily And though he sets down the words of Rainerius as they were yet he conceives the things objected were calumnies As for what is brought out of the Bâ—hemian confession Anno 1535 it speaks of their tenet then but not what those in Gallia held in and about the time of Waldus who from him were termed Waldenses It is probable they might say the Apostles were lay men not ordained or tradesmen as Peter was a fisher Paul a tentmaker not thereby derogating from the Apostles function when they were made Apostles but endeavouring to abate the arrogance of the Bishops and Priests who appropriated to themselves the title of the clergy which Peter 1 Pet. 5. 3. gave to all the flock of Christ and the power only to translate read expound and preach the Scriptures which the Waldenses held to be free to all men By Magistrates falling from their dignity by mortal sin its likely they meant Ecclesiastical whom they held God did suspend from the exercise of their function when they lived wickedly they being not to receive and so not to consecrate as I find it in Illyric catal or perhaps they meant it that Magistrates were not to be obeyed in their wicked commands or as it is most probable they meant it it was just with God they should fall from their dignity and that he by his providence did so order it not that men might depose them as Papists have taught nor that ipso facto they cease to be Magistrates The same thing also H. T. saith of the Wiclesians out of the council of Constance and imputes to them and to the Hussites from the council of Constance that all things came to pass by fatal necessity misunderstanding necessity of event by reason of Gods decree for fatal stoick necessity and that all the works of the predestinate are vertues which arose from their doctrine that they could not fall from the faith as if thereby they must hold that then they could not sin That the Waldenses held it not lawful to swear at all is not so likely as that they held the frequency of swearing unlawful which is made the occasion of their denying swearing to be lawful by Rainerias himself in Illyr catal or perhaps they rejected monkish vows and oaths of canonical obedience and many other oaths imposed on men together with swearing by the Mass Cross Rod on a Book But if they held all swearing unlawful they held what Sixtus Seneâ—siâ— lib. 6. Biblioth Annot. 26. saith is conceived to have been held by many Fathers Origen Athanasius Epiphanius Hilarius Ambrosius Chromatius Hieronimus Chrysostomus Theophylactus Oecumenius Euthymius whom he excuseth and endeavours to acquit from error and so do others the Waldenses Wiclevists c. as Birkbck in cent 14. doth Wicleff out of his Latin exposition of the second Commandment That the Hussites held Mass transubstantiation and seven Sacraments with the now Romanists I find not in Mr. Fox nor doth H. T. tell me where I may find it in him that the Hussites or Wicleff held all the works of the predestinate to be vertues or that all things come to pass by fatal necessity meaning of a concatenation of two causes antecedent to Gods decree and binding him is no more to be believed because the council of Constance condemned them then that Wicleff held that God was to obey the Devil because it was so charged on him from which his learned works yet remaining do free him And it is found that the clamorous Jesuits endeavor to fasten the like odious inferences on the doctrine of predestination taught by Calvin and other Protestants which being rightly understood infers them not What Bernard saith and Roger Hoveden of the Albigenses and Rainerius of the Catharists might be true of some of those that went under their name as the Gnosticks did of Christians and perhaps some Ranters or Quakers may do under the name of Protestants But the errors are contrary to the Waldenses Wiclevists Hussites confessions and writings yet remaining and Rainerius his own words that the Waldenses or Leonists did believe all things well of God and all the Articles which are contained in the Creed do acquit them and they seem to be the errors of some remnant of the Manichees But perhaps Bernard was mistaken in the charge on them as he was in the accusation of Petrus Abailardus and others The tenets that the universal Church meaning the Catholick Church which we believe in the Creed consisteth only of the predestinate that they cannot fall from the faith meaning totally or finally are the opinions of many learned Protestants and therefore the Hussites holding them may notwithstanding those opinions be reckoned for Protestants Nevertheless were it true that the Hussites and Wiclevists and Waldenses taught what H. T. saith of them yet we might alledge them as witnesses against the now Popish errors which they then declared against and a catalogue of Protestant successors continued from the Apostles in the naming them rightly formed SECT IV. The succession in the Greek Churches may be alleged for Protestants notwithstanding H. T. his exceptions A Catalogue of Bishops Priests and Laicks in the Greek churches continued in the profession of the same faith with the Protestants against Popish errors is alleged by some learned Protestants Against which H. T. excepts 1. That they rejected the communion of the Protestants censur eccles orientalis Answ This doth not prove they professed not the same faith with Protestants against Papists For they might upon some differences upon which perhaps they disagree with the Romanists reject the communion of the Protestants and yet profess with Protestants the same faith and oppose the same Popish errors 2. Saith he they were at least seven or eight hundred years in the communion of the Roman Church as witness the first eight general councils all held in Greece and approved by the Popes of Rome Answ To speak exactly a general council is a black Swan there having never been any council so general but that there have wanted messengers from many Christian Churches in the world The four first councils of the Bishops of the Empire have gotten a great repute in the Christian Churches and have been accounted as the four Evangelists though the canons extant even of the first Nicene council have no such excellency in them as to deserve so
and their invocation of what sort he meant being not expressed it serves not the turn to prove his confession of the Fathers of the first five hundred years holding Popish Invocation of Saints deceased SECT VI. The Answers of H. T. to the Objections of Protestants concerning their Succession are shewed to be vain and the Apostacy of the Roman Church proved AFter the rest of his scribling H. T. under the Title of Objection solved saith thus Object In all the Ages before Luther Protestants had a Church though it were invisible Answ This is a meer Mid-summer nights Dream that a Church which is a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations should be extant for a thousand years and yet be all this while invisible neither to be seen or heard of in the World I reply who frames the Objection as this Authour sets it down I know not sure I am that many of the Protestants do frame it otherwise that the Protestants had Churches afore Luther who did oppose popish innovations and that these were visible though not to their Enemies nor in so conspicuous a manner as the Roman Senate or Common-wealth of Venice and this is no Mid-summer nights Dream any more than that Papists have a Church in England in communion with the See of Rome and that they have Masses Baptizing c. although it be not known to Protestants nor so conspicuous as that we know where to go to them And these Churches have been seen and known in the World partly separate from the Roman Church partly continuing within the Roman Church but yet opposing the pâ—pal usurpations and corruptions As for H. T. his Definition of a Church it is to me more like a Mid-Summer nights Dream For is the Church a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations Are all the visible men in the congregation which is the Church men preaching baptizing and converting Nations May not a Church be a congregation of men that convert not any Nation if themselves be converted that baptize not others if themselves be baptized that preach not if they have heard received and profess the Word preached Are not Women part of the congregation which is the Church Do they preach and baptize However it is well this Authour sets down Preaching and Baptizing as acts whereby the men who are of the congregation which is the Church are visible which is all one with the marks of the visible Church given by the Protestants to wit preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments H. T. adds Object The Church in communion with the See of Rome was the true Church till she apostatized and fell from the faith Answ If she were once the true Church she is and shall be so for ever she cannot fail as hath been proved nor erre in faith as shall be proved hereafter I reply It is true Protestants yield that the Churches in communion with the Bishops of Rome were true Churches while they held the faith of Christ entire and did not by their innovations subvert it which was in process of time done by altering of the rule of faith the Apostolical tradition of the holy Scripture into unwritten tradition the Popes determinations and canons of councils as the sense of the Scripture or the revelations of the Spirit of God and by bringing in the invocation and worship of the Virgin Mary and other Saints altering the Sacrament of the Lords Supper instituted for a commemoration of his death into a propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead asserting transubstantiation and adoring of the bread worshipping images and reliques perverting the Gospel by bringing in the doctrines of humane satisfactions for sin power to fulfill the law justification by works and meriting eternal life instead of free remission of sins to the penitent believer only through the blood of Christ and justification by faith in Christ without the works of the law In which points that the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized is apparent by this argument Those Churches have apostatized who have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ But the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ therefore the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized The Major is evident from the terms apostasie being no other thing than leaving the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ The minor is manifest by comparing the doctrine of the council of Trent and Pope Pius the fourth his Creed with the Apostles writings especially the Epistle to the Romans by Paul which shews what once the church of Rome believed For instance it is said Rom. 15. 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Eph. 2. 20. And are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone which plainly prove the Scriptures use for all sorts sufficiency and divinity and the needlesness of unwritten traditions to guide us to salvation Rom. 12. 5. We being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another 1 Cor. 12. 12. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ Ver. 13. For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free ver 27. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular ver 28. And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. Ephes 1. 22. and gave him to be head over all things to the Church which is his body which prove the Catholick Church to have extended to all believers of Jews and Gentiles and that they and not the Roman only or those that are in communion with it are that one body or Catholick Church and that there is no other head of the whole Church but Christ nor any Apostle above another and consequently the Roman Church and Pope have no supremacy over the rest of the Churches Rom. 10 14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God and one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus which prove they then received not the invocation of Saints nor made the Virgin Mary or any other deceased Saint Mediators between God
Christ If the term Mother Church be from hence that from it the Gospel went forth it can be meant of none but Jerusalem from whence the Gospel went into all the world not from the Roman church Nor is it true that the Roman church hath the power of headship over all the rest no not according to the Papists own opinion which is that the Bishop of Rome hath this power and that it belongs to his pastoral office now I suppose they will not say the church hath the pastoral office or that they are Pastors if they should they must make Women who are of the Church as well as Men Pastors and all the Believers who are the church Pastors as well as the Bishop aud if the church be Pastors or have power of jurisdiction who are the Sheep who are to be fed and over whom this jurisdiction is to be exercised But if they mean onely by the church universal the Pope of Rome then all that is to be enquired is who is the true Pope when enquiry is made which is the true church and when there is no Pope then there is no church and when the Pope is uncertain it is uncertain which is the church So ridiculous is the Papists talk and dispute about the church that there is no tolerable sense can be made with truth of the Roman church being catholick the mother of churches having power of Headship and Jurisdiction over all churches Nor is it true that the Pope of Rome hath either of right or in possession such power not of right as shall be shewed art 7. where it will appear that the claim to it is meerly impudent and arrogant without any colour of right nor in possession For besides the Protestant churches the Greek churches neither now nor heretofore when unquestionably orthodox were ever subject to the Romish Bishop Yet were these things granted to H. T. that the Roman church were Mother and Head is this a fit reason to term it catholick Will any call a mother of twenty children all her twenty children Will any man call Julius Caesar because Dictator of Rome or the Roman Senate because Rulers all the Roman people or all the people of that Empire H. T. his instance is frivolous Though men call the Rulers of an Army the Captain General yet not a general man or the universal Army and sutably if it were allowed that the Bishop of Rome were universal Bishop yet in no good sense could he or the Roman church be termed the universal church But this talk about the Roman catholick church is manifestly ridiculous non-sense or false H. T. adds Object You communicate not with us and many others therefore your communion is not catholick or universal Answ I grant the Antecedent but deny the Consequent For universal communion requires not communion with all particular sects or persons but onely with all true believers no A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Tit. 3. 10 11. Answ To catholick communion is requisite communion with all Christian churches though not with all particular sects And that the Protestant churches are no Hereticks is manifest from their confessions which agree with the Scripture Doctrine although Papists do clamorously term them such and destroy them as such and therein shew themselves Successours to Nero not to Peter whereas Papists are the most manifest Schismaticks and greatest Hereticks that ever were I pass on to the next Article ARTIC V. The Roman Church is neither proved to be the Catholick Church nor the highest visible Judge of Controversies nor is it proved that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all Points of Faith nor to have power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation but all this is a meer impudent and arrogant claim of Romanists that hath no colour of proof from Scripture or Antiquity SECT I. The deceit of H. T. is shewed in asserting an Infallibility and Judicature of Controversies in the Church which he means of the Pope H. T. entitles his fifth Article thus The churches infallibility demonstrated and saith Our Tenet is that the Roman catholick church is the highest visible Judge of controversies and that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all points of faith having a power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation And six pages after p. 70. he saith thus Note here for your better understanding this whole Question that when we affirm the Church is infallible in things of faith by the word Church we understand not onely the Church diffused over all the World unanimously teaching whose Doctrine of Faith we hold to be infallible but also the Church represented in a Council perfectly oecumenical that is to say called out of the whole world and approved by the Pope whose Definitions of Faith we hold to be infallible Ans WE have here a most arrogant proud claim like that of the King of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2 3. I am God I sit in the seat of God there is no secret that they can hide from me For what is this less which is here ascribed to meer men often the worst of men than the prerogative of the Son of God surely it's more than Angels have Job 4. 18 But though this Author is bold enough in the title and tenet yet in his after note he hath such subterfuges as shew his despair of making it good and his deceitful mockage of his unwary reader For 1. He deals like a sophister that after his arguments states the question 2. He doth so shift off this infallibility from one to another that he knows not well where to fix it Fain he would fasten it on the Pope as he doth in a manner at last and Hart more plainly confesseth with Rainold ch 7. divis 7. though it behove the Pope to use the advise of his brethren and therefore I spake of Confistories Courts and Councils yet whether he follow their advise or no his decrees are true But then the arguments from Scripture and Fathers which speak of the church not of the Pope had appeared to be impertinent Therefore he doth not in plain words disclaim it's infallibility but saith When we affirm the church is infallible in things of faith by the word church we understand not only the church diffused over all the world unanimously teaching whose doctrines of faith we hold to be infallible Wherein you may perceive 1. Egregious vanity in making the Roman church Catholick 2. The Church diffused over all the world teaching 3. Teaching unanimously which are all like a sick mans dreams of a golden mountain there having never been any such thing as this in the world nor ever is likely to be 2. Egregious deceit in the terming this church infallible Judge of controversies propounding and defining points of faith having power from God to oblige all men under pain of
39 and never to repair to the Church to be resolved in points of faith if H. T. say true How much doth he abase the credit of the Scripture who makes it to depend on mens for such is the Churches pretended infallibility report and ascribes it to Popes and Councils who do oft contradict themselves and one another which is onely to be had from God and his Word What is this but as in another case Tertullian said of the Roman Senates decreeing who should be worshipped as God God shall not be God unless man will so Gods Word shall not be his Word unless man will Which is so much the worse in H. T. who Art 8. ascribes that assurance to unwritten tradition of which there is no assurance but from men confessedly fallible as shall be shewed Art 8. which he denies to be from Scripture as if the obscure tradition of unknown persons from Age to Age were more certain than the great written tradition received from Apostles by the whole Church Besides how doth he reckon of all other besides Popes and Councils as if they were all idiots and fools that they can understand no Chapter of the Bible without the Pope who hath been sometimes altogether unlearned What Blockheads would he have men think themselves after all their study of Languages and Arts and of the Scripture that yet they cannot be certain what is the true sense and meaning of Matth. 4. Acts 8. or any other Chapter in the Bible unless the Church that is the Pope tell them Why do not all their Commentators and Preachers first ask the Pope of the meâ—ning of the Scripture afore they by writing or preaching take on them to expound it Why doth not the Pope forbid them to expound till they have consulted him Will â—e permiâ— them to teach that of which they have no infallible assurance Why doth he tie men to follow the consent of Fathers as Pope Pius the fourth in his Bull did if the Fathers yield no infallible assurance of the true meaning of any Chapter in the Bible without the Churches that is the Popes or his Councells infallibility How did it come to pass that the Fathers Chrysostome Hiâ—rome c. did so well expound the Scriptures as that their consent must be the Rule of modern Exposition Did they first consult the Church or the Church them Pope Damasus I believe had more help from Hierome to expound Scripture by than Hierome from Dâ—mâ—sus Have the Popes any better means to expound Scripture by than the Fathers or the Fathers than other learned men in these days Wherein did any of the Fathers exceed Cajetan Arias Montaâ—us and such learned Romanists or any of all the Popes after the Apostles days in ability to open Scripture Would not such men as these secretly disdain and smile in scorn if any should prefer any of the best Expoâ—itions of Popes before their own Will the Jansenians or Moliniâ—â—s think either the late Pope Innocent or the present Pope Alexander more infallible in their Eâ—positions than themselves I trow not so little is the pretended infallibility of the Church esteemed when it toucheth themselves however they make a great noise of it against Protestants yea some Papists have well preferred the Expositions of later Writers before the Fathers and Councils and Popes giving this for a Reason that later Writers have had more help in that they have had their own abilities and diligence to boot for finding the meaning of Scripture besides the Fathers Writings and may see farther than they did as a Childe set on a Giants shoulder as Banner did fitly express it Do not at this day the learned Expositors reject the Expositions of Fathers and Popes and Councils Doth not Maldonat the Jesuit expresly reject in his Commentâ—ry on John 6. 53. the Exposition of that Verse by which Pope Innocent Augustine and many of the Fathers following held the giving the Eucharist to Infants necessary to their salvation which the Council of Trenâ— it self doth condemn So sottish a conceit hath H. T. here vented that doubtless none but the ignorant sort of Popish Proselytes can believe him in if they do not resolve not to seem to see what they do see But were it granted that the Church were infallible I would fain know how H. T. can demonstrate who or which is that Church which is infallible or give assurance at this distance from Rome that this or that point of faith is thus determined by that infallible Church Will he make every Priest or Legate or Register of the Pope to be infallible If not let him tell me how he is infallibly assured that Pope Innocent the third or the Latâ—ran Council did define Transubstantiation or Pope Leo the tenth and the last Lateran Council the Popes Supremacy If he say by universal tradition or the Records which are kept and are to be seen and the agreement of opposite parties though in the points named there are none of these means which do give such assurance of those determinations as is given by them of the Scriptures sure me thinks H. T. who makes such determinations to be assuredly theirs upon such or the like Reasons of their credibility should yield that there is more assurance from these without the infallibility of the Church of the holy Scriptures being Gods Word and the true sense and meaning of it Will H. T. be more unbelieving than a Jew who acknowledgeth the Books of Moses the Psalms and Prophets to be Gods Word Will he not allow that to a Christian which the Jew had to wit assurâ—nce infallible from Micah 5. 2. that the Messiasâ—hould â—hould be born at Beâ—hlehem without the Churches infallibility Will H. T. think he can make such men as Arias Montanus or Cardinal Cajâ—tan and other learned Romanists believe that they are not certain of the Gospel of Matthew to be Gods Word or of the true sense and meaning of the third fourth fifth sixth seventh Chapters thereof without the Churches declaration Did they gather their Expositions out of Popes Decrees Canons of Councils or examine them by them Does not he know that in many places those and other learned men have interpreted Texts otherwise than Popes and Councils approved by him have expounded them Do not they know that such an attempt would be but an exposing of Popes and Councils to contempt and make their Canon Law appear â—idiculous What unmercifulness and carelesness of mens souls is there in Popes Councils Churches if they are infallible that in the space of sixteen hundred years they have not given us such a Commentary on the Bible as may take away all doubts from inquiring Christians about the true meaning of the Scripture and determine all controversies in points of faith Sure it 's fitter work than to enrich their kindred advance base sons give audience to Embassadours over-aw Princes and Emperours subdue the holy Land About which Popes and Councils have wasted a world of
the Chalcedon which gave the Patriarch of Constanâ—inople equal power with the Roman in his Province and ascribed the Popes dignity not to any grant of Christ to Peter but to custome out of regard to Rome as the imperial city not to the council of Basil or Constance which made the council above the Pope But H. T. adds an argument for the Churches supreme power of judicature That is the supreme Judge in every cause who hath an absolute power to oblige all dissenters to an agreement and from whom there can be no appeal in such a cause But the Catholick Church hath an absolute power to oblige all that disagree in controverted points of faith nor is there any appeal from her decision therefore the Catholick Church is supreme Judge in controverted points of faith The Major is manifest by induction in all courts of judicature the Minor hath been proved above by the first second and fourth arguments Answ It is denied that the Minor hath been proved or that there is any other Judge besides the sentence of God in holy Scripture which can so oblige dissenters in those points Nor do a great part of Papists themselves at this day namely the French Papists make such account of the Roman church oâ— Popes judgement but that they do conceive they may and sometimes have appealed from them to a general council Occham held that the Pope was haereticabilis that is might be an heretick some of them being suspected of heresie have been fain to acquit themselves to Emperours by Apologies some of them have been condemned as hereticks by general councils Fathers universitie of Paris Gerson wrote a book de auferibilitate Papae and the French churches conceive their churches may be without a Pope and well governed by a Patriarch of their own It is but a new and late invented doctrine of Jesuits and other flatterers of Popes that the Roman church or Pope or a general council approved by him are infallible nor is there a word in any of the Fathers cited by H. T. to that purpose The words of Irenaeus l. 3. c. 40. are cited maimedly by H. T. they are entirely thus For where the Church is there is also the spirit and where the spirit of God is there is the Church and all grace but the spirit is truth By which it may appear that truth is ascribed to the Church by reason of the spirit and that by the Church he means not only the Roman but any where the Spirit of God is and in the words before he sets down the truth he means to wit that if one God and salvation by Christ which he terms the constant preaching of the Church on every side and equally persevering having testimony from Prophets and from Apostles and from all Disciples By which it is manifest that he commends no other preaching of the Church then is in the Scriptures not the definitions of any now existent Church or after Church without the Scriptures The next words of Irenaeus are not as here H. T. themâ— 1. c. 49. there being not in my book so many chapters but l. 4. c. 43. and are alleged by H. T. art 4. and answered by me before art 4. sect 7. The other words of Irenaeus The Church shall be under no mans judgement for to the Church all things are known in which is perfect faith of the Father and of all the dispensation of Christ and firme knowledge of the holy Ghost who teacheth all truth I finde not any where as he cites them In l. 1. there are not sixty two chapters and in l. 4. c. 62. which I suspect by his former quotation he would have cited the words are thus After he had said ch 53. such a Disciple meaning who had read diligently the holy Scripture which is with the Presbyters in the Church with whom is the Apostolical doctrine truely spiritual receiving the Spirit of God c. judgeth indeed all men but he himself is judged of none in several following chapters sets down various hereticks whom he shall judge and ch 62. saith he shall judge also all those who are without the truth that is the Church but he himself is judged of none For all things constant are known or manifest to him both the entire faith in one God omnipotent from whom all things are and in the Son of God Christ Jesus our Lord and the dispositions of him by which the Son of God was made man the firm sentence which is in the spirit of God who causeth the acknowledging of truth who hath expounded the dispositions of the Father and Son according to which he was present with mankind as the Father willeth By which any one may perceive that H. T. if these were the words he meant hath corruptly cited them mangling them and perverting them to prove an infallibility and supreme judicature of the Roman Church or Pope for others which are meant of every true spiritual Disciple and his private judgement for himself and in the main points of faith and according to and by means of the Apostolical doctrine of the Scriptures which is the very doctrine of Protestants concerning the judgement which each Christian may have and hath in points of faith and the certainty of it according to the Scriptures which while he follows he is judged of none nor needs any ones judgement Popes or others to define what he shall believe The words of Origen That only is to be believed for truth which in nothing disagreeth from the tradition of the Church And in our understanding Scripture c. We must not believe otherwise than the Church of God hath by succession delivered to us prefat in lib. periarch Whether they be rightly cited I know not having not the book to examine them by and by his other citations as by his citation of Origen art 4. where the same words as I conceive are cited somewhat otherwise which are answered art 4. sect 7. before the words from the Apostles being here left out and his c. here I suspect fraud Yet if the words be as he cites them they prove not what he brings them for there being no restriction to the Roman Church much lesse to the Pope nor is the tradition of the Church said to be that which is unwritten and other then is in the Scriptures and the faith which by succession the Church is said to deliver is not meant of any of those points which the Pope would obtrude on the Church of God and Protestants reject but in probability the points of faith which were in the Apostles Creed professed at baptism which Irenaeus Origen Tertullian c. were wont to hold forth against the hereticks of their times and Protestants do still avouch The words of Cyprian de unitate Eccles are not meant of the Roman Church but of the Church throughout the whole world as the words precedent shew and the freedom from adultery and the uncorruptednesse and chastity of
wherein it is revealed not a finding out what is not revealed But 1 Cor. 2 11. speaks of a knowledge of invention by search into the things without revelation a knowledge of invention not of discretion as the words vers 10. shew But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit for the Spirit searcheth all things even the deep things of God Now Mr. Chillingworth so far as I discern did never assert that every mans private reason by its own search could ever finde out the mystery of the Gospel had not the Spirit revealed them to the Apostles and they to us but that each mans private reason since the Apostles have revealed them in their Writings may judge whether that which one Teacher saith is the Apostles meaning be truer than what another saith he makes Reason not the Judge of the Spirits revelation but of mens interpretation and inference 2 When Mr. Chillingworth makes each particular mans reason or his private spirit the Judge for himself he means right reason not every fancy which hath no proof and that reason which he calls right reason must be rectified by the Spirit of God and his influx upon the understanding and so the Text 1 Cor. 12. 3. is not against Mr. Chillingworth 3. When he means that every private mans reason or private spirit is a Judge to each man he conceives as the matter of his discourse lead him to speak this judgement to be onely of the meaning of the speech wherein the things revealed are made known whence comes a a speculative notional knowledge upon which a bare dogmatical faith follows but he asserted not right reason rectified by common influx of the spirit which understands onely the true meaning of such a Text or the truth of such a Proposition to be sufficient without a special work of the Spirit of God enabling a man to see the beauty worth goodness of the things thus believed above any other thing propounded to be chosen to beget an affective practical knowledge which begets faith of adherence of which 1 Cor. 12. 3. Ephes 2. 8. 2 Cor. 3. 5. 10. 5. are to be understood So that Mr. Chillingworth's Assertion rightly understood doth well consist with these Scriptures it being no whit contradictory to these speeches that no man can know by his invention the mystery hid in God but by the revelation of the Spirit and yet when it is revealed each mans private reason may judge of the meaning of the Scriptures in which it is revealed and whose Doctrine is most agreeable to those Scriptures and though no man can fiducially and electively say Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost yet without the sanctifying and renewing or indwelling of God's Spirit a person may by his private reason understand the meaning of this speech Jesus is the Lord and assent to it upon credible motives with a bare dogmatical faith And though saving faith be the spetial gift of God to his Elect yet in working faith God useth mans reason to understand what he is to believe and to judge it to be true and as H. T. saith here p. 77. The discourse and approbation of reason is always a previous and necessary condition to our deliberate and rational acts of faith and the very acts themselves are acts of reason And though we are not of our selves sufficient to think any good thing yet our selves do think good things and by reason rectified by God's Spirit do judge them to be good And though we are to captivate our understanding to the obedience of faith yet that obedience of faith to which our understanding is captivated is by the assent of the understanding upon the apprehensions which our reason hath of the good of that we assent to and that which we obey But saith H. T. Secondly because divine revelations are not to be admitted or rejected for their seeming consonancy or repugnance to every mans private reason but for the authority of the Church proposing as the immediate motive and the Authority of God revealing as the highest Motive of our Faith into which it is ultimately resolved nor can any thing be more rational than to captivate and even renounce private reason where God the Authour of Reason commands it I reply I doubt not but Mr. Chillingworth would have said so too and have counted it an injury done to him to suggest it as H. T. seems to do to any as if he meant otherwise provided that by the authority of the Church proposing be meant not the pretended infallible authority of the Church or Prelates of it but either the infallible authority of the Primitive Church comprehending the Apostles or the probable and credible authority of the present Church or Teachers in it But it is likely H. T. meant it of the infallible authority of the present Church or Prelates of it which is not yet proved and till it be Mr. Chillingworth's Assertion is not overthrown H. T. adds Thirdly because if every mans private reason is to judge for himself in matters of Religion then all the Heresies that ever yet were in the World were good and sound Doctrines for there was never any Sect of Hereticks who did not pretend both to Reason and Scripture for their Tenets how damnable soever and some of them such as were unaswerable by humane reason setting aside the Churches authority and Apostolical tradition for who can prove by private reason or by all the reason of man against the Arians that a spiritual and indivisible substance such as God is could beget a natural Son of himself without a Mother or against the Sabellians and Trinitarians that the same indivisible essence or divine nature can be at once in three distinct persons the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost or against Nestor and Eutiches that one person can subsist in two different natures the Divine and Humane in Christ which notwithstanding are high Fundamentals in Christianity In all these and many others private reason must either bend the knee and be captivate to faith or become Atheism I reply I conceive Mr. Chillingworth would have said so too to wit that private reason must bend the knee and be captivate to faith in points revealed though it cannot comprehend how thing revealed should be so and yet his Assertion hold that each ones private reason is to judge these to be matters of faith and it will judge them to be so by the evidence it hath that these are divine revelations which right reason knows to be so from the agreement with the Scriptures without the present or late Churches authority or unwritten traditions though termed Apostolical And those Tenents which a private mans reason findes to be agreeable to holy Scripture though the whole Church of this or former Ages since the Apostles days should judge them Heresie and the Nicene or any other Council condemn them yet is that person to hold them as truth provided he do use his reason aright
to discover the truth And though it be that Councils may be and have been usefull when good choice hath been made of persons and undue practises to mis-lead and over-aw them have been removed yet as Nazianzen in his five and fiftieth Epistle ad Procopium complained that he knew no good issue of them so he that shall examine the cariage of things in Councils even the best of them since the Apostles days will finde reason not to take any thing from them on trust meerly by reason of their authority and for the Councils which have been above a thousand years by reason of the activity and prevalency of Factions and the unlearnedness of most of the Bishops in them will find more reason to be jealous of what Councils have determined them to acquiesce in them Nor will it follow that if this judgement be allowed to every private man then all or any Heresies whatsoever have been good and sound Doctrine but that those who have pretended Reason and Scripture have abused both Nor is H. T. his Reason of force because Hereticks pretend to reason and Scripture therefore every one is not to judge for himself and all Heresies were sound Doctrine any more than than this cavillers pretend Law and Reason therefore Judges that use their knowledge in the Law and their Reason in passing Sentence do justifie cavillers or determin no better then cavillers Were the Churches authority infallible hereticks might and did pretend to it's authority and Apostolick tradition and therefore notwithstanding these yet heresie may be taken for sound doctrine as well as if private reason be made a Judge for each ones self yea many heresies have alledged unwritten tradition and have had some council or other perhaps more and more numerous to patronize them then the Orthodox so that I may say setting aside the holy Scripture which is now the rule by which to determine what is error what not neither the Churches authority nor unwritten tradition can prove a point to be heresie or extirpate it but rather propagate and establish error as by experience is manifest there being never more heresies established and propagated by any one or more private mens following their reason then have been by the Popes and Councils supposed to be Oecumenical and infallible nor is there any greater cause of erring then the confidence of infallibility nor any error so fast rooted as that which is decreed by men that will confesse no error As for those heresies which he reckons as unanswerable by humane reason if he mean they are unanswerable by humane reason how or in what manner the things opposed by them are it is granted but of this Mr. Chillingworth doth not make humane reason Judge if any humane reason cannot comprehend how a thing should be nor can answer all objections yet if it judge that God hath revealed it is so it is to believe it even as Mary was to believe her having a son though she knew not how Luk. 1. 34. That which each mans reason is to judge is not how a thing can be which God hath revealed is or shall be but whether it be so revealed and this he is to do not by a blind assent to what the Church or his teachers say but by searching as the Beraeans did Act. 17. 11. with Gods approbation even when Paul preached to them the Scriptures whether they say right And if the Scripture say the contrary to what those named hereticks say then are their tenents to be rejected of which each persons reason is to judge for himself he being to be saved or damned according to his own faith if not the determination of councils against it is not to be received And this manner of judging by reason will neither promote herefie nor Atheism but on the contrary if the Popes Councils Churches determination be counted infallible it will perpetuate an error if once received as too much woful experience shews in the Roman Papacy wherein the error of transubstantiation though it be such as is so contrary to Scripture reason sense Fathers that a man unprejudiced would think them meer mad men or phrenetick persons who hold it yet it is by Papists maintained I dare hardly say by the learned believed most obstinately and furiously to this day Finally saith H. T. because if private reason were the onely Judge of controversies it would evidently follow the general councils of all former ages which have commanded all persons under pain of damnation to obey their definitions and submit to their decrees were the most tyrannical and unjust assemblies that ever were in usurping such a power over mens consciences and consequently that there neither is nor ever was any such thing on earth as a Church or obliging guide in matters of faith and Church Government I reply though Mr. Chillingworth say not private reason to be the onely Judge of controversies nor denies the Church or Council to be Judge of controversies but only the infallibility of them yet if he did say either neither of these things would follow which H. T. makes consequent thereon For notwithstanding such saying he might deem councils to have followed Scripture and therefore not unjust in those commands and that there was a Church and Church government obliging men in matters of faith though not by vertue of their own authority yet by vertue of Gods revelation in the holy Scriptures Neverthelesse if I may be allowed to speak my judgement freely I do think that if not all yet most of the Councils termed general have been for more then one hundred years too unjust and tyrannical in their commands usurping the words of the Synod at Jerusalem Act. 15. 28. too arrogantly as if their authority were equal to the Apostles and imposing on mens consciences burdens too intolerable and that this hath been a most pernicious engine of Satan to cause divisions and mischiefs in the Church of Christ And certainly if any have followed humane reason and a private spirit in deciding controversies of faith and judging matters of religion they have been Popes and the Councils approved by Popes who do almost in every thing in some things expressely forsake the Scripture and adhere to their own reason in their Canons and Decrees and Papists who receive their determinations do forsake the guidance of Gods Spirit and follow humane reason and a private spirit H. T saith further Ob. Your therefore believe the Church to be infallible and whatever else you believe because you judge it reasonable to believe it and your very act of faith it self is an act of reason therefore reason is the only Judge of controversies Answ The discourse and approbation of reason is alwayes a previous and necessary condition to our deliberate and rational acts of faith and the very acts themselves are acts of reason not discoursing but simply assenting All this I grant yes I deny your consequence because our acts of faith are not ultimately resolved into
Maccabees to be canonical l. 19. Moral c. 17. As for the third Synod of Carthage it was not an Oecumenical Synod and it is over ballanced by the Synod of Laodicea before it who omitted them And if the ancients termed the Apocryphal books canonical or divine they are to be understood according to Ruffinus his explication in his Exposition on the Creed and others that they were canonical in a sort as being read in the Churches by reason of some histories or moral sentences but not so as that they were brought to confirm the authority of faith by them H. T. further saith Ob. The Father 's err'd some in one thing some in another Answ A part I grant all together speaking of any one age I deny and they all submitted to the Church and so do likewise our Schoolmen who differ onely in opinion concerning School points undefined not in faith I reply 1. That the Fathers of some ages did generally hold errors is apparent in many particulars Augustine held it an Apostolical tradition that the Sacrament of the Eucharist was necessary for infants as appears l. 1. de pec merito remiss c. 24. and elsewhere and Maldonat on John 6. v. 53. saith that it was the opinion of Augustin and Pope Innocent the first and that it prevailed in the Church for six hundred years and yet the council of Trent sess 21. c. 4. can 4. saith If any say the communion of the Eucharist to be necessary for little ones afore they come to years of discretion let him be Anathema The like might be said of sundry other points as that of the Millenary opinion the souls not seeing God till the day of judgement c. 2. That all the Fathers did not submit to the Church of Rome is manifest by the Asian Bishops opposition to Victor about Easter to Stephen about rebaptization by Cyprian and others to Boniface Zozimus and Celestin about appeals from Africa to Rome by Aurelius Augustinus and a whole council 3. That the Schoolmen differ in points of faith defined is manifest in Peter Lumbard l. 1. sent dist 17. who held the holy Ghost to be the charity whereby we love God and the dissent from him in that point the differences about the Popes authority above a council power to absolve subjects from the oath of allegiance certainty of faith concerning a mans own justification Gods predetermination of mans will and many more yet controverted between Dominicans and Jesuits Jansenists and Molinists 4. All submit not to the Pope but some appeal from him to a council others by withstanding in disputes and otherwise decline his sentence in their cause of which the opposition against Pope Paul the fifth his interdict by the republick of Venice about their power over Ecclesiasticks is a famous instance evidently shewing that all that live in communion with the See of Rome acknowledge not such a supremacy and infallibility to it as the modern Jesuits ascribe to it Yet again saith H. T. Ob. St. Augustin tells St. Hierom that he esteems none but the writers of the Canonical books to have been infallible in all they write and not to erre in any thing Answ Neither do we we esteem not the writers of councils infallible in all they write nor yet councils themselves but only in the Oecumenical decrees or definitions of faith I reply Augustin Epist 19. to Hierom doth not onely say thus I confess to thy charity that I have learned to give this reverence and honour onely to those books of Scriptures which are now called canonical that I do most firmly believe no author of them to have erred any thing in writing but he adds also But I so read others that how much soever they excel in holiness and doctrine I do not think it true because they have so thought but because they could perswade me either by those Canonical authors or by probable reason that it abhors not from that which is true Which plainly shews 1. That he counted only the writers of Canonical Scriptures and those books infallible 2. That the sentence of others however excellent in sanctity and doctrine is not to be believed because they so thought 3. That their sentence prevailed with him so far as it's proof did perswade 4. That this proof must be by the Canonical Scriptures or probable reason H. T. adds Ob. St. Augustin Epist 112. says we are onely bound to believe the Canonical Scriptures without dubitation but for other witnesses we may believe or not believe them according to the weight of their authority Answ He speaks in a particular case in which nothing had been defined by the Church namely whether God could be seen with corporal eyes But the decrees of general councils are of divine authority as we have proved and therefore according to St. Augustin to be believed without dubitation I reply though he speaks upon occasion of one particular case yet the speech is universal but for other witnesses or testimonies besides the Canonical Scriptures by which any thing is perswaded to be believed it is lawful for thee to believe or not to believe as thou shalt weigh how much moment those things have or not have to beget faith There 's not a word of exception concerning a thing defined by the Church yea the opinion of Augustin is full and plain in his second book of baptism against the Donatists ch 3. to take away infallibility from any Bishops or councils Oecumenical which I think fit to translate to shew how contrary it is to Austin to make any councils after the Apostles infallible Who knows not saith he the holy Canonical Scripture as well of the old as of the new Testament to be contained in it's certain bounds and that it is so to be preferred before all the later letters of Bishops that a man may not doubt or dispute of it at all whether that which it is manifest to be written in it be true or right but for the letters of Bishops which have been or are written after the Canon confirmed it is lawful that they be reprehended if perhaps in them any thing have deviated or gone out of the way from truth both perhaps by the wiser speech of any man more skilful in that thing and by the more grave authority of other Bishops and the prudence of the learned and by councils And those councils which are held in single Regions or Provinces are to give place without any windings to the authority of more full councils which are gathered out of the whole Christian world and oft times those former fuller councils may be mended by later when by some trial of things that is open which was shut up and known which did lye hid without any smoke of sacrilegious pride without any swollen neck of arrogance without any contention of wan envy with holy humility with Catholick peace with Christian charity Yet once more saith H. T. Ob. St. Athanasius in his Epistle to the Bishops
of Africa tells the Arians they in vain ran about to seek councils since the Scripture is more powerful then all councils Answ He says it was vain for them who had rejected the general council of Nice nor doubt we but the Scripture hath in many respects a preheminence above the definitions of general councils and a higher degree of infallibility yet these also are infallible in points of faith I reply the reason of Athanasius shews it was in vain for Arians to seek to councils because the Scripture was against them not because the council of Nice was against them as the very words recited by H. T. shew who doth well to acknowledge the Scriptures preheminence which justifies Protestants who stick to the Scriptures against councils which do often swerve from them and sometimes oppose them As for the degree of infallibility if there be any degrees of infallibility which perhaps a Logician will deny infallibility being a meer negation of liableness to error or being deceived H. T. ascribes to them it is so uncertain what it is and so weakly proved that none that loves his soul should rest on it and not try what they hold by the Scriptures confessedly more infallible As for the speech of the council of Basil there 's no reason why Protestants or others should rest on it when Papists themselves even H. T. p. 79. rejects it and says it was not approved in any decree but such as concern Church benefices and yet this man concludes with it's speech about the authority of a general council as if it were certain So vertiginous is this Author ARTIC VI. Sanctity and Miracles prove not the Roman Church true The Roman Church is not demonstrated to be the true Church by her Sanctity and Miracles SECT I. The Texts brought by H. T. to prove that the true Church is known by Sanctity and Miracles are shewed to be impertinent H. T. proceeds thus Article 6. The true Church demonstrated by her Sanctity and Miracles Our Tenet is that the Roman Catholick Church is known and evidently distinguished from all false Churches not onely by the marks and properties by us premised but also by her sanctity and power of doing Miracles and is proved thus That is thé true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ which is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles But the Roman Catholick Church and no other is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles therefore the Roman Catholick Church and no other is the true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ The Major for Sanctity is proved by that Article of the Apostles Creed I believe the holy Catholick Church as also by these Texts of holy Scripture Christ gave himself for his Church cleansing her by the Laver of Water Baptism in the Word that he might present her to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle but that she might be holy and unspotted Ephes 5. 27. These things ye were saith St. Paul but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6. 10. A good Tree bringeth forth good Fruit by their Fruit ye shall know them St. Matth. 7 17 20. Strait is the Gate and narrow is the Way which leadeth to Life c. If thou wilt be perfect go and sell all thou hast and give to the poor c. and come and follow me St. Matth. 19. 21. There be Eunuchs who have gelded themselves for the Kingdom of Heaven he that can take let him take St. Matth. 10. 12. Obey your Prelates and be subject to them c. Heb. 13. 17. Answ 1. THe Syllogism is not good the words and no other being wanting in the Major Proposition and if they be put in the Major is false That which is eminent for Sanctity of Discipline and Doctrine and for Miracles and no other is the true Church and lawfull Spouse of Christ For a Chnrch may be true and a lawfull Spouse of Christ which is not eminent for Miracles Else it would go ill with all the Churches since Miracles have ceased and with the Church consisting of John Baptist and his Disciples But as it is now expressed by H. T. I grant the Major though except the words of Christ Matth 7. 17 20. the Texts are all impertinent The Article of the Creed is not meant of the meer visible church but of the church which is also the invisible of the elect persons nor is it meant of holiness of outward Discipline and Doctrine but of inward real holiness and so are Ephes 5. 27. 1 Cor. 6. 10 11. yea the former is meant of that holiness which is perfect without spot or wrinkle when the Church is presented to himself at his appearing and the other of that sanctifying which is by the Spirit of God and not onely by Baptism The Texts Matth. 7. 13 14. 19. 11 12. Mark 10. 21. Heb. 13. 17. are not expressions of properties which are marks of the church but Precepts and signifie what duty some did or ought to do Now the doing of some duties is not a mark of the church as v. g. doing justice giving to the poor relieving the Saints selling all we have which may be in Infidels and those duties which are in the three later Texts are special duties of some and therefore not marks which agree to the whole church but such as all members are not tied to every member not a woman is not to geld himself but he that can take it nor to sell all Papists make these Evangelical counsels of more perfection than is ordinary nor to obey Prelates and therefore in such they are no parts of Sanctity much less marks of a true church SECT II. The Sanctity of men in former Ages proves not the holiness of the present Roman Church BUt it is the Minor which is to be denied of which H. T. saith thus Now that the Roman Catholick Church hath abounded with and brought forth Saints in all Ages which is a pregnant and convincing proof of our second Proposition is manifest by the Chronicles and Martyrologies of the whole Christian World Answ 1. To talk of the Roman catholick church is non-sense as is shewed before 2. It is scarce good sense to say The Church brings forth Saints when the church is no other than the Saints or a company of Saints 3. Were it yielded that the Church did abound with and bring forth Saints in all Ages yet this proves not the sanctity of the church but of those Saints in it nor doth it at all prove the sanctity of the Discipline or Doctrine but of the persons much less the power of Miracles the sanctity of the church persons being often Saints as John Baptist who have not power of doing Miracles and unholy persons have it sometimes Matth. 7. 22 23. and if it did prove any thing it would prove
Heaven preach any other Gospel than that which is written he is to be held accursed Gal. 1. 8 9. And that Miracles are not necessary for proving our calling while we preach the Scripture-doctrine as Bellarmine scribles lib. 4. de not is Eccles cap. 14. But on the other side if Papists do not stick onely to Scripture nor will be tried by it it is necessary they should produce Miracles of their Popes and Prelates to verifie their claim or new Gospel of which they are altogether destiâ—â—te and have nothing to allege but a company of Fables concerning some foolish Friers such as Francis Dominick c. upon the report of silly superstitious Women and doting companions of them or some jugling tricks in corners done by cheating Priests and Jesuits which serve for no other purpose but to prove the Priests to be Knaves and their Popish Proselytes that believe them to be fools And we have cause to press them as in the next Objection Why do not then your Priests do Miracles we would be glad to see some of their doing To which H. T. saith Answ Because of your incredulity as our Saviour told she Jews St. Matth. 17. 19 Yet they do many in Gods appointed time and place as the Records of the Church will testifie though not to satisfie your sinfull curiosity See Francis a Sancta Clara in his Paralipomena who recounts many great and evident Miracles I reply if our incredulity be the onely reason of their not doing them among us yet me thinks they should do them in Italy and Spain where men have â—aith in them But except of a few tales of Philip Nerius Ignatius Loyala Francisca Teresa Isidore of Madrid an Husbandman and some other late canonized Saints long after their death sworn by some admirers of them or credulous receivers of reports concerning things of them not openly done and commonly known as the Miracles of Christ and his Apostles were I hear of none The Paralipomena of Franciscus a Sancta Clara or Davenport who endeavoured to reconcile the nine and thirty Articles of the Church of England with the Doctrine of the Church of Rome that is Light with Darkness a little afore these Wars I never saw nor do I expect to finde any thing from such a man but fraud and falshood who had the face to endeavour to draw the Articles purposely framed against the Popish Doctrine to a sense consistent with it What Justus Lipsius writ of the Miracles done by the Idol at Halles and Zichem Turselin of the Chapel at Lauretto and such like Relations there is no man that heeds the Scripture will give any credit to them but take them either as fictions or illusions of Satan to confirm men in the idolatrous Worship of the Virgin Mary and to promote the Priests gain which is a great part of the Roman Religion But the frequent Impostures of Papists in this kinde as of the Blood of Christ at the Abby of Hales that of Boxley Abby and the holy Maid of Kent related by Speed in his Chronicle of Henry the eighth at Orleans by Gray Friers related by Sleidan Com. lib. 9. at Bruxels related by Meteran lib. 10. hist Belg. that of the Boy of Bilson near Wolverhampton in Stafford-shire which is related in a Book of that thing and persons yet alive can testifie of the Priests deceit in it with many more give just cause to discredit all such Narrations as meer jugling tricks Nor have the Legends of Saints which this man calls the Records of the Church any better credit with the more ingenuous of their own Church of whom though some mince the matter calling them Pious Frauds as if Piety might be upheld by Lyes yet Ludovicus Vives freely censured those that made them to have had a Brasen forehead and those that believed them a Leaden heart And therefore it is the more necessary for their Priests to let us see their Miracles not to satisfie our curiosity but our consciences if they will have us converted from disbelief in their Lord God the Pope as in the Canon Law be is termed there being nothing in the Scripture to prove the Roman Churches verity or infallibility or the Popes Supremacy as will appear by examining the seventh Article to which I now hasten which is intituled The Popes Supremacy asserted ARTIC VII The Popes Supremacy is an Innovation The Pope or Bishop of Rome's Supremacy or Headship of the whole Church of God is not proved by H. T. SECT I. Neither is it proved nor probable that Peter was Bishop of Rome or that he was to have a Successour Our Tenet saith H. T. is that the Pope or Bishop of Rome is the true Successour of St. Peter and Head of the whole Church of God which hath in part been proved already by our Catalogue of chief Pastours who were all Popes of Rome and by the Councils of all Ages approved by them and owning them for such and is yet farther proved thus Answ THat Peter was Pope of Rome hath been said but never yet proved but by the tradition of the Ancients who might be as easily deceived in that as they were about Christ's age the keeping of Easter and many other things Those very men who relate Peter's sitting at Rome as Bishop do not agree about his immediate Successour whether Linus or Clemens or Cletus as H. T. confesseth here pag. 52. And the relation it self is so inconsistent with that which Paul saith that by consent he and Peter agreed that Peter should go to the Jews and had the Gospel of the Circumcision committed to him his not saluting Peter in his Epistle to the Romans his being at Antioch and according to Luke and Paul in other places so long a time as they mention in the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistle to the Galatians makes it altogether improbable that he should be Bishop at Rome such a time as they say he was and be put to death in Nero's time as the tradition insisted on bears in hand Nor was it agreeable to Peter's Office appointed by Christ to be as a fixed Pastour in one Place And if he were settled in any place it is more probable it was at Antioch where Paul mentions him to have been than at Rome nor of his translation of his Seat from Antioch to Rome is there any proof but what is by such tradition as in this and other things appears to be very uncertain and unlikely Yet were it yielded that Peter was Bishop or chief Pastour how will it be proved that he was to have a Successour Paul it is certain was at Rome and did while he was there undoubtedly execute the Office of a Pastour yet Popes do not challenge themselves to be Paul's but Peter's Successours however they put Paul's Sword in their Arms with Peter's Keys and in their Writings say the Church of Rome was founded by Peter and Paul and use Paul's name with Peter's in their Sentences
all the World oppugning If Optatus call Peter the Head of the Apostles it is meant as is frequent in Scripture and other Writers to call the forwardest and leader or first in order the Head of the rest But the words Apostolorum Caput Petrus inde Cephas appellatus gives occasion to conceive these words inserted in Optatus who it is likely would not have given so inept a derivation of the word Cephas as if it were from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Head The words in Augustin Serm. 124. de tempore not as H. T. 12. de 4. temporibus which shews that he cites this passage without reading it and it is likely he did so in the rest have no likelihood to be Augustine's those Sermons being nothing like Augustine's Writings nor is it likely that Augustine would have called Peter the Foundation of unmovable Faith or have made the sin of denying Christ exiguae culpae a small fault The words in the eighty sixth Epistle ad Casulanum are either deceitfully or ignorantly alleged they being not the words of Augustine but of Urbicus whom he refutes For so the words are Peter also saith he that is Urbicus the Head of Apostles the Door-keeper of Heaven and Foundation of the Church Simon being extinct who had been a Figure of the Devil not to be overcome but by Fasting taught the Romans that thing whose Faith is declared to the whole World of Lands The words of Augustine of whom Peter the Apostle by reason of the Primacy of his Apostleship bore the person c. tract ultimo in Joannem being recited at large are so far from proving the Supremacy which Romanists ascribe to him that they are against the principal grounds by which they endeavour to prove it and therefore I will recite them at large This following Christ the Church doth blessed by hope in this sorrowfull life of which Church Peter the Apostle by reason of the Primacy of his Apostleship bare the person by a figured generality For so much as pertains to him properly he was one man by nature by grace one Christian by more abundant grace one and the same first Apostle But when it was said to him To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heavens and whatsoever thou shalt binde on Earth shall be bound also in Heavens and whatsoever thou shalt loose on Earth shall be loosed also in the Heavens he signified the whole Church which in this World is shaken with divers temptations as it were showres flouds and tempests and falls not because it is founded upon the Rock from whence Peter also took his name For the Rock is not called from Peter but Peter from the Rock Petrus a Petra as Christ is not called from a Christian but a Christian from Christ For therefore saith the Lord upon this Rock will I build my Church because Peter had said Thou art Christ the Son of the living God Therefore he saith Upon this Rock which thou hast confessed will I build my Church For Christ was the Rock upon which Foundation Peter himself also was built For no man can lay other Foundation besides that which is laid which is Christ Jesus The Church therefore which is founded on Christ received from him the Keys of the Kingdom of Heavens in Peter that is the power of binding and loosing sins For what the Church is by propriety in Christ that is by signification Peter in the Rock by which signification Christ is understood to be the Rock Peter the Church In which passage though there are conceits not right yet clear it is that Peter's primacy is here asserted to be onely in this that he represented the whole Church that the Rock on which it is built is Christ that he had his first Apostleship by more abundant grace in that he was made a figure of the whole Church to signifie its unity that in him the whole Church had the Keys of the Kingdom of Heavens that is the power of binding and loosing sins which points I presume the Romanists now will not avow That which he cites out of the council of Nice Can. 39. Arab. is but a late devised thing those Arabick canons being forged there having been but twenty in all in that council in the fifth of which number the Pope is equalled with other Patriarchs And the council of Chalcedon Act. 16. is falsly alleged as if it ascribed all primacy and chief honour of the Pope of Rome sith it makes the Pope and other Patriarchs equal in Jurisdiction within their circuit or Province notwithstanding the reluctancy of the Popes Legates and the flattery of some there and that preheminence which the Pope had was of order or place not of power nor that by divine institution for Peter's sake but by humane allowance by reason of the dignity of the City of Rome SECT VIII The holy Scriptures John 19. 11. Acts 25. 10 11. Luke 22. 25. 1 Cor. 3. 11. overthrow the Popes Supremacy H. T. adds after his fashion Objections solved Object Pilate had power over Christ himself Thou shouldest not saith he have any power against me unless it were given thee from above John 19. 11. therefore temporal Princes are above the Pope Which is strengthened by Christ's disclaiming a worldly Kingdom John 18. 36. saying Who made me a Judge over you Luke 12. 14. declining the being made a King John 6. 15. Answ I Distinguish your Antecedent he had a power of permission over Christ I grant a power of Jurisdiction I deny and so do all good Christians Nor is your Consequence less to be denied speaking of spiritual things and things belonging to Church-government in which we onely defend the Popes Supremacy and that without all prejudice to Princes and chief Magistrates in their Supremacy of temporal affairs I reply this Objection is most directly against the Popes Supremacy in temporal things which this Authour after Hart and sundry others seem not to allow the Pope though Carerius Baronius Bellarmine and others defend it places it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the third of Lu. 22. 25. upon another occasion the strife of the Disciples at Christ's last Supper who of the Apostles should be the greater our Lord Christ doth expresly determine the Kings of the Nations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is have dominion over them aud they that rule over them are called Benefactours but you not so and in all these places in the vulgar Latin which the Papists are bound to follow it is Dominantur corum or eis potestatem exercent in eos or potestatem habent ipsorum or super eos in none of the places doth that Translation express the words as importing tyrannical rule according to their own will without respect to the good of the persons ruled and the translating of it by H. T. over-rule and noting that it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as importing a forbidding onely to lord it over Inferiours is not right
specially those that have written large Commentaries according to the literal sense as Salmeron Maldonat Lorinus Cornelius a Lapide Tirinus and many more should reject this foolery of H. T. concerning the expounding of Scripture not according to the literal sense which he calls the dead Letter or else at once blot out all they have written for finding it as a meer encumbrance to the World And the same may be said of not expounding by the private spirit For why do these private men take so much pains to publish Commentaries Is not their spirit as much private as Calvin's Beza's Luther's and others and these mens spirit as publick as theirs Let any man assign Reasons if he can why all the Commentaries of the Romanists should not be cashier'd under this pretence as well as the Protestants who are as learned industrious as they and far more sincere and impartial Why should not the Popes expositions be rejected as well as others Have they any more than a private spirit Do not their very Breves and Monitories and Decrees shew that it is a private spirit they act and decide by Sure the Spirit of God would not dictate such vain things as they utter and which sometimes they are fain to recall lest their nakedness appear Do not the Popes by their own confessions in correcting the vulgar Latin Translation and other things they set forth declare that they use industry and the help of learned men If they have a publick spirit why do not the Popes make us an Exposition of Scripture which all must own Is it not because they are for the most part a race of ignorant and unlearned men specially in the Scriptures and should they attempt such a thing would make themselves appear ridiculous and shew their asinine ears though now they seem terrible and to carry majesty with their Lions skin Is there any thing the Popes can do more necessary than this that they may end all controversies and guide all souls aright But the truth is the Popes have been so unhappy in alleging Scripture in their Bulls and Breves and Monitories in their dicisions of controversies that no side will acquiesce in their determinations they are so vain or so partial but as of old in the controversies between Dominicans and Franciscans about the Virgin Maries immaculate Conception so of late between the Molinists and Jansenists about Gods Decrees each party holds what they held notwithstanding the Popes decision which for the most part is so composed that each party may think it makes for him and he may loose neither And about the Edition of the vulgar Translation in Latin of the Bible how much have the two Popes Sixtus the fifth and Clemens the eighth discovered their unskilfulness when after such profession of diligence and use of learned men as the Popes make yet they have published their Editions contrary one to another The words of Tertullian are cap. 17. against those Hereticks Valentinus Marcion and such as agreed not with Christians in the Rule of Faith set down cap. 13. whom he denies to be Christians and such he thinks it would be unfit to dispute with out of Scripture but he doth not so judge concerning such as agree in the Rule of Faith though some term them Hereticks I may more truly say there is no good got by Popes interpretations of holy Scripture but to make a man sick or mad such Expositions as Alexander the third made of Psalm 91. 13 Thou shalt tread upon the Asp and Basiliâ—k when he trode on the Emperour Frederick's neck or Boniface the eighth when to prove himself above Emperours and Kings he alleged Gen. 7. 16. God made two great Lights that is the Pope and the Sun and the Emperour as the Moon with many more of the like sort are no better than sick mens dreams or mad mens freaks It is added Object All Scripture divinely inspired is profitable for teaching for arguing for reproving and for instructing in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect instructed to every good work 1 Tim. 3. 16 17. therefore Traditions are not necessary Answ St. Paul speaks onely there of the old Scripture which Timothy had known from his childhood when little of any of the new could be written as is plain by the precedent Verse which we acknowledge to be profitable for all those uses but not sufficient neither will any more follow out of that Text if understood of the new Scriptures so that your consequence is vain and of no force I reply that which is profitable to teach reprove correct instruct in righteousness so as that the man of God may be entire fitted or instructed for every good work Sure that is a sufficient Rule for Doctrine of Faith and good Works and so to salvation But such is the Scripture as the Text tells us Ergo. The Major is apparent sith no more is required to a sufficient Rule of Doctrine if there be let it be shewed that it may be known wherein this is defective Sure that which is profitable for all uses to which Doctrine serves is a sufficient Doctrine The Answer of H. T. here is so far from being a full Answer to the Objection as he vainly vaunts in the Title page of his Book that indeed it is a confirmation of the Objection For if the old Scriptures were so profitable as to make the man of God a Teacher of the Church entire that they were able to make him wise to salvation and furnish him with instruction to every good work much more when the Books of the New Testament were added of which one of the Gospels is by H. T. here pag. 104. said to have been written eight years after the Death of Christ and doubtless Timothy knew it and however he had the former Epistle to himself before the Epistle in which this passage is which is ill printed 1 Tim 3. 16 17. it being 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. and therefore the Scripture he had was a sufficient Rule to him a Bishop without Traditions much more to others and so Traditions unwritten are proved unnecessary and superfluous Again saith H. T. Object If any one shall add to these God shall add to him the Plagues written in this Book Apoc. 22. 18 19. Therefore it is not lawfull to add Traditions Answ It follows immediately And if any one shall diminish from the words of this Prophecy God shall take away his Part out of the Book of Life vers 19. By which St. John evidently restrains that Text to the Book of his own Prophecies onely which is not the whole Rule of Faith and therefore by that you cannot exclude either the rest of the Scriptures or Apostolical Traditions from that Rule I reply there is no reason why the same thing is not to be understood of the whole Canon and each particular Book sith there is the like Deut. 4. 2. Prov. 30. 6. Jer. 7. 31. 2 Thess 2. 1 2.
subject which if so meant the words are not true if meant as Cyprian meant that there is one Bishoprick of which each Bishop holds a part intirely in respect of unity of Doctrine the speech is good but not against Protestants who hold the unity of that Episcopal Chair The words of Augustine lib. 4. de Symb. fidei ad Catech. cap. 10. if they were true yet are they nothing to the purpose unless it were said that by the holy Church he meant the Church of Rome or that he who is found out of the Church of Rome is a stranger from the number of sons that he hath not God for his Father nor will have the Church for his Mother none of which are said by him It is true there are these words in Austin's second Exposition on Psalm 21. with us 22. ver 18. He who hath charity is secure or safe No man moveth it out of the Catholick Church But these words are not against Protestants but against Papists who move it out of the Catholick Church and confine it to the Roman and most uncharitably damn them who are not of their party therein following the Donatists whom Austin there condemns who confined the Church to the part of Donatus in Africa And there is another passage in the same Exposition which doth justifie the Protestants and condemn the Papists in the main point of controversie between us what shall determine controversies between us they say the Church when the great controvesie is which is the Church we say the Scripture and so doth Augustine in these words The Testament of our Father that is the Scriptures as the words a little before shew is come out of any hole I know not what Thieves would take it away I know not what Persecutours would burn it Whencesoever it is brought let it be read Why strivest thou We are brethren why do we strive The Father died not without a Will he made his Will and so died he is dead and risen again So long there is contention about the Inheritance of the Dead untill the Will be publickly produced and when the Will is brought into the publick all are silent that the Tables may be opened and recited The Judge hears within the Advocates are silent the Criers make silence all the People is suspended that the words of the Dead not perceiving it in the Tomb may be read He lies without sense in the Monument and his words are in force Christ sits in Heaven and is his Testament contradicted Open let us read we are Brethren why do we contend Let our minde be pacified our Father hath not left us without a Will He that made the Will lives for ever hears our voices acknowledgeth his own Let us read why do we contend Where the Inheritance it self is found let us hold it These words were spoken by Austin against Donatists and may rightly be applied to Papists who are the true canse of all the horrible Schisms and bloodsheds among Christians because they will not try who hath the Inheritance of the Church by the Scriptures which are God's Will but usurp the name of the Catholick Church as the Donatists did and under that pretence trample under foot all their Christian Brethren in the World who have as great and better Portion in the Inheritance of God their Father and of the Church than themselves The words of Augustine in his Sermon super gestis Emeriti are not that out of the Church an Heretick may have all things but Salvation For he saith He may have the Faith which he would not say of the Heretick but he speaks it of the Donatists which whether it be true or no is nothing to Protestants who are and may be in the true Church of Christ and have salvation though they be not in the Roman Church The words of Augustine Epist 48. concerning the Donatists that they were with other Christians in Baptism in the Creed and in the other Sacraments of the Lord but in the spirit of unity in the bond of peace and finally in the Catholick Church you are not with us do not at all touch Protestants who are in the Catholick Church with other Christians though not with the Roman party who are most like the Donatists and the Protestants hold with Augustine in the same Epistle that that kinde of Letters to wit of Bishops such as Hilary Cyprian c. is to be distinguished from the authority of the Canon of the Scripture For they are not so read as if testimony were brought out of them that it may not be lawfull to think to the contrary if perhaps they thought otherwise than the truth requires SECT IV. H. T. hath not solved the Objections acquiting Protestants from Schism and Heresie and condemning Papists It follows in H. T. Objections solved Object We separated onely from the Church of Rome's errours Answ Yea from her Catholick and Apostolical Doctrines She doth not erre in Faith as hath been proved I answer therefore with St. Augustine to the Donatists I object to you the crime of Schism which you will deny and I will presently prove because you do not communicate with all Nations cont Petil. Add no nor with any Nation before Luther I Reply that we separate from any other than the Church of Rome 's errours and sins is said but not proved and that she that is the Bishop of Rome and his party do not erre in Faith is not proved but impudently said against plain evidence of Scripture Councils and Fathers and I reply by retorting Augustine's words I object to you the crime of Schism which you will deny and I will presently prove because you do not communicate with all Nations particularly you English Recusant Papists H. T. and the rest are manifest Schismaticks for you separate from the Catholick Church in that you do not communicate with the Protestant Church of Christ in England It is false that those who held the same truth with Protestants under other names held no communion with any Nation before Luther For as far as they could and ought they held communion with a. called on the Name of the Lord Jesus in France Bohemia England and elsewhere under the names of Waldenses Hussites Picards Wiclevists Lollards and such like H. T. adds Object We refused onely the Church of Rome's Innovations and Superstitions Answ You slander Her Discipline and Doctrines were the same then that they have been in all precedent Ages Did the Church perish saith St. Augustine to the Donatists or did she not If she did what Church brought forth the Donatists or the Protestants If she did not what madness moved you to separate your selves from her on pretence of avoiding the communion of bad men lib. 1. cont Gaudent cap 7. And again We are certain no man can justly separate himself from the communion of all Nations yet Martin Luther and Mr. Tyndal did it Epist 48. And in another place All Separation made before the
an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church and yet no Separation from the whole And therefore this Position of H. T. will not be yielded him without better proof and demonstration that the Separation from the Church of Rome which Protestants have made cannot stand with union with the Catholick Church in Doctrine and Discipline Which sure he hath not yet proved nor is it likely he ever will but as the fashion of these Scriblers is sing over again and again their Cuckoes Song of the Catholick Roman Church and that Protestants are Hereticks and Sectaries with other Popish gibberish though the folly and frivolousness thereof hath been a thousand times demonstrated I have thus at last examined these nine Articles being moved thereto out of hope to do some souls good by recovering them out of the snare in which they are held by Satan and Romish Emissaries If they shut their eys against the light their judgement will be of themselves I shall add prayer for them that God would open their eys and if time health and other concurrences suit with my aims discover the vanity of the rest of H. T. his Manual In the mean time not as some Romanists blasphemously Praise be to the Virgin Mother in the end of their Writings but as Paul concluded his Epistle to the Romans so do I To God onely wise be glory through JESUS CHRIST for ever Amen FINIS The Contents ARTICLE I. THe Church of Rome is not demonstrated to be the true Church of God by its succession Page 1 Sect. 1. Of the Title of H. T. his Manual in which is shewed to be a vain vaunt of what he hath not performed ibid. 2. Of the Epistles prefixed in which he ascribes too much to the Church and deceitfully begins with her Authority 3 3. His Tenet of the falsity of all Churches not owning the Pope is shewed to be most absurd 4 4. The Succession required by H. T. is not necessary to the being of a true Church 7 5. None of the Texts alleged by H. T. prove a necessity to the being of a true Church of such Succession as he imagines 10 6. The Succession pretended in the Roman Church proves not the verity of the Roman Church but the contrary 11 7. The Catalogue of H. T. is defective for the proof of his pretended Succession in the Roman Church in the first three hundred years 13 8. The Catalogue of H. T. is defective for the proof of his pretended Succession in the Roman Church in the fourth and fifth Centuries of years 18 9. The defect of H. T. his Catalogue for proof of his Succession in sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth Centuries is shewed 21 10. The defect of his Catalogue in the eleventh and twelfth Ages is shewed 25 11. The defect of his Catalogue in the thirteenth and fourteenth Ages is shewed 28 12. The defect of his Catalogue in the fifteenth and sixteenth Ages is shewed 32 13. The close of H. T. is retorted 36 14. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections 38 ARTICLE II. PRotestants have that Succession which is sufficient to demonstrate them to be a true Church of God 42 Sect. 1. Protestant Churches need not prove such a Succession as Papists demand ibid. 2. The Argument of H. T. against Protestants doth as well prove the nullity of the Roman Church for want of Succession as of the Protestants 44 3. Protestants have had a Succession sufficient to aver their Doctrine 47 4. The Succession in the Greek Churches may be alleged for Protestants notwithstanding the Exceptions of H. T. 51 5. The Doctrine of Romanists was not the Doctrine of the Fathers of the first five hundred years nor is acknowledged to be so by learned Protestants 53 6. The Answers of H. T. to the Objections of Protestants concerning their Succession are shewed to be vain and the Apostasie of the Roman Church is proved 56 ARTICLE III. SUch visibility of Succession as the Romanists require is not proved to be necessary to the being of a true Church 62 Sect. 1. Exteriour Consecration and Ordination of Ministers is not necessary to the being of a visible Church and what H. T. requires of Ministers preaching and administring Sacraments is most defective in the Roman Church ibid. 2. Neither Isai 2. 2. Matth. 5. 14. Psalm 18. 19 4. nor the words of Irenaeus Origen Cyprian Chrysostome Augustine prove such a Church visibility as H. T. asserts 65 3. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections against the visibility of the Church as it is by H. T. asserted 66 ARTICLE IV. THe Church of Rome is not that one Catholick Church which in the Apostolick and Nicene Creeds is made the object of Christian Faith 69 1. 〈◊〉 in non-fundamentals of Faith and in Discipline is not essentially presupposed to the universality of the Church militant ibid. 2. The ambiguity of H. T. his saying of the Roman Church its unity and universality is shewed 70 3. Unity of Discipline under one visible Head and of Faith without division in lesser Points is not proved from 1 Cor. 10. 17. Ephes 1. 22 23. John 10. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Acts 4. 32. John 17. 11. and the Nicene Creed necessary to the Churches being 71 4. It is notoriously false that the Romanists are perfectly one or have better unity or means of unity than Protestants and H. T. his Argument from the unity of the Church is better against than for the Roman Church 73 5. The Argument of H. T. from the unity of a natural body is against him for Protestants 77 6. The universality which Matth. 28. 20. Ephes 4. 12 13. John 14. 15 16. Luke 1. 33. for time Psalm 85. 86 9. Isai 2. 2. Matth. 28. 20. Psalm 19. 4. for place agrees not to the now Roman Church but may be better said of the Protestants 78 7. The words of Irenaeus Origen Lactantius Cyril of Jerusalem Augustine are not for the universality of H. T. by which he asserts the Catholicism of the Roman Church but against it 80 8. It is non-sense or false to term the Roman Church the Catholick Church and the shifts of H. T. to avoid this Objection are discovered 81 ARTICLE V. THe Roman Church is neither proved to be the Catholick Church nor the highest visible Judge of controversies nor is it proved that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all Points of Faith nor to have power from God to oblige all men to obey her under Pain of Damnation but all this is a meer impudent arrogant claim of Romanists that hath no colour of proof from Scriptures or Antiquity 85 Sect. 1. The decit of H. T. in asserting an Infallibility and Judicature of controversies in the Church which he means of the Pope is shewed ibid. 2. Luke 10. 16. proves not the Roman or Catholick Churches Infallibility 87 3. Matth 18. 17. or 18. 1 John 4. 6. Mark 16. 15 16. make nothing for the claim
be granted and yet the supreme Headship not proved The power said Hart Conf. with Rainold chap. 1. divis 2. which we mean to the Pope by this Title of Supreme Head is that the Government of the whole Church throughout the World doth depend of him in him doth lie the power of judging and determining all Causes of Faith of ruling Councils as President and ratifying their Dâ—crees of ordering and confirming Bishops and Pastours of deciding Causes brought him by Appeals from all the coasts of the Earth of reconciling any that are excommunicate of excommunicating suspending or inflicting other Censures and Penalties on any that offend yea on Princes and Nations finally of all things of the like sort for governing of the Church even whatsoever toucheth either preaching of Doctrine or practising of Discipline in the Church of Christ Now a person may be above others in power and dignity yea the Head and Primate of them and yet not have this power The Lord Chief Justice of one of the Benches the Speaker of the Parliament Chair-man of a Committee Duke of Venice President in a Council of Bishops the Head of a College the Dean of a Cathedral may have power and dignity above other Justices of the same Bench over Counsellours in the same Council over Knights and Burgesses in the same Parliament Prelates in the same Council Fellows in the same College Canons in the same Chapter and in a sort Primates and Heads of the rest yet not such supreme Heads over the rest as the Popes claim to be Yea notwithstanding such power he may be limited so as that he cannot act without them in making any Laws or passing any Sentence binding but they may act without him and legally proceed against him So that the Conclusion might be yielded and yet the Popes Supremacy not proved The truth is the Pope claims such a vast and monstrous power in Heaven and Earth and Hell as exceeds the abilities of any meer mortal man to discharge and is as experience shews the Introduction to a world of miseries and oppresons But let us view his proof of the power of Peter which H. T. ascribes to him Tâ—e Major saith he is proved because the stronger is not confirmed by the weaker nor the less worthy to be set before the more worthy generally speaking Answ This doth not prove his Major for a person may be weaker and less worthy and yet above others in power and dignity Queen Elizabeth was a Woman and so weaker in respect of her Sex and perhaps less worthy in respect of parts than some of her great Commanders and Privy Counsellours Will H. T. say she was below them in power and dignity Many a Father and Master may be weaker and less worthy and yet superiour in power and dignity Many a Prelate is stronger in knowledge and wisdom and more worthy in respect of holy life than many Popes I will not onely say than Pope Joan and Bennet the Boy but also than Pius the second or any other of the best of their Popes and yet H. T. will not yield such Prelates to be above Popes in power and dignity Me thinks he should yield Athanasius to be stronger and of more worth than Liberius Hiâ—rom than Damasus Bernard than Eugenius and yet he would be loath to ascribe more power and dignity to them than to the Pope Nor is it true that the stronger is not confirmed by the weaker whether we mean it of moral or natural strength or weakness and confirmation Apollos was confirmed by Priscilla David by Abâ—gail Naaman by his servant Nor if by generally speaking be meant very frequently is the speech true that the more worthy is set before the less worthy I think in the Acts of the Apostles Barnabas is more often before Paul than after as Acts 11. 30. 12. 25. 13. 7. 14. 12 14. 15. 12. I am sure in the Holy Ghost's Precept Acts 13. 2. whereupon they were ordained and in the Decree of the Apostles Acts 15. 25. Barnabas is first Will H. T. say Barnabas was more worthy than Paul Me thinks a man should be ashamed to utter such frivolous toys in so weighty a matter and fear to ascribe to a sinfull man so great and immense a Dominion on such slight pretences But how doth he prove his Minor The Minor saith he is proved I have prayed for thee Peter that thy faith fail not and then being at length converted confirm thy Brethren St. Luke 22. 31. The names of the twelve Apostles are these the first Simon who is called Peter c. St. Matth. 10. 2. St. Mark 3. St. Luke 2. and Acts the 1. Answ The Text doth not say Confirm the Apostles in the faith nor do we finde that they did but that he doubted as well as they Mark 16. 14. yea there is mention of another Disciples believing the Resurrection afore Peter John 20. 8 9. yea Paul seems to have confirmed Peter in the faith when he walked not with a right foot according to the truth of the Gospel Gal. 2. 14. Acts 14. 22. Paul and Barnabas are said to confirm the souls of the Disciples and Judas and Silas did the same Acts 15. 32. So that this Act shewes no Headship in Peter nor any privilege at all much less such a supreme Headship over the Apostles as H. T. allegeth it for but a common duty of charity which not onely may but must be done by an equal or inferiour to an equal or superiour Sure if Paul had known of this as a Privilege in Peter he would not have said that he went not up to the Apostles before him nor conferred with flesh and blood Gal. 16. 17. and that Peter added nothing to him Gal. 2. 6. As for his being preferred generally before the rest it is not proved by his being named before the rest he may be named after who is preferred before as Paul is after Barnabas nor do the four Texts express a general or frequent priority of nomination three expressing but one and the same act of Christ and the Catalogue being varied in the order of the rest some Evangelists reckoning Andrew next Peter sometimes James and in like manner the order altered in some others shews that the order of nomination imported no Privilege yea sâ—metimes Peter is named after Andrew John 1. 44. who had this Privilege to bring Peter to Christ vers 41 sometimes after Paul and Aâ—ollos 1 Cor. 1. 12. 3. 22. and other Apostles 1 Cor. 9. 5. Gal. 2. 9. which shews that John and Paul understood not that any such Primacy or Prerogative was given to Peter by his nomination first as Papists assert thence for if they had they would not at any time have inverted the order And therefore however a Primacy of order may be given to Peter yet 1. There is no necessity we should yield the acknowledgement of it to be a Duty imposed much less a perpetual Privilege of