you must if you speak intelligibly why do you oppose these things as inconsistent May not the people have the use of the Scripture and yet have the Word preached unto them by their Teachers Did not Paul preach the substance of the Word unto the Bereans and yet they are commended that they tryed what he delivered unto them by the Scripture its self which they enjoyed And 4. Why do you appropriate this urging of the substance of the Word of God unto your usage and practice giving out as ours the leaving of the letter of the Scripture to the Peoples disposal when we know the former to be done far more effectually among Protestants then among you and your self cannot deny it to be done more frequently 5. You reproach the Scripture by calling it the Letter in opposition to your conceived substance of the Word of God For though the Literal sense of Metaphorical expressions by you yet adhered unto be sometimes called the Flesh John 6. 33. and the carnal sense of the Institutions of the Old Testament be termed the Letter 2 Cor. 3. 6. Rom. 2. 2. yet the Covenant of God is that his Spirit and Word shall ever accompany one another Isa. 59. 21. and our Saviour tells us that his Words are Spirit and life John 6. 63. and the Apostle that the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper then any two-edged sword Heb. 4. 12. There is in the written Word a living and life-giving power and efficacy which believers have experience of and which I should be sorry to conclude you to be unacquainted withal It is the power of God unto salvation the immortal seed whereby we are begotten unto God and the food whereby our souls are nourished And all this is to not only as to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is written but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the writing or Scripture it self which is given by Inspiration from God For though the things themselves written are the Will of God and intended in the writing yet the Writing its self being given out by inspiration is the Word of God and only original means of Communicating the other unto us or the Word of God wherein his will is contained formally so as the other is materially 6. I find you are not well pleased when you are minded of the contemptuous expressions which some of your friends have used concerning the Holy Scripture but I am now enforced to tell you that you your self have equalled in my apprehension the very worst of them in affirming that nine parts in ten of it concerns not your particular either to know or practice For I presume you make the instance only in your self intending all other individual Persons no less then your self The Apostle tells us that all Scripture is given by Inspiration of God and is profitable for Doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness You that nine parts in ten of it do not concern us to know or practice that is not at all He informs us that what ever things were written afore time were writttn for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scripture might have hope not above one part of ten of what is so written if you may be believed is useful to any such purpose Do you consider what you say God hath given us his whole Word for our use and benefit Nine parts in ten of it say you do not concern us Can possibly any man break forth into an higher reflection upon the Wisdom and Love of the Holy God Or do you think you could have made a more woful discovery of your unacquaintedness with your own duty the nature of faith and Obedience Evangelical then you have done in these words You will not make thus bold with the Books that Aristotle hath left us in Philosophy or Galen in Medicine But the wisdom of God in that writing which he hath given us for the Revelation of his will it seems may be despised Such fruit in the depraved nature of man will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 produce The practice we blame in you is not worse then the reasonings you use in its confirmation I pray God neither of them may be ever laid unto your charge Your following words are a Commendation of the zeal and piety of the dayes and times before the Reformation with reflections upon all things amongst us since and this I shall pass by so to avoid the occasion of representing unto you the true state of things both here and elsewhere in the Ages you so much extoll Neither indeed is it to any great purpose to lay open anew that darkness and wickedness which the world groaned under and all sober men complained of You proceed to other Exceptions and say Where Fiat Lux sayes That the Pentateuch or Hagiography was never by any High Priest among the Jews put into a Vulgar Tongue nor the Gospel or Lyturgie out of the Greek in the Eastern part of the Christian Church or Latin in the Western you sleight this discourse of mine because Hebrew Greek and Latin were Vulgar Tongues themselves I know this well enough but when and how long ago were they so Not for some thousand years to my knowledge And was the Bible Psalms or Christian Lyturgie then put into Vulgar Tongues when those they were first written in ceased to be Vulgar This you should have spoken unto if you had meant to say any thing or gainsay me Nor is it to purpose to tell me that St. Jerom translated the Bible into Dalmatian I know well enough it hath been translated by some special persons into Gothish Armenian Aethiopian and other particular Dialects But did the Church either of the Hebrews or the Christians either Greeks or Latin ever deliver it so to translated to the generality of People or use it in their Service or command it so to be done as a thing of general Concernment and necessity so far is it from that that they would never permit it I thought you would as little have medled with this matter again as you have done with other things of the like disadvantage unto you For 1. I told you sufficiently before what a vanity it was to enquire after a Translation of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew before the Babylonish Captivity there being no other language but that understood amongst the Generality of the Jewish People And I then manisested unto you and shall do so further immediately that the Translation of the Scripture into Syriak which you enquire after could have had no other design amongst the Jews in those dayes then your keeping of it in Latin hath namely that the People might not understand it For if you shall persist to think that the Jews before the Babylonish Captivity at least had any other vulgar language but the Hebrew you will make all men of understanding smile at you at an extraordinary rate Some while after the return of
end doth so absolutely moralize an action that it of its self should render it good or evil Evil it may but good of its self it cannot For Bonum oritur ex integris causis malum ex quolibet defectu Rectifying the intention will not secure your morality And yet also on second thoughts that I see not much difference between the ends that Celsus proposed unto himself upon his generall Principle and those that you propose to your self upon your own as well as the way whereby you proceed is the same But yet upon the accounts before mentioned I shall free you from your fears of being thought like him 3. When Protestants preach against our Divisions they charge them upon the Persons of them that are guilty whereas you do it on the Principles of the Religion that they profess so that although you may deal like Celsus they do not 4. The scurrilous Sarcasm wherewith you close your Discourse is not meet for any thing but the entertainment of a Friar and his Concubine such as in some places formerly men have by publick Edicts forced you to maintain as the only Expedient to preserve their families from being defiled by you 5. Let us now pass through the Instances that you have culled out of many charged upon you to be the same with those of Celsus concerning which you make such a trebled Outcry does he does he does he The first is Doth Fiat Lux lay the cause of all Tumults and Disorders on Protestants clames licet mare coelo confundas Fiat Lux doth so chap. 4. § 17. p. 237. § 18. p. 242 243. § 20. p. 255. and in sundry other places You adde Doth he charge Protestants that by their schisms and seditions they make way for other revolts He doth so and that frequently chap. 3. § 14. p. 187 c. Doth he you adde gather a Rhapsody of insignificant words as did Celsus I say he doth in the pretended plea that he insists on for Quakers and for Presbyterians also chap. 3. § 13. p. 172 173 c. Again Doth he manage the Arguments of the Jews against Christianity as was done by Celsus He doth directly expresly and at large chap. 3. § 12. p. 158. c. I confess because it may be you know it not you might have questioned the truth of my parallel on the side that concerned Celsus which yet I am ready at any time if you shall so do to give you satisfaction in but that you would question it on your own part when your whole discourse and the most of the passages in it make it so evident I could not foresee But your whole Defence is nothing but a noise or an outery to deter men from coming nigh you to see how the Case stands with you It will not serve your turn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you must abide by what you have done or fairly retract it In the mean time I am glad to find you ashamed of that which elswhere you so much boast and glory in With the sixth and seventh Principles mentioned by me you deal in like manner You deny them to be yours which is plainly to deny your self to be the Author of Fiat Lux. And surely every man that hath once looked seriously into that Discourse of yours will be amazed to hear you saying that you never asserted Our Departure from Rome to be the Cause of the Evils among Protestants or that There is no Remedy for them but by a Returnal thither again which are the things that now you deny to be spoken or intended by you For my part I am now so used unto this kind of Confidence that nothing you say or deny seems strange unto me And whereas unto your Denial you adde not any thing that may give occasion unto any usefull Discourse I shall pass it by and proceed unto that which will afford us some better advantage unto that purpose CHAP. VI. Further Vindication of the second Chapter of th◠Animadversions Scripture sufficient to settle men in the Truth Instance against it examined removed Principles of Protestants and Romanists in reference unto Moderation compared and discussed THe eighth Principle which way soever it be determined is of great importance as to the Cause under debate Here then we shall stay a while and examine the difficulties which you labour to entangle that Assertion withall which we acknowledge to be the great and Fundamentall Principle of our Profession and you oppose The Position I laid down as yours is That the Scripture on sundry accounts is in sufficient to settle us in the Truth of Religio◠or to bring us to an agreement amongst our selves Hereunto I subjoyned the four heads of Reasons which in your Fiat you insisted on to make good your Assertion These you thought meet to pass by without reviving them again to your further disadvantage You are acquainted it seems with the old Rule Et quà Desperat tractata nitescere posse relinquit The Position its self you dare not directly deny but yet seek what you can to wave the owning of it contrary to your express Discourse Chap. 3. § 15. p. 199 200 c. as also in sundry other places interwoven with expressions exceedingly derogatory to the Authority Excellency Efficacy and fullness of the Scripture as hath been shewed in the Animadversions But let us now consider what you plead for your self Thus then you proceed You speak not one word to the purpose or against me at all if I had delivered any such Principle Gods Word is both the sufficient and only necessary means of both our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as Vertue But the thing you heed not and unto which I only speak is this that the Scripture be in two hands for example of the Protestant Church in England and of the Puritan who with the Scripture rose up and rebelled against her Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business How shall it do it has it ever done it Or can that written Word now solitary and in private hands so settle any in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future generations shall question it or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it This is the Case unto which you do neither here nor in your whole Book speak one word and what you speak otherwise of the Scriptures excellency I allow it for Good 1. Because you are not the only Judge of what I have written nor indeed any competent Judge of it at all I shall not concern my self in the Censure which your Interest compells you to pass upon it It is left unto the thoughts of those who are more impartial 2. Setting aside your Instance pitched on ad invidiam only with some aequivocall expressions as must needs be thought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very artificially to be put into the state of a Question and that which you deny is
this that where any persons or Churches are at variance or difference about any thing concerning Religion or the worship of God the Scripture is not sufficient for the Vmpirage of that Difference so that they may be reconciled and center in the Profession of the same Truth I wish you would now tell me what discrepancy there is between the Assertion which I ascribed unto you and that which your self here avow I suppose they are in substance the same and as such will be owned by every one that understands any thing of the matters about which we treat And this is so spoken unto in the Animadversions that you have no mind to undertake the examination of it but labour to divert the discourse unto that which may appear something else but indeed is not so 3. For your Distinction between Protestants and Puritans in England I know not well what to make of it I know no Puritans in England that are not Protestants though all the Protestants in England do not absolutely agree in every punctilio relating to Religion nor in all things relating unto the outward worship of God no more than did the Churches in the Apostles dayes or than your Catholicks do You give us then a Distinction like that which a man may give between the Church of Rome and the Jesuits or Dominicans or the Sons of S t. Benet or of S t Francis of Assize A Distinction or Distribution of the Genus into the Genus and one Species comprehended under it as if you should have said that Animal is either Animal or Homo 4. Though I had rather therefore that you had placed your Instance between the Church of Rome and Protestants yet because any instance of Persons that have different Apprehensions about things belonging to the worship of God will suffice us as to the present purpose I shall let it pass Only I desire you once more that when you would endeavour to render any thing way or acting of men odious that you would forbear to cast the Scripture into a Copartnership therein which here you seem to do The Puritan you say with the Scripture rose up and rebelled Rebellion is the name of an outragious Evil such as the Scripture giveth not the least Countenance unto And therefore when you think meet to charge it upon any you may do well not to say that they do it with the Scripture It will not be to your comfort or advantage so to do This is but my advice you may do as you see cause Tales Casus Cassandra canebat 5. The Differences you suppose and look upon as undeterminable by the Scripture are about things that in themselves really and in truth belong unto Christian Religion or such as do not so indeed but are only fancied by some men so to do If they are of this latter sort as the most of the Controversies which we have with you are as about your Mass Purgatory the Pope we account that all Differences about them are sufficiently determined in the Scriptures because they are no where mentioned in them And this must needs be so if the Word of God be as you here grant the sufficient and only means both of our Conversion and Settlement as well in Truth as in Vertue S r I had no sooner written these words in that haste wherein I treat with you but I suspected a necessity of craving your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession For whereas you had immediately before set down the Assertion supposed to be yours about the Scriptures you adde the words now mentioned Gods Word is the sufficient and only means of our Conversion and Settlement in the Truth I did not in the least suspect that you intended any Legerdemain in the business but that the Scripture and Gods Word had been only various denominations with you of the same precise Thing as they are with us Only I confess at the first view I wondred how you could reconcile this Assertion with the known Principles of your Church and besides I knew it to be perfectly destructive of your design in your following Enquiry But now I fear you play hide and seek in the ambiguity your Church hath put upon that Title Gods Word which it hath applyed unto your unwritten Traditions as well as unto the written Word as the Jews apply the same term unto their Orall Law And therefore as I said before I crave your pardon for supposing my Inference confirmed by your Concession wherein I fear I was mistaken and only desire you that for the future you would speak your mind plainly and candidly as it becomes a Christian and Lover of Truth to do But my Assertion I esteem never the worse though it have not the happiness to enjoy your approbation especially considering that in the particular Instances mentioned there are many things delivered in Scripture inconsistent with and destructive of your notions about them sufficient to exterminate them from the Confines of the City of God 6. Suppose the matters in difference do really belong unto Religion and the worship of God and that the Difference lyes only in mens various Conceptions of them you ask Can the Scripture alone of its self decide the business What do you mean by alone of its self If you mean without mens application of themselves unto it and subjecting of their Consciences unto its Authoritative decisions neither it nor any thing else can do it The matter its self is perfectly stated in the Scripture whether any men take notice of it or no but their various apprehensions about it must be regulated by their applications unto it in the way mentioned On this only Supposition that those who are at variance about things which really appertain unto the Religion of Jesus Christ will refer the determination of them unto the Scripture and bring the Conâ—eptions of their minds to be regulated thereby standing unto its Arbitriment it is able alone and of its self to end all their differences and settle them all iu the Truth This hath been proved unto you a thousand times and confirmed by most clear Testimonies of the Scripture its self with Arguments taken from its Nature Perfection and the End of its giving forth unto men as also from the practise of our Lord Jesus and his Apostles with their directions and commands given unto us for the same Purpose from the Practise of the First Churches with innumerable Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Doctors Neither can this be denied without that horrible Derogation from its Perfection and Plenitude so reverenced by them of old which is objected unto you for your so doing Protestants suppose the Scripture to be given forth by God to be unto the Church â—a perfect Rule of that Faith and Obedience which he requires at the hands of the sons of men They suppose that it is such a Revelation of his Mind or Will as is intelligible unto all them that are concerned to know
God in his Word than unto these Principles of yours is rejected by you out of the limits of the Catholick Church that is of Christianity for they are the same To make good your judgement and censure then you vent endless Cavils against the Authority Perfection and Perspicuity of the Scriptures pretending to despise and scorn whatever is offered in their viâ—dication This rope of Sand composed â— false suppositions groundless presumptions inconsequent inferences in all which there is not one word of infallible Truth at least that you can any way make appear so to be is the great Bond you use to gird men withall into the Unity of Faith In brief you tell us that if wee will all submit to the Pope wee shall be sure all to agree But this is no more but as I have before told you what every party of men in the world tender us upon the same or the like condition It is not a meer agreement wee aym at but an agreement in the Truth not a meer Vnity but a Unity of Faith and Faith must be built on Principles infallible or it will prove in the close to have been fancy not Faith carnall imagination not Christian belief otherwise wee may agree in Turcism or Judaism or Paganism as well as in Christianity and to as good purpose Now what of this kind do you tender unto us Would you have us to leave the sure word of Prophesie more sure than a voyce from Heaven the Light shining in the dark places of this world which wee are commanded to attend unto by God himself the Holy Scripture given by Inspiration which is able to make us wise unto Salvation the Word that is perfest sure right converting the Soul enlightning the eyes making wise the simple whose observation is attended with great reward to give heed yea to give up all our Spirituall and eternall concernments to the credit of old groundless uncertain Stories inevident presumptions fables invented for and openly improved unto carnal secular and wicked ends Is your request reasonable Would wee could prevail with you to cease your importunity in this matter especially considering â—the dangerous consequence of the admission of these your Principles unto Christianity in generall For if it be so that S t Peter had such an Episcopacy as you talk of and that a continuance of it in a Succession by the Bishops of Rome be of that indispensable necessity unto the preservation of Christian Religion as is pretended many men considering the nature and quality of that Succession how the means of its continuation have been arbitrarily and occasionally changed what place formerly popular Suffrage and the Imperial Authority have had in it how it came to be devolved on a Conclave of Cardinals what violence and tumults have attended one way what briberies and filthy respects unto the lusts of unclean Persons the other what Interruptions the Succession it self hath had by vacancies Schisms and contests for the place and uncertainty of the Person that had the best right unto the Popedome according to the customes of the dayes wherein he lived and that many of the Persons who have had a place in the pretended Succession have been plainly men of the world such as cannot receive the Spirit of Christ yea open enemies unto his Cross would find just cause to suspect that Christianity were utterly failed many Ages ago in the world which certainly would not much promote the Settlement in Truth and Unity of Faith that we are enquiring after And this is the first way that you propose to supply that Defect which you charge upon the Scripture that it is insufficient to reconcile men that are at variance about Religion and settle them in the Truth And if you are able by so many uncertainties and untruths to bring men unto a Certainty and Scttlement in the Truth you need not despair of compassing and thing that you shall have a mind to attempt But you have yet another Plea which you make no less use of than of the former which must therefore be also now you have engaged us in this work a little examined This is the Church its Authority and Infallibilâ—ty The truth is when you come to make a practical Application of this Plea unto your own use you resolve it into and confound it with that foregoing of the Pope in whom solely many of you would have this Authority and Infallibility of the Church to reside Yet because in your mannagement of it you proceed on other Principles than those before mentioned this pretence also shall be apart considered And here you tell us 1. That the Church was before the Scripture and giveth Authority unto it By the Scriptures you know that wee understand the Word of God with this â—ne Adjunct of its being written by his command and appointment We do not say that it belongs unto the Essence of the Word of God that it be written Whatever is spoken by God wee admit as his Word when wee are infallibly assured that by Him it was spoken and that wee should do so before himself doth not require at our hands for he would have us use our utmost diligence not to be imposed upon by any in his Name Therefore wee grant that the Word of God was given out for the Rule of men in his Worship two thousand years before it was written but it was so given forth as that they unto whom it came had infallible assurance that from Him it came and his Word it was And if you or any man else can give us such assurance that any thing is or hath been spoken by him besides what we have now written in the Scripture wee shall receive it with the same faith and obedience wherewith wee receive the Scripture its self Whereas therefore you say That the Church was before the Scripture if you intend no more but that there was a Church in the world before the word of God was written wee grant it true but not at all to your purpose If you intend that the Church is before the Word of God which at an appointed time was written it may possibly be wrested unto your purpose but is farre from being true seeing the Church is a society of men called to the knowledg and worship of God by his Ward They become a Church by the call of that Word which it seems you would have not given untill they are a Church of Effects produce their Causes Children beget their Parents Light brings forth the Sunne and Heat the Fire So are the Prophets and Apostles built upon the foundation of the Church whereof the Pope is the Corner stone So was the Judaical Church before the Law of iâ— constitution and the Christian before the Word of Promise whereon it was founded and the Word of Command by which it was edified In brief from the day wherein Man was first created upon the earth to the days wherein we live never did a Person or
it partly in a repetition in other words of what you had before insisted on The former I shall no further endeavour to disturb your contentment in It is a common error Neque est quisquam Quem non in aliquare videre Suffenum Possis I am not your Rivall in the admiration of it and shall therefore leave you quietly in the embracements of your Darling And for the latter we have had enough of it already and so by this time I hope you think also The close only of your Discourse is considerable and therefore I shall transcribe it for your second thoughts And it is this But Sir what you say here and so often up and down your book of Papists contempt of the Scripture I beseech you will please to abstain from it for the time to come I have conversed with the Roman Catholicks of France â—â—anders and Germany I have read more of your Books both Histories Contemptative and Scholastical Divines thâ—n I believe you have ever seen or heard of I have seen the Colledges of Sacred Priests and Religious houses I have communed with all sort of people and perused their Counsells And after all this I tell you and out of my love I tell you that their respect to Scripture is real absolute and cordial even to admiration Others may talk of it but they act it and would be ready to stone that man that should diminish Holy Writ Let us not wrong the innocent The Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who also will plead their Cause when he sees time What you mention of your own diligence and atchievements what you have done where you have been what you have seen and discoursed I shall not trouble you about It may be as to your souls health Tutior poter as esse domi But yet for all the report that you are pleased to make of your self it is not hard to discern that you and I Nec pondera rerum Nec momenta sumus And notwithstanding your Writings it would have been very difficult for any man to have guessed at your great reading had you not satisfied us by this your own information of it It may be if you had spared some of the time which you have spent in the reading of your Catholick Books unto the study of the Scripture it had not been unto your disadvantage In the mean time there is an Hyperbole in your confidence a little too evident For it is possable that I may and true that I have seen more of your Authors in half an hour then you can read I think in an hundred years unless you intend alwayes to give no other account of your reading then you have done in your Fiat and Epistola But we are weary of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Quin tu alium quaer as quoi centones farcias But to pass by this boasting there are two parts of your Discourse the one concerning the faith the other expressing the Charity of Roman Catholicks The first contains what respect you would be thought to have for the Scripture the latter what you really have for all other Christians besides your selves As to the former you tell me that I speak of the Papists contempt of the Scripture and desire me to abstain from it for the time to come Whither I have used that expression anywhere of contempt of the Scripture well I know not But whereas I look upon you as my friend at least for the good advice I have frequently given you I have deserved that you should be so and therefore shall not deny you any thing that I can reasonably grant and whereas I cannot readily comply with you in your present request as to the alteration of my mind in reference unto the respect that Papists bear unto the Scriptures I esteem my self obliged to give you some account of the reasons why I persist in my former thoughts which I hope as is usual in such cases you will be pleased to take in friendly part For besides Sir that you back your request with nothing but some overconfident asseverations subscribed with teste meipso I have many reasons taken from the practice and Doctrine of your Church that strongly induce me to abide in my former perswasion As 1. You know that in these and the neighbouring Nations Papists have publickly burned the Scriptures and destroyed more Copies of them then ever Antiochus Epiphanes did of the Jewish Law And if you should go about to prove unto me that Protestants have no great regard to Sacred Images that have been worshipped because in these and the neighbouring Nations they brakes and burned a great number of them I should not readily know what to answer you Nor can I entertain any such confidence of your abilities as to expect from you a satisfactory answer unto my instance of the very same nature manifesting what respect Papists bear unto the Scriptures 2. You know that they have imprisoned and burned sundry persons for keeping the Scripture in their houses or some parts of them and reading them for their instruction and comfort Nor is this any great sign of respect unto them no more then it is of mens respect to treason or murder because they hang them up who are guilty of them And 3. Your Church prohibiteth the reading of them unto Lay-men unless in some special cases some few of them be licenced by you so to do and you study sweat for arguments to prove the reading of them needless and dangerous putting them as translated into the Catalogue of Books prohibited Now this is the very mark and stamp that your Church sets upon these books which she disapproves and discountenanceth as pernicious to the faithful 4. Your Councel of Trent hath decreed that your unwritten Traditions are to be received with the same faith and veneration as the Scripture constituting them to be one part of the Word of God and the Scriptures another then which nothing could be spoken more in contempt of it or in reproach unto it For I must assure you Protestants think you cannot possibly contract a greater guilt by any contempt of the Scripture then you do by reducing it into order with your unwritten Traditions 5. You have added Books not only written with an humane and fallible Spirit but farced with actual mistakes and falshoods unto the Canon of the Scripture giving just occasion unto them who receive it from you only to question the Authority of the whole And 6. You teach the Authority of the Scripture at least in respect of us which is all it hath for Authority is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and must regard some in relation unto whom it doth consist depends on the Authority of your Church the readiest way in the world to bring it into Contempt with them that know what your Church is and what it hath been And 7. You plead that it is very obscure and unintelligible of its self and that in things of the
you to surcease 2. This Vulgar people that you talk of as the Pharises did of them that were willing to attend unto the preaching of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joh. 7. This vulgar rout that knows not the Law if they are Christians they are such as to whom those Epistles were originally written and for whose sakes they are preserved such as Christ hath redeemed and sanctified in his own blood and given the annointing unto whereby they may know all things and are pattakers of the Promise that they shall be taught of God The Gospel takes not away the outward differences and distinctions that are on other accounts amongst the children of men but in the things of the Gospel its self there are none Vulgar or Common nor as such to be despised but believers are all one in Christ Jesus Col. 3. 11. Jam. 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6. How it is now I know nor but I am sure that the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel the poor principally received it and the greatest number of them that were effectually called was of those whom you speak so contemptuously of as the Apostle testifies 1. Cor. 1. 26. And the same is made good in all antient story Neither are these vulgar people such Ignoramus's as you imagine unless it be where you make and keep them such by detaining from them the means of knowledge and who perish for the want of it as the Prophet complained of old I speak not of them who continue willingly ignorant under the most effectual means of light but of such as being really born of God and becoming thereby a Royal Nation an holy Priesthood as they are called yea Kings and Priests unto God do conscientiously atterd unto his teachings Of these there are thousands yea ten thousands in England who are among the vulgar fort as to their Outward and Civil Condition that if occasion were administred would farther try your Divinity then you are aware and give you another manner of account of Pauls Epistles then I perceive you suppose they would You are mistaken if you imagine that either greatness or Learning Or Secular Wisdom will give a man understanding in the Mysteries of the Gospel or make him wise therein This wisdom is from above is wrought by the Spirit of God in the use of Spiritual means by himself appointed for that purpose And we know not that men of any condition are excepted from his dispensations of Light and Grace 3. To whom and for whose instruction were those Epistles of Paul written Were they not to the Churches of those dayes to all that were at Rome called to be holy ch 1. 7. and to the Church of God that was at Corinth sanctified in Christ Jesus 1 Cor. 1. 2. with all that everywhere call on his name And why I pray may not the Churches of these dayes be concerned to know the things that the Spirit of God thought meet to instruct the former Churches in Are Believers now grown unconcerned in the Doctrine in the law and Gospel of Sin and Grace of Justification Sanctification Adoption the Obedience of Faith and duties of Holiness which S. Paul reveals and declares in his Epistles What would you make of them or what would you make of the Apostle to write things for the standing use of the Church wherein so few were like to be concerned Or do you think that there are but few things in the Scripture wherein the souls of the people are concerned and that all the rest are left for learned men to dispute and wrangle about But you say there are particular Cases in them that belonged it may be only to them unto whom their resolution was directed But are you such a stranger in the Israel of the Church as not to know that in the same Cases or others of a very neer allyance unto them determinable by the Apostolical Rules delivered in them the Consciences of your vulgar people are still concerned 4. Those Epistles of Paul wherein you instance were written by divine Inspiration and given out by the direction of the Holy Ghost for the use of the Church of God in all Ages This I suppose you will not deny If so why do you set up your wisdom built on frivolous Cavils against the Will Wisdom Love and Care of God I fear you are a stranger unto that Benefit Strength Supportment Light Knowledge Grace Wisdom and Consolation which true believers the Disciples of Christ do every day receive by reading studying and meditating on Pauls Epistles I wish you would mind some of old Chrysostoms Exhortations unto all sorts of persons to the reading and study of them they are so interwoven in all his Expositions and Sermons on them that it were lost labour to direct you unto any place in particular 5. The latter part of your Discourse would make me suspect that your converse with the Quakers that you talked of in your Fiat had a little tainted your judgement but that I can ascribe the rise of it unto another Cause Your preferring the conceived substance of Gods Will before the letter of the Scripture is their very Opinion But what do you mean by the conceived substance of Gods Will Is it the Dâ—ctrine concerning the Will of God delivered in the Scripture or is it somewhat else If some other thing why do you not declare it If it be no other why do you distinguish it from its self and prefer it above it self or do you conceive there is a conceived substance of Gods Will that is taught or may be by men better then by God himself 6. Somewhat you intimate it may be to this purpose in the close of this Discourse p. 96. where you say the Question between us is not whether the people are to have Gods Word or no but whether that Word consist in the letter left to the Peoples disposal or in the substance urgently imposed upon the people for their practice And this because you understand not but mistake the whole business all your talk in this your eighteenth Chapter vades into nothing Truly Sir I never heard before that this was the state of the Controversie between us nor do I now believe it so to be For 1. We say not that the letter of the Scripture is to be left unto the Peoples disposal but that the Scripture is to be commended unto their reverend use and meditation which we think cannot be ingenuously denyed by any man that hath read the Scripture or knows ought of the Duty of the Disciples of Christ. 2. The Conceived substance of the Word of God as by any man conceived and proposed is no otherwise the Word of God but as it answers what is written in the Scripture and by virtue of its analogy therewith 3. If by urging the substance of the Word of God on the People you understand their instruction in their Duty out of the Word of God by Catechizing Preaching Admonitions and Exhortations as
nature and causes of things here below though they know well enough that there was never any agreement amongst the wisest and severest that at any time have been engaged in that disquisition nor is it likely that ever there will be so And herein they can countenance themselves with the difficulty obscurity and importance of the things inquired after But as for the high and heavenly mysteries of the Gospel the least whereof is infinitely of more importance then any thing that the utmost reach and comprehension of humane wisdom can attain unto they may be neglected and despised because there are contentions about them Hic nigrae succus loliginis haec est Erugo mera The truth is this is so far from any real ground for any such conclusion that it were utterly impossible that any man should believe the truth of Christian Religion if he had not seen or might not be informed that such contention and differences had ensued in and about it for that they should do so is plainly and frequently foretold in those sacred oracles of it whereof if any one be found to fail the veracity and authority of the whole may justly be called into question If therefore men will have a religion so absolutely facile aud easie that without diligence endeavour pains or enquiry without laying out of their rational abilities or exercising the faculties of their souls about it without foregoing of their lusts and pleasures without care of mistakes and miscarriages they may be securely wrapt up in it as it were whither they will or no I confess they must seek for some other where they can find it Christianity will yield them no relief God hath not proposed an acquaintance with the blessed concernments of his Glory and of their own eternal condition unto the sons of men on any such terms as that they should not need with all diligence to employ and exercise their faculties of their souls in the investigation of them in the use of the means by him appointed for that purpose seeing this is the chiefest end for which he hath made us those souls And as for them who in sincerity give up their minds and consciences unto his Authority and guidance he hath not left them without an infallible dâ—rection for such a discharge of their own duty as is sufficient to guide and lead them in the middest of all differences divisions and oppositions unto rest with himself and the difficulties which are cast upon any in their enquiring after truth by the errour and deviation of other men from it are all sufficiently recompenced unto them by the excellency and sweetness which they find in the truth it self when sought out with diligence according to the mind of Christ. And one said not amiss of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I dare say he is the wisest Christian who hath most diligently conâ—idered the various differences that are in and about Christianity as being built in the knowledge of the truth upon the best and most stable foundations To this end hath the Lord Jesus given us his holy word a perfect and sure Revelation of all that he would have us to believe or do in the worship of God This he commands us diligently to attend unto to study seach and enquire after that we may know his mind and do it It is true in their enquiry into it various apprehensions concerning the sense and meaning of sundry things revealed therein have befallen some men in all ages and Origen gives this as one occasion of the differences that were in those dayes amongst Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lib. 3. Con. Celâ— 1. When many were converted unto Christianity some of them variously understanding the holy Scripture which they joyntly believed it came to pass that heresie ensued For this was the whole rule of faith unity in those dayes the means for securing of us in them imposed on us of late by the Romanists was then not heard of not thought of in the world But moreover to obviate all danger that might in this matter ensue from the manifold weakness of our minds in apprehending spiritual things the Lord Jesus hath promised his holy spirit unto all them that believe in him and ask it of him to prevent their mistakes and miscarriages in the study of his word and to lead them into all that truth the knowledge whereof is necessary that they may believe in him unto the end and live unto him And if they who diligently and conscientiously without prejudices corrupt ends or designs in obedience to the command of Christ shall enquire into the Scriptures to receive from thence the whole object of their faith and rule of their obedience and who believing his promise shall pray for his Spirit and wait to receive him in and by the means appointed for that end may not be and are not thereby secured from all such mistakes and errours as may disinterest them in the promises of the Gospel I know not how we may be brought unto any certainty or assurance in the Truths of God or the everlasting consolation of our own souls Neither indeed is the nature of man capable of any further satisfaction in or about these things unless God should work continual miracles or give continually special revelations unto all individuals whch would utterly overthrow the whole nature of that faith and obedience which he requires at our hands But once to suppose that such persons through a defect of the means appointed by Christ for the instruction and direction before mentioned may everlastingly miscarry is to cast an unspeakable reproach on the goodness grace and faithfulness of God and enough to discourage all men from enquiring after the truth And these things the Reader will find further cleared in the ensuing discourse with a discovery of the weakness falseness and insufficiency of those rules and reliefs which are tendred unto us by the Romanists in the lieu of them that are given us by God himself Now if this be the condition of things in Christian Religion as to any one that hath with sincerity consulted the Scripture or considered the Goodness Grace and Wisdom of God it must needs appear to be it is manifest that mens startling at it or being offended upon the account of divisions and differences among them that make profession thereof is nothing but a pretence to cloke and hide their sloth and supine negligence with their unwillingness to come up unto the indispensable condition of learning the truth as it is in Jesus namely obedience unto his whole will and all his commands so far as he is pleased to reveal them unto us With others they are but incentives unto that diligence and watchfulness which the things themselves in their nature high and arduous and in their importance of everlasting moment require at your hands Further on those who by the means formentioned come to the knowledge of the truth it is incumbent according as they are
that were found in the most of its members And it is a fancy to dream of the purity of a Church in respect of its outward order when the power and life of godliness is lost in its members and a wicked device to suppose a Church may not be separated from Christ by unbelief whilest it abides in an externall profession of the doctrine of faith Such a Church though it may have a name to live yet indeed is dead and dead things are unclean We speak of its purity and acceptation thereon in the sight of God neither will men dead in trespasses and sins be terrible unto any as an Army with banners unless they are like those in Lucilius who Vt pueri infantes credunt signa omnia ahena Vivere esse homines sic isti omnia ficta Vera putant credunt signis cor inesse ahenis as Lactantius reports him But you say If they fall by Idolatry and yet keep any parts of Christianity they fall by Heresie But why so would you had thought it incumbent on you to give a reason of what you say Are Idolatry and Heresie the same Tertullian who of all the old Ecclesiasticall Writers most enlargeth the bounds of Idolatry defines it to be omnis circa omne Idolum famulatus servitus Any worship or service performed in reference to or about any Idoll I do not remember that ever I met with your definition of Idolatry in any Author whatever Bellarmine seems to place it in Creaturum aeque colere ac Deum to worship the creature as much or equally with the Creator which description of it though it be vain and groundless for his aeque is neither in the Scripture nor any approved Author of old required to the constituting of the worship of any creature Idolatrous yet is not this Heresie neither but that which differs from it toto genere We know it to be cultus religiosus creaturae exhibitus any religious worship of that whish by nature is not God and so doth your Thomas grant it to be Gregory de Valentia another of your great Champions contends that tanqnam Deo as unto God is to be added unto the definition As though religious worship could be given unto any thing and not as unto God really and indeed though not intentionally as to the worshipper Where a man gives religious worship there he doth ipso facto assign a divine eminencie say he what he will to the contrary Neither will his intention of not doing it as unto God any more free him from Idolatry than an Adultress will be free by not looking on her Adulterer as her Husband I confess he adds afterwards a distinction that is of great use for you and indispensably necessary for your defence de Idol lib. 2 cap. 7. S t Peter he tells us insinuates some worship of Idols cultum aliquem simulachrorum to wit that of the holy Images to be right or lawfull when he deterreth believers ab illicitis Idolorum cultibus from the unlawfull worship of Idols 1 Pet. 4. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This were somewhat indeed if all epithetes were distinguishing none aggravating or declarative When Virgil said dulcia mella premes Geor. 4. he did not insinuate that there was any bitter honey Nor is it allowable only for Poets to use explaining and declaring epithetes but Aristotle allowes it in the best Oratours also so they use not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 long or unseasonable ones or the same frequently and the use of this here by Peter is free from all those vices When the Romane Orator cryed out ô scelus detestandum O wickedness to be abhorred he did not intend to insinuate that there was a wickedness not to be abhorred or to be approved But if it will follow hence that your Church is guilty only of lawfull Idolatry I shall not much contend about it Yet I must tell you that as the poor woman when the Physicians in her sickness told her still that what she complained of was a good sign cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good signes have undone me your lawfull Idolatry if you take not better heed will undo you In the mean time as to the coincidence you imagin between Idolatry and Heresie I wish you would advise with your Angelicall Doctor who will shew you how they are contradistinct evils which he therefore weighs in his scales and determines which is the heaviest 22 ae q. 94. a. ad 4. The Church in the wilderness fell by its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 its making and worshiping a golden Calfe as a representation of the presence of God That they kept some parts of the Doctrine of Truth entire is evident from their proclamation of a feast to Jehovah Do any men in their wits use to say this fall was by Heresie though all agree it was by Idolatry so that your Church might fall by Idolatry and not fall formally by Heresie according to the genuine importance of the word the use of it in the Scriptures or the definition given of it by the Schoolmen or any sober Writer of what sort soever And here I must desire you to stay a little if you intend to take Protestants along with you They constantly return this Answer unto you in the first place and tell you that your Church is fallen by Idolatry It is fallen in the worship which you give unto the Consecrated Host as you call it wherein if the Scriptures which call it bread and the Fathers who terme it the figure of the body of Christ if Reason and all our senses deceive us not you are as plainely Idolatrous as the poor wretches which fall down and worship a piece of Red Cloth So your own Costerus assures us Enchirid. cap. 8. Tolerabilior saith he est eorum error qui pro Deo solunt statuam auream aut argenteam aut alterius materis imaginem quomodo Gentiles Deos suos venerabantur vel pannum rubrum in hastam elevatum quod narratur de Lappis vel viva animalia at quondam Aegyptii quam eorum qui frustum panis colunt Their errour is more tolerable who worship a golden or silver Statue or an Image of any other matter for a God as the Gentiles worshipped their Gods or a ragge of Red Cloth lifted upon a spear as it is reported of the Laplanders or living Creatures as did the Egyptians of old than theirs who worship a piece of bread This is that which made Averoes cry out seeing the Christians eat the God whom they worship let my soul be among the Philosophers You do the same in your worship of the Cross which the chiefest among you maintain â—o be the same that is due to Christ himself And you are in the same path still in the religious adoration you give unto the blessed Virgin your prayers to her and invocations of her which abound in all your books of Devotion and generall practice And what need we mention any
it if thy use the means by him appointed to come unto a right understanding of it They suppose that what is not taught therein or not taught so clearly as that men who humbly and heartily seek unto him may know his mind therein as to what he requireth of them cannot possibly be the necessary and indispensable Duty of any one to perform They suppose that it is the Duty of every man to search the Scriptures with all diligence by the help and assistance of the means that God hath appointed in his Church to come to the knowledg of his mind and will in all things concerning their Faith and Obedience and firmly to believe and adhere unto what they find revealed by him And they moreover suppose that those who deny any of these Suppositions are therein and so farre as they do so injurious to the Grace Wisedem Love and Care of God towards his Church to the Honour and perfection of the Scripture the Comfort and establishment of the Souls of men leaving them no assured Principles to build their Faith and Salvation upon Now from these Suppositions I hope you see that it will unavoidably follow that the Scripture is able every way to effect that which you deny unto it a sufficiency for For where I pray you lyes its defect I am afraid from the next part of your Question Has it ever done it that you run upon a great mistake The defect that follows the failings and miscarriages of men you would have imputed unto the want of sufficiency in the Scripture But wee cannot allow you herein The Scripture in its place and in that kind of Cause which it is is as sufficient to settle men all men in the Truth as the Sunne is to give light to all men to see by But the Sunne that giveth light doth not give eyes also The Scripture doth its work as a Morall Rule which men are not necessitated or compelled to attend unto or follow And if through their neglect of it or not attendance unto it or disability to discern the mind and will of God in it whether proceeding from their naturall impotency and blindness in their laps'd condition or some evil habit of mind contracted by their giving admission unto corrupt prejudices and Traditionall Principles the work be not effected this is no impeachment of the Scriptures sufficiency but a manifestation of their weakness and folly Besides all that unity in faith that hath been at any time or is in the world according to the mind of God every Decision that hath been made at any time of any difference in or about Religion in a right way and order hath been by the Scripture which God hath sanctified unto those ends and purposes And it is impossible that the miscarriages or defects of men can reflect the least blame upon it or make it esteemed insufficient for the end now enquired after The pursuit then of your Enquiry which now you insist upon is in part vain in part already answered In vain it is that you enquire whether the written Word can settle any man in a way that neither himself nor present adherents nor future Generations shall question For our enquiry is not after what may be or what shall be but what ought to be It is able to settle a man in a way that none ought to question unto the worlds end So it setled the first Christians But to secure us that none shall ever question the way whereinto it leads us that it is not designed for nor is it either needfull or possible that it should be so The Orall preaching of the Sonne of God and of his Apostles did not so secure them whom they taught The way that professed was every where questioned contradicted spoken against and many after the profession of it again renounced it And I wonder what feat you have to settle any one in a way that shall never be questioned The Authority of your Pope and Church will not do it Themselves are things as highly questioned and disputed about as any thing that was ever named with reference unto Religion If you shall say But yet they ought not to be so questioned and it is the fault of men that they are so You may well spare me the labour of answering your Question seeing you have done it your self And whereas you adde or with as much probability dissent from it either totally or in part as himself first set it when the very preceding words do not speak of a mans own setting but of the Scriptures setling the man only embracing what that setleth and determineth It is answered already that what is so setled by the Scripture and received as setled cannot justly be questioned by any And you insinuate a most irrationall Supposition on which your Assertion is built namely that Errour may have as much probability as Truth For I suppose you will grant that what is setled by the Scripture is true and therefore that which dissents from it must needs be an errour which that it may be as probable indeed as Truth for we speak not of appearances which have all their strength from our weaknesses is a new notion which may well be added to your many other of the like rarity and evidence But why is not the Scripture able to settle men in unquestionable Truth When the people of old doubted about the wayes of God wherein they ought to walk himself sends them to the Law and to the Testimony for their instruction and settlement Isa 8. 20. And we think the counsell of him who cannot deceive nor be deceived is to be hearkned unto as well as his command to be obeyed Our Saviour assures us that if men will not hear Moses and the Prophets and take direction from them for those wayes wherein they may please God they will not do it whatsoever they pretend from any other means which they rather approve of Luk. 16. 29 31. Yea and when the great Fundamental of Christian Religion concerning the Person of the Messiah was in question he sends men for their settlement unto the Scriptures Joh. 5. 39. And we suppose that that which is sufficient to settle us in the foundation is so to confirm us also in the whole superstructure Especially considering that it is able to make the man of God perfect and to be thoroughly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. What more is required unto the settlement of any one in Religion wee know not nor what can rationally stand in competition with the Scripture to this purpose seeing that is expresly commended unto us for it by the Holy Ghost other wayes are built on the conjectures of men Yea the Assurance which we may have hereby is preferred by Peter before that which any may have by an immediate voyce from Heaven 2 Pet. 1. 19. And is it not an unreasonable thing now for you to come and tell us that the Scripture is not sufficient
to your Question What it is that can settle any man in the Truth of Religion and unite all men therein And then because you object this unto us as if we were at some loss and incertainty therein and your selves very secure I shall consider what are the grounds and principles that you proceed upon for the same ends and purposes namely to settle any man in the Truth of Religion and to bring all men to an harmony and consent therein Now I shall herein manifest unto you these two things I. That the Principles which the Protestants proceed upon in the improvement whereof they obtain themselves assured and infallible settlement in the Truth and labour to reduce others unto the Unity of Faith are such as are both suited unto and sufficient for the end and work which they design to effect by them and also in themselves of such unquestionable Truth Certainty and Evidence that either they are all granted by your selves or cannot be denied without shaking the very Foundations of Christianity 2. That those which you proceed upon are some of them untrue and most of them dubious and questionable none of them able to bear the weight that you lay upon them and some of them such as the admission of would give just cause to question the whole Truth of Christian Religion And both these S r I crave leave to manifest unto you whereby you may the better judg whether the Scripture or your Church be the best way to bring men unto settlement in Religion which is the thing enquired after 1. Protestants lay down this as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the very beginning and first Principle of their confidence and Confession that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God as the Holy Ghost teacheth them 2 Tim. 3. 16. That is that the Books of the Old and New Testament were all of them written by the immediate guidance direction and inspiration of God the hand of the Lord as David speaks 1 Chron. 28. 19. being upon the Penmen thereof in writing and his Spirit as Peter informs us speaking in them 1 Pâ—t 1. 11. So that whatever is contained and delivered in them is given out from God and is received on his Authority This Principle I suppose you grant to be true do you not if you will deny it say so and we will proceed no farther untill we have proved it I know you have various wayes laboured to undermine the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Holy Scriptures many Queries you put unto men How they can know it to be from God to be true from Heaven and not of men many scruples you indeavour to possess them with against its Authority it is not my present business to remove them It is sufficient unto mee 1. That you your selves who differ from us in other things and with whom our contest about the best way of coming to settlement in the Truth alone is do acknowledg this Principle were proceed upon to be true And 2. That yee cannot oppose it without setting your selves to digge up the very foundations of Christian Religion and to open a way to let in an inundation of Atheism on the world So our first step is fixed on the grand fundamentall Principle of all the Religion and acceptable worship of God that is in the world 2. They affirm that this Scripture evidenceth it self by many infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be so given by Inspiration from God and besides is witnessed so to be by the Testimony of the Church of God from the dayes of Moses wherein it began to be written to the dayes wherein we live our Lord Christ and his Apostles asserting and confirming the same Testimony which Testimony is conveyed unto us by uninterrupted Catholick Tradition The first part of this Position I confess some of you deny and the latter part of it you generally all of you pervert confining the Testimony mentioned unto that of your present Church which is a very inconsiderable part of it if any part at all But how groundlesly how prejudicially to the verity and honour of Christian Religion in generall you do these things I shall briefly shew you Some of you I say deny the first part of this Assertion so doth Andradius Defens Concil Trident. Lib. 3. Neque enim saith he in ipsis Libris quibus Sacra Mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam inest Divinitatis quod nos ad Credendum qua illis continentur religione aliqua constring at Neither is there in the Books themselves wherein the holy Mysteries are written any thing of Divinity that should constrain us by vertue of any religious respect thereunto to believe the things that are contained in them Hence Cocleus Lib. 2. de Authoritate Eccles. Script gathers up a many instances out of the Book of the Scripture which he declares to be altogether incredible were it not for the Authority of the Church I need not mention any more of your Leaders concurring with them you know who is of the same mind with them if the Author of Fiat Lux be not unknown to you Your resolving Vniversal Tradition into the Authority of your present Church to which end there is a Book written not long since by a Jesuit under the name of Vincentius Severinus is no less notorious Some of you I confess are more modest and otherwise minded as to both parts of our Assertion See Malderus Episcop Antwerp de Object Fidei qu. 1. Vaselius Groningen de Potestat Eccles. Epist. ad Jacob. Hock Alliacens in Lib. 1. Sentent Artic. 3. Gerson Exam. dos part 2. Consid. 1. Tom. 1. sol 105. and in twenty other places But when you come to deal with Protestants and consider well the Tendency of this Assertion you use I consess an hundred rergiversations and are most unwilling to come to the acknowledgment of it and rather then suffer from it deny it downwright and that with Scurrilous reflections and Comparisons likening it as to any characters of Gods truth and Holiness upon it unto Livy's Story yea Aesops Fables or a Piece of Poetry And when you have done so you apply your selves to the canvasing of Stories in the Old Testament and to find out appearing Contradictions and tell us of the uncertainty of the Authors of some particular Books that the whole is of its self a dead letter which can prove nothing at all enquiring Who told us that the Penmen of it were divinely inspired seeing they testify no such things of themselves and if they should yet others may do and have done so who notwithstanding were not so inspired and ask us Why we receive the Gospel of Luke who was not an Apostle and reject that of Thomas who one with many the like Cavilling Exceptions But 1. That must needs be a bad Cause which stands in need of such a Defence Is this the voice of Jacob or Esau Are these the expressions of Christians or Pagans from whose
man will swallow amongst them that which is destitute of all Probability but what is included in the evidence given unto it by Divine Revelation which is not yet pleaded unto him It may be then you will work Miracles to confirm your Assertions Let us see them For although very many things are requisite to manifest any works of wonder that may be wrought in the world to be reall Miracles and good Caution be required to judge unto what end Miracles are wrought yet if we may have any tolerable evidence of your working Miracles in Confirmation of this Assertion that you are the true and only Church of God with the other Inferences depending thereon which we are in the Consideration of you will find us very easie to be treated withall But herein also you fail You have then no way to deal with such a man as we first supposed but as you do with us and produce Testimonies of Scripture to prove and confirm the Authority of your Church and then you will quickly find where you are and what snares you have cast your selves into Will not a man who hears you proving the Authority of your Church by the Scripture ask you And whence hath this Scripture its Authority yea that is supposed to be the thing in Question which denying unto it an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you yet produce to confirm the Authority of that by whose Authority alone its self is evidenced to have any Authority at all Rest in the Authority of God manifesting its self in the Scripture witnessed unto by the Catholick Tradition of all Ages you will not But you will prove the Scripture to be the Word of God by the Testimony of your Church and you will prove your Châ—â—â—h to be enabled sufficiently to testifie the Scriptures to be of God by the Testimonies of the Scripture Would you knew where to begin and where to end But you are indeed in a Circle which hath neither beginning nor ending I know not when we shall be enabled to say Inventus Chrysippe tui finitor acervi Now do you think it reasonable that we should leave our stable and immoveable firm foundations to run round with you in this endless Circle untill through giddiness we fall into Unbelief or Atheism This is that which I told you before you must either acknowledge our Principle in this matter to be firm and certain or open a door to Atheism and the Contempt of Christian Religion seeing you are not able to substitute and thing in the room thereof that is able to bear the weight that must be laid upon it if we believe For how should you do so shall man be like unto God or equall unto him The Testimony we rest in is Divine fortified from all Objections by the strongest humane Testimony possible namely Catholick Tradition That which you would supply us with is meerly Humane and no more And 4. your Importunity in opposing this Principle is so much the more marvellous unto us because therein you openly oppose your selves to express Testimonies of Scripture and the full Suffrage of the Ancient Church I wish you would a little weigh what is affirmed 2 Pet. 1. 19 20. Psal. 119. 152. Joh. 5. 34 35 36 39. 1 Thess. 2. 13. Act. 17. 11. 1 Joh. 5. 6 10. 1 Joh. 2. 20. Heb. 11. 1 Tim. 1. 15. Act. 26. 22. And will you take with you the consent of the Ancients Clemens Alexand. Strom. 7. speaks fully to our purpose as he doth also lib. 4. where he plainly affirms that the Church proved the Scripture by its selfâ— and other things as the Unity of the Deity by the Scripture But his own words in the former place are worth the recital 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the beginning of Faith or Principle of what we teach we have the Lord who in sundry manners and by divers parts by the Prophets Gospel and holy Apostles leads us to knowledge And if any one suppose that a Principle stands in need of another to prove it he destroys the nature of a Principle or it is no longer preserved a Principle This is that we say The Scripture the Old and New Testament is the Principle of our Faith This is proved by its self to be of the Lord who is its Author and if we cause it to depend on any thing else it is no longer the Principle of our Faith and Profession And a little after where he hath shewed that a Principle ought not to be disputed nor to be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of any debate he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is meet then that receiving by Faith the most absolute Principle without other demonstration and taking demonstrations of the Principle from the Principle its self that we be instructed by the voice of the Lord unto the knowledge of the Truth That is we believe the Scripture for its own sake and the Testimony that God gives unto it in it and by it and do prove every thing else by it and so are confirmed in the faith or knowledge of the Truth So he further explains himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For we do not simply or absolutely attend or give heed unto men determining or defining against whom it is equall that we may define or declare our judgements So it is whilest the Authority of man or men any Society of men in the world is pleaded the Authority of others may be as good reason be objected against it as whilest you plead your Church and its definitions others may on as good grounds oppose theirs unto you therein And therefore Clemens proceeds 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if it be not sufficient meerly to declare or assert that which appears to be truth but also to make that Credible or fit to be believed which is spoken we seek not after the Testimony that is given by men but we confirm that which is proposed or enquired about with the voice of the Lord which is more full than any demonstration or rather is its self the only demonstration according to the knowledge whereof they that have tasted of the Scriptures are believers Into the voice the Word of God alone the Church then resolved their Faith this only they built upon acknowledging all humane Testimony to be too weak and infirm to be made a foundation for it And this voice of God in the Scripture evidencing its self so to be is the only Demonstration of Faith which they rested in whereupon a little after he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so wee having perfect Demonstrations out of the Scriptures are by Faith demonstratively assured or perswaded of the Truth of the things proposed This was the Profession of the Church of old this the resolution of their faith This is that which Protestants in this Case adhere unto They proved the Scripture to be from God as he elswhere speaks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as
we also do Strom. 4. To this purpose speaks Salvianus de Gub. Lib. 3. Alia omnia idest humana dicta argumentis testibus egent Dei autem Sermo ipse sibi test is est quia necesseest ut quicquid incorrupta verityas loquitur incorruptum sit testimonium veritatis All other sayings stand in need of Arguments and witnesses to confirm them the Word of God is witness to its self For whatever the Truth incorrupted speaks must of necessity be an incorrupt Testimony of Truth And although some of them allowed the Testimony of the Church as a motive unto believing the Gospell or things preached from it yet as to the belief of the Scripiure with faith Divine and Supernaturall to be the Word of God they required but these two things 1. That Self-Evidence in the Scripture its self which is needfull for an indemonstrable Principle from which and by which all other things are to be demonstrated And that Self-Evidence Clemens puts in the place of all Demonstrations 2. The Efficacy of the Spirit in the heart to enable it to give a saving assent unto the Truth proposed unto it Thus Austin in his Confessions Lib. 6. cap. 5. Persuasisti mihi ô Domine Deus non eos qui crederent libris tuis quos tanta in omnibus ferè Gentibus authoritate fundasti esse culpandos sed eos qui non crederent new audiendesesse siqui mihi forte dicerent Unde scis illos libres unius veracissimi Dei Spirituesse humano generi ministratos idipsum enim maximè credendum erat O Lord God thou hast perswaded me that not they who believe thy Books which with so great Authority thou hast setled almost in all Nations were to be blamed but those who believe them not and that I should not hearken unto any of them who might chance to say unto me Whence dost thou know those Books to be given out unto mankind from the Spirit of the only True GOD for that is the thing which principally was to be believed In which words the holy man hath given us full direction what to say when you come upon us with that Question which some used it seems in his dayes A great Testimony of the Antiquity of your Principles Adde hereunto what he writes in the 11 th Book and 3 d Chapter of the same Treatise and wee have the summe of the Resolution and Principle of his Faith Audiam saith he intelligam quomodo fecisti Coelam terram Scripsit hoc Moses scripsit abiit transivit hinc ad Te. Neque enim nunc ante me est nam si esset tenerem eum rogaremeum per Teobsecrarem ut mihi ist a paâ—derct praberem aures corporis mei sonis erumpentibus ex ere ejus At si Hebraea voce loqueretur frustra pulsaret sensum meum nec inde mentem meam tangeret si autem Latinè scirem quid diceret sed Unde scirem an verum dicoret quod si hoc scirem num ab illâ— scirem Intus utique mihi intus in domicilio cogitationis nec Hebraea nec Graeca nec Latina nec barbara verityas sine oris linguae organis sine strepitu syllabarum diceret verum diâ—it ego statim â—â—tus confidenter illi homini tuo dicerem Verumolits Cum ergo illum interrogare non possim Te quo 〈◊〉 vera dixit Veritas rogo Te Deus meus rogo partepeccatis meis qui illi servo tuo dedisti haec dicere 〈◊〉 mihi haEc intelligere I would bear and understand O Lord how thou hast made the Heavens and the earth Moses wrote this he wrote it and is gene and he is gone to Thee For now he is not present with mee if he were I would lay hold on him and ask him and beseech him for thy sake that he would unfold these things unto me and I would cause the ears of my body to attend unto the words of his mouth But if he should speak in the Hebrew tongue he would only in vain strike upon my outward sense and my mind within would not be affected with it If he speak in Latine I should know what he sayed but whence should I know that he spake the Truth should I know this also from him The Truth that is neither Hebrew Greck Latine nor expressed in any Barbarous Language would say unto me inwardly in the dwelling place of my thoughts without the organs of mouth or tongue or noyse of syllables He speaks the Truth and I with confidaence should say unto him thy servam Thou speakest the Truth Seeing therefore I cannot enquire of him I beseech Thee that art Truth with whom he being filled spake the Truth I beseech thee O my God pardon my sinnes and thou who gavest unto him by servant to speak these things grant unto me tounderstand Thus this holy man ascribes his assent into the one unquestionable Principle of the Scripture as to the effecting of it in himself to the work if Gods Spirit in his heart As Basil also doth on Psal. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith which draws the soul unto consent above the efficacy of all rational wayes or methods of perswasion Faith that is wrought and begotten in us not by geometricall enforcements or demonstrations but by the effectuall operations of the Spirit And both these Principles are excellently expressed by one amongst your selves even Baptista Mantuanus Lib. de Patientia Cap. 32 33. Saepenumerò faith he mecum cogitavi Unde tam sâ—adibilis esset ista Scriptura ut tam potenter insluat in animos auditorum unde tantum habeat energiae ut non adopinandum sed ad solidè credendum omnes inflectat I have often thought with my self Whence the Scripture is so perswasive whence it doth so powerfully influence the minds of the hearers whence it hath so much efficacy that it should incline and bow all men not to think as probable but solidly to believe the things it proposeth Non saith he est hoc imputandum rationum evidentiaequas non adducit non artis industriae verbis suavibus ad persuadendum accommodatis quibus non utitur It is not to be ascribed unto the evidence of Reasons which it bringeth not neither to the excellency of Art sweet words and accommodated unto per swasion which it makes no use of Sed vide an id in causa sit quod persuasi sumus eam à prima veritate flâ—xisse But see if this be not the Cause of it that wee are perswaded that it proceeds from the prime Verity He proceeds Sed unde sumus ita persuasi nisi ab ipsa quasi ad ei credendum non sua ipsiâ—â— trahat Authoritas Sed unde quaeso hanc sibi Authoritatem vindicavit Neque enim vidimus nos Deum concionantem scribentem docentem tamen ac si vidissemus credimus tenemus à Spiritu Sancto fluxisse quod legimus Forsitan
fuerit haec ratio firmiter adharendi quòd in ea veritas sit solidior quamvis non clarior Habet enim omnis veritas vim inclinativam major majorem maxima maximam Sed cur ergo omnes non credunt Evangelio Respondeo quod non omnes trahuntur à Deo And again Inest ergo Scripturis Sacris nescio quid Natur â sublimius idest inspiratio facta divinitus divinae irradiation is influxus certus But whence are wee perswaded that it is from the First Verity but from it Self It s own Authority draws us to believe it But whence obtains it this Authority â— we see not God preaching writing teaching but yet as if we had seen him we believe and firmly hold that which we read to have come from the Holy Ghost It may be that this is a reason of our firm adhering unto it that the Truth in it is more solid though not more clear than in any other way of proposall and all truth hath a power to incline unto belief the greater the Truth the greater its power and the greatest Truth must have the greatest power so to incline us But why then do not all believe the Gospell I answer because all are not drawn of God There is then in the holy Scripture somewhat more sublime than Nature that is the Divine Inspiration from whence it is and the Divine Irradiation wherewith it is accompanied This is the Principle of Protestants The Sacred Scripture is credible as proceeding from the first Verity this it manifests by its own Light and Efficacy and we are enabled to believe it by the effectuall working of the Spirit of God in our hearts Whence our Saviour asks the Jews Joh 5. If you believe not the writing of Moses how will you believe my words They who will not believe the written Word of the Scripture upon the Authority that it hath in its self would not believe if Christ should personally speak unto them So saith Theophylact on the place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Protestants believe and profess that the End wherefore God gave forth his Word by Inspiration was that it might be a stable Infallible Revelation of his mind and will as to that knowledge which he would have mankind entertain of him with that Worship and Obedience which he requireth of them that so they may please him in this world and come unto the fruition of him unto all eternity God who is the formal object is also the prime Cause of all Religious worship What is due unto him as the first Cause last End and Soveraign Lord of all as to the substance of it and what he further appoints himself as to the manner of its performance suited unto his own Holiness and the Condition wherein in reference unto our Last end we stand and are making up the whâ—le of it That he hath given his Word to reveal these things unto us to be our Rule Guide and Direction in our wayes walkings and universal deportment before him is as I take it a fundamentall Principle of our Christian Profession Neither do I know that this is denied by your Church although you startle at the inferences that are justly made from it I shall not need therefore to adde any thing in its Confirmation but only mind you again that the calling of it into question is directly against the very heart of all Religion and the unanimous consent of all that in the world are called Christians or ever were so Yea and it must be granted or the whole Scripture esteemed a Fable because it frequently declares that it is given unto us of God for this End and Purpose And hence do Protestants inferre two other Conclusions on which they build their Perswasion concerning the Vnity of Faith and the proper means of their Settlement therein 1. That therefore the Scripture is perfect and every way compleat namely with respect unto that end whereunto of God it is designed A Perfect and compleat Revelation of the Will of God as to his Worship and our Obedience And we cannot but wonder that any who profess themselves to believe that it was given for the end mentioned should not have that sacred Reverence for the Wisdome Goodness and Love of its Author unto mankind as freely to assent unto this Inference and Conclusion He is our Rock and his work is perfect And lest any men should please themselves in the imagination of contributing any thing towards the effecting of the end of his Word by a supply unto it he hath strictly forbidden them any such addition Deut. 4. 2. 12. 12. Prov. 30. 6. Which if it were not compleat in reference unto its proper End would hold no great correspondency with that Love and goodness which the same Word every where declares to be in Him I suppose you know with how many express Testimonies of Scripture its self this Truth is confirmed which added unto that light and evidence which as a deduction from the former fundamental Truth it hath in its self is very sufficient to render it unquestionable You may at your leasure besides these forenamed consult Psal. 19. 8. Esa. 8. 20. Ezek. 28. 18. Mat. 15. 6. Luk. 1. 3 4. ch 16. 29 31. ch 24. 25 27. Job 5. 39. ch 20. 10 Act. 1. 11. ch 17. 2 3. ch 20. 27. chapt 26. 22. Rom. 10. 17. ch 15. 4. 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gal. 1. 8. Eph. 2. 19 20. 2 Tim. 3. 16 17. Heb. 1. 1. 2 Pet. 1. 19. Rev 22. 18. For though Texts of Scripture are not appointed for us to throw at one anothers heads as you talk in your Fiat yet they are for us to use and insist on in the Confirmation of the Truth if we may take the example of Christ and all his Apostles for our warrant And it were endless to recite the full and plain Testimonies of the Ancient Fathers and Councels to this purpose Neither is that my present design though I did somwehat occasionally that way upon the former Principle It shall suffice me to shew that the deny all of this Assertion also as it is inferred from the foregoing Principle is Prejudiciall if not pernicious to Christian Religion in Generall The whole of our Faith and Profession is resolved into the known Excellencies and Perfections of the Nature of God Amongst these there are none that have a more immediate and quickning influence into them than his Wisdom Goodness Grace Care and Love towards them unto whom he is pleased to reveal himself Nor is there any property of his Nature that in his Word he more frequently gives testimony unto And all of them doth he declare himself to have exalted and glorified in a signall manner in that Revelation which he hath made of himself his Mind and Will therein I suppose this cannot be denied by any who hath the least sense of the importance of the things revealed Now if the Revelation made for the End before proposed be not perfect
himself as that nothing more abominable can be invented The Devil of old being not able to give out certain Answers unto them that came to onquire about their Concernments at his Oracles put them off a long time with dubious aenigmaticall unintelligible Sophisms But when once the world had by experience study and observation improved its self into a Wisdome beyond the pitch of its first rudeness men began generally to despise what they saw could not be certainly understood This made the Devil pluck in his horns as not finding it for the interest of his kingdome to expose himself to be scoffed at by them with whose follies and fanaticall credulity in esteeming highly of that which could not be understood he had for many generations sported himself And do they not blasphemously expose the Oracles of the true holy and living God to no less contempt who for their own sinister ends would frighten men from them with the ugly scare-crow of obscurity or their not being intelligible unto every man by the use of means so far as he is concerned to know them and the mind of God in them And herein also Protestants stand as firmly as the fundamentals of Christianity will bear them 4. Protestants believe that it is the Duty of all men who desire to know the will of God and to worship him according unto his mind to use diligence in the improvement of the means appointed for that end to come unto a right and full understanding of all things in the Scripture wherein their faith and obedience are concerned This necessarily follows from the Principles before laid down Nor is it possible it should be otherwise It is doubtless incumbent on every man to study and know his Duty that cannot be a mans Duty which he is not bound to know especially not such a Duty as whereon his eternall welfare should depend And I suppose a man can take no better Course to come to the knowledge of his Duty than that which God hath appointed for that purpose The Commands and Exhortations which we have given us in the Scripture for our Diligence in this matter with the Explications and improvements of them in the Writings of the Fathers are so obvious trite and known that it were meer loss of time to insist on the Repetition of them I suppose I should speak within compass if I should say that one Chrysostome doth in a hundred places exhort Christians of all sorts to the diligent study and search of the Scriptures and especially of the Epistles of Paul not the most plain and easie part of them I know the practise of your Church lyes to the contrary and what you plead in the justification of that practise but I am sorry both for Her and you both for the contrivers of and consenters unto this abomination and I fear what your accounâ— will be as to this matter at the last day God having granted the inestimable benefit of his Word unto mankind revealing therein unto them the only way by which they may attain unto a blessed eternity Is it not the greatest ingratitude that any man can possibly contract the guilt of to neglect the use of it What then is your Condition who upon sleight and triviall pretences set up your own Wisdome and Authority against the Wisdome and Authority of God advising and commanding men upon the pain of your displeasure in this world not to attend unto that which God commands them to attend unto on pain of his displeasure in the world to come So that though I confess that you deny this Principle yet I cannot see but that you do so not only upon the hazard of your own souls and the souls of them that attend unto you seeing that if the blind lead the blind both must fall into the ditch but also that you do it to the great prejudice of Christian Religion in the very foundations of it For what can a man rationally conclude that shall see you driving all Persons and that on no small penalties excepting your selves who are concerned in the conspiracy and some few others whom you suppose sufficiently initiated in your Mysteries from the reading and study of those Books wherein the world knows and your selves confess that the Arcana of Christian Religion are contained but that there are some things in them like the hidden Sacra of the old Pagan Hierophants which may not be disclosed because however countenanced by a remote veneration yet are indeed turpia or ridicula things to be ashamed of or scorned And the Truth is some of your Doctors have spoken very suspiciously this way whilest they justifie your practise in driving the people from the study of the Scripture by intimations of things and expressions not so pure and chast as to be fit for the knowledge of the promiscuous multitude when in the mean time Themselves or their Associates do publish unto all the world in their rules and directions for Confession such abominable filth and ribaldry as I think was never by any other means vented amongst mankind 5. Protestants say that the Lord Christ hath instituted his Church and therein appointed a Ministry to preside over the rest of his Disciples in his Name and to unfold un to them his mind and will as recorded in his Word for which end he hath promised his presence with them by his Spirit unto the end of the World to enable them in an humble dependance on his assistance to find out and declare his Commands and Appointments unto their brethren This Position I suppose you will not contend with us about although I know that you put another sense upon most of the terms of it than the Scripture will allow or wee can admit of These are the Principles of Protestants this is the Progress of their Faith in coming unto settlement and assurance These are their Foundations which are as unquestionable as any thing in Christianity the most of them your selves being judges And from them one of these two things will necessarily follow Either that all men unto whom the Word of God doth come will come to an agreement in the Truth or the Unity of Faith or Secondly That it is their own fault if they do not so do For what upon these Principles should hinder them from so doing All saving Truth is revealed by God in the Scripture unto the end that men may come to the knowledge of it It is so revealed by Him that it is possible and with his assistance easie formen to know aright his Mind and Will about the things so revealed and be hath appointed regular wayes and means for men to wait upon him in and by for the obtaining of his assistance Now pray revive your Question that gave occasion unto this discourse however men may differ in Religion why is not the Scripture sufficient to bring them unto an agreement and settlement Take heed that in your Answer you deny not some Principle that will
And that A man once rid of his Authority may as easily deride and as solidly confute the Incarnation as the Sprinkling of Holy water so resolving our faith of the Incarnation of Christ into his Authority or Testimony Yea and in the same page That if it had not been for the Pope Christ himself had not been taken in the world for any such Person as he is believed this day And p. 378. to the same purpose The first great fundamental of Christian Religion which is the Truth and Divinity of Christ had it not been for him had failed long ago in the world with much more to the same purpose Hence it is evident that in your judgment all Truth and Certainty in Region depends on the Popes Anthority and Infallibility or as you express it his unerring guidance This is your Principle this you propose as the only medium to bring us unto that Settlement in Religion which you suppose the Scripture is not able to do What course should we now take would you have us believe you at the first word without further triall or examination would you have a man to do so who never before heard of Pope or Church We are commanded to try all things and to hold fast that which is good to try pretending Spirits and the Beraeans are commended for examining by the Scripture what Paul himself preached unto them An implicit Credulity given up to such Dictates is the height of Fanaticism Have wee not reason then to call you and your copartners in this design to an accoun â—how you prove that which you so strenuously assert and suppose and to examine the Principles of that Authority whereunto you resolve all your faith and Religion If upon mature consideration these prove Solid and the Inferences you make from them Cogent it is good Reason that you should be attended unto If they prove otherwise if the first be false and the latter Sophistical you cannot justly take it ill of him that shall advise you to take heed that whilest you are gloriously displaying your Colours the ground that you stand upon do not sink under your feet And here you are forced to go many a step backward to fix your first footing untill you leave your Pope quite out of sight from whence you advance towards him by severall degrees and so arive at his Supremacie and Infallibility and so we shall have Reditum Diomedis ab interitu Meleagri 1. Your first Principle to this purpose is That Peter was the Prince of the Apostles and that in him the Lord Jesus founded a Monarchy in his Church So pag. 360. you call him the head and Prince of the whole Congregation Now this wee think no meet Principle for any one to begin withall in asserting the foundation of Faith and Religion Nor do we think that if it were meet so to be used that it is any way subservient unto your design and purpose 1. A Principle fundamental or first entrance into any way of Settlement in Faith or Religion it cannot possibly be because it presupposeth the knowledg of and assent unto many other great fundamental Articles of Christian Religion yea upon the matter all that are so For before you can rationally talk with a man about Peters Principality and the Monarchical state of the Church hereon depending you must suppose that he believes the Scripture 〈◊〉 be the Word of God and all things that are taught therein concerning Jesus Christ his Person Nature Offices Work and Gospell to be certainly and infallibly true for they are all supposed in your Assertion which without the knowledg of them is uncouth horrid insignificant and forraign to all notions that a man can rationally entertain of God or Religion Nay no attempt of proof or confirmation can be given unto it but by and from Scripture whereby you fall directly into the Principle which you seek so carefully to avoid namely that the Scripture is the only way and means of setling us in the Truth since you cannot settle any man in the very first proposition which you make to lead him into another way but by the Scripture So powerfull is Truth that those who will not follow it willingly it will lead them captive in Triumph whether they will or no. 2. It is unmeet for any purpose because it is not true No one word from the Scripture can you produce in its confirmation wherein yet if it be not revealed it must pass as a very uncertain and frivolous conjecture You can produce no suffrage of the Ancient Church unto your purpose which yet if you could would not presently render any Assertion so confirmed infallibly certain much less fundamental Some indeed of the 4 th Century call Peter Principem Apostolorum but explain themselves to intend thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first or Leader not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Prince or Ruler And when the ambiguity of that word began to be abused unto pretensions of Preeminence the Council of Carthage expresly condemned it allowing none to be termed Princeps Sacerdotum Many in those dayes thought Peter to be among the Apostles like the Princeps Senatus or Princeps Civi atis the chief in their Assemblies or Principall in dignity how truly I know not but that he should be amongst them and over them a Prince in Office a Monarch as to Rule and Power is a thing that they never once dreamed of and the Asseveration of it is an open untruth The Apostles were equall in their Call Office Place Dignity Employments All the difference between them was in their Labours Sufferings and Success wherein Paul seems to have had the pre-eminence who as Peter and all the rest of the Apostles every one singly and for himself had the care of all the Churches committed unto him thought it may be for the better discharge of their Duty ordinarily they divided their work as they found it necessary for them to apply themselves unto it in particular See 2 Cor. 11. And this equality between the Apostles is more than once insinuated by Paul and that with speciall reference unto Peter 1 Cor. 1. Gal. 1. 18 19. ch 2. 9. And is it not wonderfull that if this Assertion should not only be true but such a Truth as on which the whole faith of the Church was to be built that the Scripture should be utterly silent of it that it should give us no Rules about it no directions to use and improve it afford us no one instance of the exercise of the Power and Authority intimated no not one but that on the contrary it should lay down Principles exclusive of it Matth. 22. 25 26. Luk. 22. 26. And when it comes to make an enumeration of all the Offices appointed by Christ in his Church Eph. 4. 11. should pass over the Prince and his Office in silence on which all the rest were to depend You see what a Foundation you begin to build upon a meer
flattering your selves with an imagination of any other Priviledge is that which hath wrought your ruine You are deceived if in this matter you are of Menander's mind who sayed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that all will of its own accord fall out well with you though you sleep securely As for all other Churches in the world besides your own wee have your concession not only that they were and are fallible but that they have actually erred long since and the same hath been proved against yours a thousand times and your best Reserve against particular charges of Errour lyes in this impertinent generall pretence that you cannot erre It may be you will ask for you use so to do and it is the design of your Fiat to promote the â—nquiry If the Church be fallible that is to propose unto us the things and Doctrines that we are to believe How can we with faith infallible believe her proposals And I tell you truly I know not how we can if we believe them only upon her Authority or she propose them to be believed solely upon that account but when she proposeth them unto us to be believed on the Authority of God speaking in the Srciptures we both can and do believe what she teacheth and proposeth and that with faith infallible resolved into the Veracity of God in his Word and we grant every Church to be so farre infallible as it attends unto the only Infallible Rule amongst men When you prove that any one Church is by any promise of Christ any grant of Priviledge expressed or intimated in the Scripture placed in an unerring condition any farther than as in the use of the means appointed she attends unto the only Rule of her preservation or that any Church shall be â—ecessitated to attend unto that Rule whether she will or no whereby she may be preserved or can give us an instance of any Church since the foundation of the world that hath been actually preserved and absolutely from all errour other than that of your own which you know we cannot admit of as you will do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great and memorable work so we shall grant as much as you can reasonably desire of us upon the account of the Assertion under consideration But untill you do some one or all of these your crying out The Church the Church the Church cannot erre makes no other noyse in our ears than that of the Jews The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord the Law shall not fail did in the ears of the Prophets of old Neither do we speak this of the Church or any Church as though we were concerned to question or deny any just Priviledges belonging unto it thereby to secure our selves from any pretensions of yours but meerly for the sake of Truth For we shall manifest anon unto you that you are as little concerned in the Priviledges of the Church be they what they will more or less as any Society of the Professours of Christianity in the world if so be that you are concerned in them at all So that if the Truth would permit us to agree with you in all things that you assign unto the Church yet the difference between you and us were never the nearer to an end for we should still differ with you about your share and interest therein and for ever abhor your frowardness in appropriating of them all unto your selves And herein as I sayed hath lyen a great part of your ruine Whilest you have been sweetly dreaming of an Infallibility you have really plunged your selves into errours innumerable and when any one hath jogged you to awake you out of your fatall sleep by minding you of your particular errours your dream hath left such an impression upon your imagination as that you think them no errours upon this only ground because you cannot erre I am perswaded had it not been for this one errour you had been freed from many others But this perfectly disiâ—ables you for any candid Inquisition after the Truth For why should he once look about him or indeed so much as take care to keep his eyes open who is sure that he can never be out of his way Hence you inquire not at all whether what you profess be Truth or not but to learn what your Church teacheth and defend it is all that you have to do about Religion in this world And whatever Absurdities or Inconveniencies you find your selves driven unto in the handling of particular points all is one they must be right though you cannot defend them because your Church which cannot erre hath so declared them to be And if you should chance to be convinced of any Truth in particular that is contrary to the determination of your Church you know not how to embrace it but must shut your eyes against its light and evidence and cast it out of your minds or wander up and down with a various assent between Contradictions Well said he of old 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This is flat folly namely for a man to live in rebellion unto his own light But you adde III. That your selves that is the Pope with those who in matters of Religion adhere unto him and live in subjection unto him are this Church in an assent unto whose infallible teachings and Determinations the Vnity of Faith doth consist Could you prove this Assertion I confess it would stand you in good stead But before we enquire aftes that we shall endeavour a little to come unto a right understanding of what you say When you affirm tâ—at the Roman Church is the Church of Christ you intend either that it is the only Church of Christ all the Church of Christ and so consequently the Catholick Church or you mean that it is a Church of Christ which hath an especiall Prerog ative enabling it to require obedience of all the Disciples of Christ. If you say the former we desire to know 1. when it became so to be It was not so when all the Church was together at Hierusâ—lem and no foundation of any Church at all laid at Rome Acts 1. 1 2 3 4 5. It was not so when the first Church of the Gentiles was gathered at Antioch and the Disciples first began to be called Christians for as yet we have no tydings of any Church at Rome It was not so when Paul wrote his Epistles for he makes express mention of many other Church in other places which had no relation unto any Churches at Rome more than they had one to another in their common Profession of the same faith and therein enjoyed equall gifts and Priviledges with it It was not so in the dayes of the Primitive Fathers of the first three hundred years who all of them not one excepted took the Roman to be a local particular Church and the Bishop of Rome to be such a Bishop as they esteemed of all other Churches and Bishops
satisfaction the things which they do believe and let men be esteemed to beleive and to have attained degrees in the faith according as they are taught of God with an allowance for every ones measure of means light grace gifts which are not things in our own Power and we shall be nearer unto quietness than most men imagine When Christians had any unity is the world the Bible alone was thought to contain their Religion and every one endeavoured to learn the mind of God out of it both by their own endeavours and as they were instructed therein by their guides neither did they pursue this work with any other end but only that they might be strengthened in their faith and hope and learn to serve God and obey him that so they might come to the blessed enjoyment of him Nor will there ever I fear be again any Unity among them untill things are reduced to the same state and condition But among all the vanities that the minds of men are exercised with in this world there is none to be compared unto that of their hoping and endeavouring to bring all Persons that profess the Religion of Jesus Christ to acquiesce in the same opinions about all particulars which are any way determined to belong thereunto especially considering how endlesly they are multiplied and branched into instances such for ought appears the first Churches took little or no notice of nay neither knew nor understood any thing of them in the sense and termes wherin they are now proposed as a tessera of Communion among Christians In a word leave Christian Religion unto its primitive Liberty wherein it was beleived to be revealed of God and that Revelation of it to be contained in the Scripture which men searched and studied to become themselves and to teach others to be wise in the knowledg of God and living unto him and the most of the Contests that are in the world will quickly vanish and disappear But whilest every one hath a Confession a Way a Church and its Authority which must be imposed on all others or else he cryes to his nearest relations Lupis agnis quanta sortito obtigit Tecum mihi discordia est We may look for peace Moderation and Vnity when we are here no more and not sooner So that III. If those Theologicall Determinations that make up at this day amongst some men the greatest part of those Assertions Positions or Propositions which are called Articles of Faith or Truth which are not delivered in the words that the Spirit of God teacheth but in termes of Art and in Answer unto Rules and Notions which the world might happily without any great disadvantage been unacquainted withall unto this day had not Aristotle found them out or stumbled on them might be eliminated from the City of God and Communion of Christians and left for men to exercise their wits about who have nothing else to do and the Doctrine of Truth which is according unto Godliness left unto that Noble Heavenly Spirituall generous amplitude wherein it was delivered in the Scripture and beleived in the first Churches innumerable Causes of strife and Contentions would be taken away but ferri video meà gaudia ventis small hopes have I to see any such impression and consent to besall the minds of concerned men and yet I must confess I have not one jot more of the reuniting the Disciples of Christ in love and concord But most men that profess any thing of Divinity have learned it as an Art or humane Science out of the road compass and track where of they know nothing of the mind of God nay many scarce know the things in themselves and as they are to be believed which they are passing skilfull in as they are expressed in their arbitrary termes of Art which none almost understand but themselves And is it likely that such men who are not a few in the world will let go their skill and knowledge and with them their repntation and advantage and to sacrifice them all to the peace and agreement that we are seeking after Some learn their Divinity out of the late and Modern Schools both in the Reformed and Papall Church in both which a Science is proposed under that name consisting in a farrago of Credible Propositions asserted in termes suited unto that Philosophy that is variously predominant in them What a kind of Theology this hath praduced in the Papacy Agricola Erasmus Vives Jansenius with innumerable other Learned men of your own have sufficiently declared And that it hath any better success in the Reformed Churches many things which I shall not now instance in give me cause to doubt Some boast themselves to learn their Divinity from the Fathers and say they depart not from their sense and idiome of expression in what they beleive and profess But we find by experience that what for want of wisedom and judgement in themselves what for such reasons taken from the writings which they make their Oracles which I shall not insist upon much of the Divinity of some of these men consists in that which to avoid provocation I shall not express Whilest men are thus preing aged it will be very hard to prevail with them to think that the greatest part of their Divinity is such that Christian Religion either as to the matter or at least as to that mode wherein alone they have imbibed it is little or not at all concerned in nor will it be easie to perswade them that it is a Mystery layed up in the Scripture and all true Divinity a Wisedom in the Knowledg of that Mystery and skill to live unto God accordingly without which as I said before we shall have no Peace or agreement in this world Nobis curiositate opus non est post Jesum Christum nec inquisitione post Evangelium sayes Tertullian Curiosity after the Doctrine of Christ and Philosophicall inquisitions in Religion after the Gospel belongs not unto us As we are IV. It were well if Christians would but seriously consider what and how many things they are wherein their present Apprehensions of the mind and will of God do center and agree I mean as to the substance of them their nature and importance and how far they will lead men in the wayes of pleasing God and coming to the enjoyment of him Were not an endeavour to this purpose impeded by many mens importunate cryes of all or none as good nothing at all as not every thing and that in this or that way mode or fashion it might not a litlle conduce to the Peaâ—e of Christendom And I must acknowledg unto you that I think it is prejudice Carnall interest love of Power and present enjoyments with other Secular Advantages joyned with Pride Self-will and contempt of others that keep the professours of Christianity from conspiring to improve this Consideration But God help us we are all for Partyes and our own exact being in the right and therein
Scriptures could be of no more Authority then Aesops Fables were they not confirmed by the Testimony of your Church we are informed by one Brentius and we believe the information to be true because the saying is defended by Hosius de Authoritat Script Lib. 3. who adds unto it of his own Revera nisi nos Authoritas Ecclesiae doceret hanc scripturam esse Canoncam perexiguum apud nos pondus haberet the truth is if the Authority of the Church did not teach us that this Scripeure is Canomical it would be of very light weight unto us Such Cordial respects do you bear unto it And the forementioned Andradius Defens Con. Trid. Lib. 2. to the same purpose Neque enim in ipsis libris quibus sacra mysteria conscripta sunt quicquam in est Divinitatis quae nos ad credendum quae in illis continentur religione aliqua constring at sed Ecclesiae quae codices illos sacros esse docet antiquorum Patrum fidem pietatem commendat tanta inest vis amplitudo ut illis nemo sine gravissimâ impietatis nota possit repugnare neither is there in those books wherein the Divine Mysteries are written any thing or any character of Divinity or divine original which should on a religious account oblige us to believe the things that are contained in them But yet such is the force and Authority of the Church which teacheth thâ—se books to be sacred and commendeth the faith and piety of the Antient fathers that no man can oppose them without a grievous mark of impiety How by what means from whom should we learn the sense of your Church if not from your Council of Trent and such mighty Champions of it Do you think it equitable that we should listen to suggestions of every obscure Frier and entertain thoughts from them about the sense of your Church contrary to the plain assertion of your Councils and and great Rabbies And if this be the respect that in Catholick Countries is given to the Scripture I hope you will not find may of your Countrymen rivals with them therein It is all but Hayle and Crâ—cifie We respect the Scriptures but there is another part of Gods word besides them we respect the Scriptures but Traditions contain more of the Doctrine of Truth we respect the Scriptures but think it not meet that Christians be suffered to read them we respect the Scripture but do not think that it hath any character in it of its own Divine original for which we should believe it we respect the Scripture but yet we would not believe were it not commended unto us by our Church we respect the Scripture but it is dark obscure not intelligible but by the interpretation of our Church Pray Sir keep your respects at home they are despised by the Scripture it self which gives Testimony unto its own Authority Perfection Sufficiency to guide us to God Perspicuity and Certainty without any respect unto your Church or its Authority And we know its Testimony to be true And for our parts we fear that whilest these Joabs kisses of respect are upon your lips you have a sword in your right hands to let out all the Vitals of Divine Truth and Religion Do you think your general expressions of respect and that unto admiration are a covering long and broad enough to hide all this contempt and reproach that you continually poure upon the Scriptures Deal thus with your Ruler and see whether he will accept your Person Give him some good words in general but let your particular expressions of your esteem of him come short of what his state and regal dignity do require will it be well taken at your hands Expressions of the same nature with these instanced in might be collected out of your chiefest Authors sufficient to fill a volume and yet I never read nor heard that any of them were ever stoned in your Catholick Countreys whatever you intimate of the boyling up of your zeal into a rage against those that should go about to diminish it Indeed whatever you pretend this is your faith about the Scripture and therefore I desire that you would accept of this account why I cannot comply with your wish and not speak any more of Papists slighting the Scripture seeing I know they do so in the sense and way by me expressed and other wayes I never said they did so From the account of your Faith we may proceed to your Charity wherewith you close this Discourse Speaking of your Roman Catholicks you say the Scripture is theirs and Jesus Christ is theirs who will one day plead their Cause What do you mean Sir by theirs Do you intend it exclusively to all others so theirs as not to be the right and portion of any other It is evident that this is your sense not only because unless it be so the words have neither sense nor emphasis in them but also because suitably unto this sense you elsewhere declare that the Roman and the Catholick Church are with you one and the same This is your Charity fit to accompany and to be the fruit of the faith before discoursed of This is your Chatholicism the impaling of Christ Scripture the Church and consequently all acceptable Religion to the Roman Party and Faction down right Donatism the wretchedest Schism that ever rent the Church of God which makes the wounds of Christendome incurable and all hope of coalition in Love desperate Saint Paul directing one of his Epistles unto all that in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that no countenance from that expression of our Lord Jesus Christ might be given unto any surmize of his appropriating unto himself and those with him a peculiar interest in Jusus Christ he adds immediately both their Lord and ours the Lord of all that in every place call upon his name 1 Cor. 1. This was the old Catholicism which the new hath as much affinity unto as darkness hath to light and not one jot more The Scripture is ours and Christ is ours and what have any else to do with them what though in other places you call on the name of Jesus Christ yet he is our Lord not yours This I say is that wretched Schism which cloathed with the name of Catholicism which after it had slain it robbed of its name and garments the world for some ages hath groaned under and is like to do so whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests as are subservient unto it at this day CHAP. 14. Of Reason Jews objections against Christ. PAg. 27. You proceed to vindicate your unreasonable Paragraph about Reason or rather against it What reason we are to expect in a dispute against the use of Reason in and about the things which are the highest and most proper object of it is easie for any one to imagine For by Reason in Religion we understand not meerly the Raâ—ocination
that you may the easilier be quit of you never examine but only run on in your usual florishes about the use and excellency of Gods Word I told you in Fiat Lux what the Jew will reply to all such reasonings but you have the pregnant wit not to heed any thing that may hinder your florishes but if you were kept up in a Chamber with a learned Jew without bread water and fire till you had satisfied him in that objection I am still well enough assured for all your veryvaunts that if you do not make use of your Credo which here you contemn you might there stay till hunger and cold have made an end of you The meaning of this Discourse is that the Jews pretence of rejecting Christ upon the Authority and Tradition of their Church was not nor is to be satisfied by Testimonies given in the Scripture unto the Person Doctrine and Work of the Messias The sum of the Objection said down in your Fiat Lux is that which I have now mentioned It was the Plea of the Jews against Christ and his Doctrine managed from the Authority and Tradition of their Church That Christ and his Apostles gave the Answer unto this objection which I have now intimated namely the Testimony of God himself in the Scripture to the Truth of that which they objected against which was to be preferred unto the Authority and Testimony of their Church I have undeniably proved unto you in the Animadversions and it is manifest to every one that hath but read the New Testament with any Consideration or understanding The same way was persisted in by the Antient Fathers as all their writings against the Jews do testifie And I must now tell you that your calling the validity of this Answer into Question is highly injurious unto the honour of Christianity and blasphemous against Christ himself The best interpretation that I can give unto your words is that you are a person wholly ignorant of the Controversies that are between the Jews and Christians and the way that is to be taken for their satisfaction or confutation You tell us indeed in your Fiat that the Jews will reply to these Testimonies of Scripture which are alledged as giving witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Doctrine and contend about the interpretation of them and this you tell me I have the wit to take no notice of which by the way is unduly averred by you and contrary to your own Science and Conscience seeing you profess that you have read over my Animadversions and probably the very place wherein I do take notice of what you said to that purpose and replyed unto it was not far from your eye when you wrote the contrary And as I shewed you what was the opinion of the Antients of that reply of the Jews which you mention so I shall now add that nothing but gross ignorance in these things can give countenance to an imagination that there is any thing but folly and madness in the Rabbinical evasions of the Testimonies of the old Testament given unto our Lord Christ and his Gospel And your substitution of a naked fananical Credo not resolved into the Testimony of the Holy Writ in the room of that express Witness which is given in Holy Scripture unto the Person and Doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ to oppose therewith the Judaical Plea from their Church State Power and Authority is an Engine fit to undermine the very root of Christianity and to render the whole Gospel highly Questionable Besides it is so absurd as to the Conviction of the Jews such a mere petitio principii or begging of what is in Controversie between Christians and them that I challenge you to produce any one learned man that hath made use of it to that purpose To think that your Credo built on principles which he despiseth which you cannot prove unto him will convince another man of the Truth of what you believe can have no other ground but a magical fancy that the fixing of your imagination shall affect his and conform it unto your apprehension of things Such is your course in telling the Jews of the Authority of your Church and your Credo thereupon which cannot be supposed to have any existence in rerum natura unless it be first supposed that their Church was failed which supposal that it was not is the sole foundation of their objection What end you can propose herein but to expose your self and your profession unto their scorn and contempt I know not Sir the Lord Christ confirmed himself to be the Son of God and Saviour of the world by the Miracles which he wrought and the Doctrine which he taught was testified to be Divine by signs and express words from Heaven He proved it also by the Testimonies out of the Law and Prophets all which was confirmed by his Resurrection from the dead This coming of the promised Messiah the work that he was to perform and the characteristical 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of him in application unto the person of Jesus of Nazareth the Apostles and Evangelists proved out of the Scripture to the conviction and conversion of thousands of the Jews and the confusion of the rest And if you know not that the Antients Fathers and learned men of succeeding Ages have undenyably proved against the Jews out the Scripture of the Old Testament and by the Testimony thereof that the promised Messiah was to be God and man in one Person that he was to come at the time of the appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh that the work which he was to perform was the very same and no other then what was wrought and accomplished by him with all the other important concernments of his Person and office so that they have nothing left to countenance them in their obstinacy but meer senseless trifles you are exceedingly unmeet to make use of their objections or the condition of the controversie between them and Christians For what you add in reference unto my self I shall need only to mind you that the Question is not about any Personal ability of mine to satisfie a Jew which whatever it be when I have a mind to encrease it for somewhat that I know of and which I have learned out of their writings I will not come unto you for assistance but concerning the sufficiency of that Principle for the confronting of Judaical objections taken from the Authority of their Church which I have formerly proved unto you that our Lord Jesus Christ and his Apostles made use of unto that purpose And I will not say that it was from the pregnancy of your wit that whatever heed you took unto the stating of the Case between you and Protestants in the Animadversions parallel unto that between the Jews and the Apostles seeing a very little wit will suffice to direct a man to let that alone which he finds too heavy for him to remove
ipsa consecratione consistere quin è contrario consecratio ad rationem Sacramenti potius quam ad naturam Sacrificii pertinet Alii existimant Sacrificii rationem tribus Sacerdotis actionibus constare consecratione oblatione sumptione Alii quidem seâ—sere ad rationem hujus Sacrificii quat uor imo quinque actiones concurrere Consecrationem oblationem fractionem sumptionem Alii rationem Sâ—crificii ponunt in duobus actibus consecratione oblatione Alii constituunt totam rationem Sacrificii in 〈◊〉 actione viz. Consecratione There are who think the nature of the Sacrifice to consist in the words rayers ceremonies and rites which are used in the Consecration because say they the nature of the Sacrifice cannot consist in the Consecration it self which rather belongs unto the nature of a Sacrament then of a Sacrifice Others think that the Sacrifice consists in three actions of the Priest Consecration Oblation and Sumption or receiving of the Host. Others in four or five as Consecration Oblation Fraction Sumption Others in two Consecration and Oblation and some in one Consecration And is not this a brave business to impose on the Consciences of all men when you know not your selves what it is that you would so impose A Sacrifice must be believed and they are all accursed by you that believe it not but what the Sacrifice is and wherein it doth consist you cannot tell And an easie matter it were to manifest that all the particulars which you assign as those that either belong necessarily unto the integrity of a Sacrifice or those wherein some of you or any of you would have its essence to consist are indeed of no such nature or importance but that is not my present business I am only enquiring what your Sacrifice is according unto you own sense and imagination And that we may not mistake I shall set down such a general description of it as the Canon of the Mass the general rubrick of the Missal the rites and cautels of its celebration will afford unto us Now in these it is represented as a sacred action wherein a proper Priest or Sacrificer arrayed with various consecrated attire standing at the Altar taketh bread and wine about which he useth great variety of â—ostures and gestures inclinations bowings kneelings stretching out and gathering in his arms with a multitude of Crossings at the end and in the midst of his pronunciation of certain words of Scripture turns them into the real natural body and blood of Christ the Son of God worshiping them so converted with religious adoration shewing them to the people for the same purpose and then offering that body and blood unto God praying for his acceptance of them so offered and that it may be available for the living and the dead for the pardoning of their sins and saving of their souls after which he takes that body of Christ so made worshipped and offered and eats and deavours it by all which Christ is truly and properly Sacrificed This is the Sacrifice of your Church wherein as you inform us the main of your Devotion and Worship doth consist Of this Sacrifice I told you formerly the Scripture is silent and I now add that so also is Antiquity You cannot produce any one approved writer for the space of 600. years that gives testimony to this your Sacrifice For what ever florish you may make with the ambiguity of the word Sacrifice which we cleared before your Transubstantion and other things asserted by you to belong unto the integrity if not the Essence of your Sacrifice are strangers unto Antiquity as hath been lately proved unto you and will no doubt be yet further confirmed so to be I told you as you observe that this Sacrifice is an utter stranger to Scripture as also that it is inconsistent with what is therein delivered The Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews plainly affirms that the Sacrifice of the Church of the Christians is but one and that once offered for all whereas those of the Jews by reason of their imperfection were often repeated which you choose out to reply unto and say It is true the Sacrifice of our Lords Passion of which the Apostle in that whole discourse intends only to treat in opposition unto that of Bulls and goats was so done but once that it could not be done twice But as the Sacrifices of the Old Law were instituted by Almighty God to be often iterated before the Passion of the Messias for a continual exercise of Religion so did the same Lord for the very same purpose institute another to be iterated after his death unto which it was to have reference when it should be past as the former had to the same death when it was to come So you But first This begs the Question for you only repeat and say that such a Sacrifice was institued by Christ which you know is by us utterly denyed 2. It plainly contradicts the Apostle and overthrows his whole argument and design 1. It contradicts him in express terms for whereas he sayes not only that Christ once offered himself but also that he was once offered for all that is no more to be offered you affirm that he is often offered and that every day 2. His design is to demonstrate the excellency of the Condition of the Church of the New Testament and the worship of God therein above that of the Old And this he proves to consist here in a special manner that they had many Sacrifices which were of necessity to be reiterated because they could not take away sin for saith he if they could then should they not have been repeated nor would there have been need of any other Sacrifice But now saith he this is done by the one Sacrifice of Christ which hath so taken away sin as that it hath made the repetition of its self or the institution of any other Sacrifice needless and therefore we have no more but that one and that one once performed Now unless you will deny the Apostles Assertions either 1. That if one Sacrifice can take away sin there is no need of another or 2. That the one Sacrifice of Christ did perfectly take away sin as to Attonement and also 3. assert that the condition of the Gospel Church is still the same with that of the Jews and that we have need of a Sacrifice to be repeated not only as theirs was year by year from whence he argues the imperfection of the greatest solemn Sacrifice of Expiation but day by day with a further and greater weakness repetition in the judgement of the Apostle being an evidence thereof there will be no place left for your Sacrifice that is your main worship belongs not to the Church of God at all 4. You pretend that in this worship Christ himself is Sacrificed unto God but incruenter and without suffering but the Apostle plainly tells us that if he be often offered he must often
able to except against in that discourse will speedily appear In the mean time pray take notice that I have no eagerness to oppose either you or your Church so you will let the Truth alone I shall for ever let you alone without opposition It was the defence of that and not an opposition to you that I was engaged in In the same design do I still persist in the vindication of what I had formerly written and shall assure you that you shall never be opposed by me but only so far and wherein I am fully convinced that you oppose the Truth Manifest that to be on your side and I shall be ready to embrace both you and it For I am absolutely free from all respects unto things in this world that should or might retard me in so doing But that I may hereafter speak somewhat more to the purpose in opposition unto you or else give my consent with understanding unto what you teach pray inform me how I may come to the knowledge of the customs of your Church which you say I neither do nor will understand I have read your Councils those that are properly yours your Mass Book and Rituals many of your Annalists or Historians with your writers of Controversies and Casuists all of the best note same and reputation amongst you Can none of them inform us what the Customs of your Church are If you have such Egyptian or Elâ—usinian mysteries as no man can understand before he be initiated amongst you I must despair of coming unto any acquaintance with them For I shall never engage into the belief of I know not what For the present I shall declare you my apprehension as to that Custome of your Church as you call it which we have now under consideration and desire your charity in my direction if I understand it 〈◊〉 aright It is your Custome to keep the Scriptures from the people in an unknown tongue somewhat contrary to this your former custome in this last age you have made some Translations out of a Translation and that none of the best the use whereof you permit to very few by virtue of special dispensation pleading that the use of it in the Church among the body of its members is useless and dangerous Again it is the Custome of your Church to celebrate all its publick worship in Latine whereof the generality of your people understand nothing at all and you forbid the exercise of your Church worship in a vulgar tongue understood by the Community of your Church or people These I apprehend to be the Customes of your Church and to the best of my understanding they are directly contrary 1. To the End of God in granting unto his Church the inestimable benefit of his Work and worship and 2. To the Command of God given unto all to read meditate and study his Word continually And 3. Prejudicial to the souls of men in depriving them of those unspeakable spiritual advantages which they might attain in the discharge of their duty and which others not subject unto your Auâ—hority have experience of And 4. Opposite unto yea destructive of that edification which is the immediate end of all things 〈◊〉 to be done in publick Assemblies of the Church And 5. Forbidden expresly by the Apostle who inforceth his prohibition with many cogent reasons 1 Cor. 14. And 6. Contrary to the express practice of the primitive Church both Judaical and Christian all whose worship was performed in the same language wherein the People were instructed by preaching and exhortations which I presume you will think it necessary they should well understand being 7. Brought into use gradually and occasionally through the 〈◊〉 negligence of some who pretend in the Churches of those dayes when the Languages wherein the Scripture was first written and whereinto for the use of the whole Church it had been of old translated as the Old Testament into Greek and the whole into Latine through the Tumults and Wars that fell out in the world became corrupted or were extirpated And 8 A means of turning the worship of Christ from a rational way of strengthening faith and increasing Holiness into a dumb histrionical shew exciting brutish and irregular affections and 9 Were the great cause of that darkness and ignorance which spread its self in former dayes over the whole face of your Church and yet continueth in a great measure so to do And in summ are as great an Instance of the power of inveterate prejudices and carnal interests against the light of the Truth as I think was ever given in the world These are my apprehensions concerning the Customs of your Church in this matter with their nature and tendency I shall now try whither you who blame my misunderstanding of them can give me any better information or Reason for the change of my thoughts concerning them But Carbones pro thesauro instead of either further clearing or vindicating your Customs and practice you fall into Encomiums of your Church a story of a Greek Bishop with some other thing as little to your purpose Fur es ait Pedo Pedius quid crimina rasis Librat in Antithetis doctas posuisse figuras Lundatur You are accused to have robbed the Church of the use of the Scripture and the means of its Edification in the worship of God and when you should produce your defensitive you make a fine Discourse quite to other purposes Such as it is we must pass through it First you say I have heard many grave Protestant Divines ingenuously acknowledge that divine Comfort and Sanctity of life requisite unto Salvation which Religion aymes at may with more perfection and less inconvenience be attained by the Customs of the Roman Church then that of ours For Religion is not to fit perching upon the lips but to be got by heart it consists not in reading but doing and in this not in that lives the substance of it which is soon and easily conveighed Christ our Lord drew a Compendium of all divine Truths in two words which our great Apostle again abridged into one Ans. 1. I hope you will give me leave a little to suspend my assent unto what you affirm Not that I question your veracity as to the matter of fact related by you that some Persons have told you what you say but I suppose you are mistaken in them For whereas the Gospel is the Doctrine of Truth according unto Godliness and the promotion of Holiness and Consolation which cannot at all be promoted but in wayes and by means of Gods appointment is the next end of all Religion they can be no Protestant Divines who acknowledge this end to be better attainable in your way then their own because such an acknowledgement would be a vertual renunciation of their Protestancy The judgement of this Church and all the reall grave Divines of it is perfectly against you and should you condescend unto them in other things would not embrace
the people from their Captivity they began to lose the purity of their own tongue and most of them understood the Syrochaldaean wherein about that time some small parts of the Scripture also were written In no long process of time a great portion of them living scattered in the Provinces of the Macedonian Empire and therefore called Hellenists used and spake the Greek tongue their own ceasing to be vulgar unto them All these both in private and in their publick Synagogne Worship made use of a Translation of the Scripture into Greek which was now become their vulgar tongue and that made either by the LXXII Elders sent from Jerusalem to Ptolomy Philadelphus or which is more probable by the Jews of Alexandria unto which City multitudes of them repaired the Nation being made free of it by its founder or it may be some while after by the Priest Onias who lead a great Colony of them into Aegypt and there built them a Temple for their Worship So did these Hebrews make use of a Translation when their own tongue ceased to be vulgar unto them The monster of serving God by rational men with a tongue whereof they understand never a word was not yet hatched The other portion of the people who either lived in Palestina or those parts of the East where the Greck tongue never prevailed into common use so soon as their language began to be mixed with the Syrochaldean and the purity of it to grow into disuse made use constantly of their Targums or Translations into that tongue Neither can it be proved but that the Jerusalem Jews understood the Hebrew well enough until the destruction of the City and Temple by Titus So that from the Church of the Jews you cannot obtain the least countenance to your practice And there lyes in Gods dealing with them a strong Argument and Testimony against it For if God himself thought meet to intrust his Oracles unto his People in that language which was common unto them all hath he not tanght us that it is his Will they should still be so continued And is there not still the same reason for it as there was at first 2. Farther the practice of the Latin Church is unavoidably against you For whereas the Scripture was no part of it written in Latin which was their vulgar tongue it it was immediately both Old Testament and New turned thereinto and therein used as in their publick Worship so by private Persons of all sorts upon the encouragement of the Rulers of it And no reason of their translation of it which they made and had from time immemorial can possibly be imagined but only the indispensible necessity which they apprehended of having the Scripture in a Language which the People did generally speak and understand 3. The case was the same in the antient Greek Church The New Testament was Originally written in their own vulgar tongue which they made use of accordingly And as for the old they constantly used a Translation of it into the same dialect So that it is impossible that we can obtain a clearer suffrage from the Antient Churches both Jews and Christians and these both of Latins and Greeks in any thing then we have against this custom of your Church But these languages you say have ceased to be vulgar for some thousand years to your knowleage Bona verba You know much I perceive yet not so much but that it is possible you may sometimes fail in your Chronological faculty Pray how many thousand years is it think you since Christs birth now this year 1663. or since the ruine of the Greek or Latin Empire and therein the Corruption of theiâ— Languages I believe you will not find it above three or four thousand at the most upon your next Calculation though I can assure you an ingenuous Person told me he thought from the manner of your speaking you might guess at some nine or ten What then Was the Bible say you put into other vulgar tongues when they ceased to be vulgar Yes by some they were Hierom translated it into the Dalmatian tongue Vlphilus into the Gotish Beda a great part of it into the Saxon and the like no doubt was done by others The Eastern Countreys also to whom the Greek was not so well known had Translations of their own from the very beginning of their Christianity And for the rest shall the wretched negligence of men in times of confusion and ignorance such as those were wherein the Greek and Latin tongues ceased to be vulgar prescribe a Rule and Law unto us of practice in the worship of God contrary to his own direction the nature of the thing its self and the example of all the Churches of Christ for five hundred years For besides that in the Empire it was alwayes used and read in the vulgar tongues those Nations that knew not the two great Languages that were commonly spoken therein from the time that they received the Christian faith took care to have the Scriptures translated into their Own mother tongue So Chrysostom tells us that the Gospel of John wherein occasionally he especially instanceth was in his dayes translated into the Syrian Egyptian Indian Persian and Ethiopian Languages Hom. 1. in John But you say Did the Church either of the Hebrews or Christians Greek or Latin ever deliver it transtlated to the generality of the People or use it in their Ser vice or command it so to be done as a thing of General concernment so far is it from that that they would never permit it But you do not sufficiently consider what you say The Hebrew Church had no need so to do God gave the Scripture unto it in their own mother tongue and that only And they had no reason to translate it out of their knowledge and understanding The Greek Church had the New Testament in the same manner and the Old they translated or delivered it so translated by others unto the generality of the people and used it in their Service The Latin Church did so also The Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament also being originally written in Languages unknown vulgarly unto them they had them translated into their own common tongue for the generality of the People and used that Translation in their Publick Service The same was the practice of the Syrians and all other Nations of old that had a language in common use peculiar to themselves All your Plea ariseth from the practice of some who through ignorance or negligence provided not for the good and necessity of the Churches of Christ when through the changes and confusions that happened in the world the Greek and Latin tongues ceased to be vulgar which how many thousand years ago it was you may calculate at your next leisure This is that which in them we blame and in you much more because you will follow them after you have been so frequently admonished of your miscarriage therein for
here you give us two Languages the Syriack and Assyriack which names in the Original differed but little in sound but the languages themselves did as much in nature as French and English And the Syriack you tell us was that which is now so peculiarly called but what the Assyriack was you tell us not but only that when the Princes perswade Rabshakeh to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aramith he intended an Assyrian language that was not Syrian The boys that grind colours in our Grammer Schools laugh at these Mormoes 8. Neither do you know well what you say when you affirm that the Language of Christ and his Apostles was the same that was ever since called the Syriack for the very instance you give manifests it to have been a different dialect from it the words as recorded by the Evangelists being absolutely the same neither with the Hebrew nor Targum nor Syriack Translation of the Old Testament That wherein we have the Translation of the Scripture and which prevailed in the Eastern Church being a peculiar Antiochian dialect of the old Aramaean Tongue And that whole language called the Syriack peculiarly now and whereof there were various dialects of old seems to have had its beginning after the Jews return from their captivity being but a degenerate mixture of the Hebrew and Chaldee whereunto also after the prevalency of the Macedonian Empire many Greek word were admitted and some Latine ones also afterwards 9. You advantage not your self by affirming that Assyria and Syria were several Kingdoms For as Strabo will inform you they were both originally called Syrian and indeed were one and the same until the more Eastern Provinces about Babylon obtaining their peculiar denominations that part of Asia which contains Comogena Phaenicia Palestina and Coelosyria became to be especially called Syria Originally they were all Aramites as every one knows that can but read the Scripture in its Original Language And now I suppose you may see how little you have advantaged your self or your cause by this maze of mistakes and contradictions For no errour can be so thick covered with others but that it will rain through The Jews you suppose to have lost their own language in the dayes of Hezekiah and to have spoken Syriack the Syrian and Assyrian to have been languages as far distant as French and English that when the Princes entreated Rabshakeh to speak the Syrian language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they intended not the Syrian Language which was indeed the Jews but the Assyrian quite differing from it and so when they desired him not to speak 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you suppose them to have desired him not to speak in the Jews language but to speak in the Jews language which you say was the Syriack And sundry other no less unhappy absurdities have you amassed together But you will retrive us out of this Labyrinth by a Story of what a Greek Biship did and said at Paris in the presence of Doctor Cousins now bishop of Durham how he refused the Articles of the English Church and did all things according to the Roman mode asserting the use of Liturgies in the vulgar Greek Unto which I shall say no more but that it was at Paris and not at Durham Graeculus esuriens in caelum jusseris ibit I have my self known some eminent members of that Church in England two especially one many years ago called Conopius who if I mistake not upon his return obtained the honour of a Patriarchate being sent hither by the then Patriarch of Constantinople the other not many years ago called Anastatius Comnenus Archimandrite as his Testimonials be spake him of a Monastry on Mount Sinai Both these I am sure made it their business to inveigh against your Church practices having the Arguments of Nilus against your Supremacy at their fingers ends And if the Greek Chruch and you are so well agreed as you pretend why do you censure them as Hereticks and Schismaticks and receive only some few of them who are runnagates from their own Tents What may those whom you proclaim to be your enemies expect from you when you deal thus severely with those whom you give out to be your friends But as for this matter of the Scripture and prayers in an unknown tongue though they transgress not with so high an hand as you do the old Greeks being not so absolutely remote from the present vulgar as the Latine is from our English and the Languages of diverse other Nations whom you compell to your Church Service in that toague and besides they have the Scripture translated into their present vulgar tongue for the use of private persons yet we approve not their practice but look upon it as a great means of continuing that ignorance and darkness which is unquestionably spread over the major part of that Church which in some places as in Russia is to such a degree as to dispose the people unto Barbarism We know also that herein they are gone off from the constant and Catholick usage of their forefathers who for some Centuries of years from the dayes of the Apostles themselves who planted Churches amongst them both had the Bible in their own vulgar Tongue and made no use of any other in the publick Service of their Assemblies And that their example in your present degenerate condition which in some things you as little approve of as we do in others should have any great power upon us I know as yet little reason to judge Your last attempt in this matter is to vindicate what you have said in your Fiat as you now affirm That the Bible was kept in an Ark or Tabernncle not touched by the people but brought on t at times to the Priest that he might instruct the people out of it To which you say I answer That the Ark was placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum which was not entred into but by the Priest and that only once a year And Reply But Sir I speake not there of any Sanctum Sanctorum or of any Ark in that place was there or could there be no more Arks but one If you had been only in these latter days in any Synagogue or Convention of the Jews you might have seen even now how the Bible is still kept with them in an Ark or Tabernacle in imitation of their forefathers when they have no Sanctum Sanctorum amongst them You may also discern how according to your custome they â—ringe and prostrate at the bringing out of the Biblt which is the only solemn adoration left amongst them there be more Arks then that in the Sanctum Sanctorum if I had called it a Box or a Chest or a Cupboard you had let it pass but I used that word as more sacred The oftener that you touch upon this string the harsher is the found that it yields I would desire you to free your self from the unhappiness of supposing