is fundamental which God revealeth at least for the formal motive of belief to wit the divine authority revealing in respect of which the Authors who use the distinction acknowledge all fundamental likewise as Dr. Potter Chillingworth and others who make those articles of faith fundamental which in respect of the matter are necessary to salvation to be explicitly known and believed by all nor is it by them denied but if it be sufficiently proposed to us by the church as so revealed all that is revealed by God we are then bound to believe otherwise we should deny Gods infallibility and veracity But we deny the bare determination of the church that is a Pope Oâ—cumenical council or prelates to be a sufficient proposal without proof from Scripture or other demonstration that the revelation is divine 2. It is an idle inference which he makes that because Protestants grant the church doth not erre in fundamentals therefore the Roman church doth not erre or is infallible in fundamentals For that which we grant of the church is meant of other churches besides the Roman 3. It is idle that he chargeth Protestants with schism at least in revolting from the church for points not fundamental For he cannot prove the Protestants did or do revolt from the church but from the Roman court fashion nor that they revolted till they were driven out by excommunication and cruel persecution and could not enjoy communion without yeilding to sin nor that they revolted at all for those errors which are about points not fundamental but for the errors about points fundamental to wit one Mediator salvation by faith in him not by our own works c. 4. It is idle that he imputes to the Protestants uncharitableness for accusing Papists of Idolatry when their profession and worship is openly Idolatrous in their adoration of bread Images wooden crosses invocation of Saints deceased of Angels with other innumerable practises used and maintained by them about crosses reliques feasts of Saints Temples dedicated to them vows swearing Priests of them of which their own Liturgies Canons writers are undoubted witnesses 5. The framing of the Protestants objection by H. T. against the infallibility of the Pope or his council is idle sith it is urged by Protestants against them by shewing its errors even in fundamentals that Popes and councils approved by them have been heretical 6. His answer is much more idle in that it is not at all to the argument by him brought which in form is this That church which may erre in non-â—â—ndamentals is no infallible judge of controversies But the Roman church whether Pope or council by him approved may erre in non-fundamentals Ergo the Roman church is no infallible Judge of controversies Now in his answer there is neither denial of Major Minor nor conclusion but only a denial of the fit use of one term in the premises against which his own exception is but idle as hath been shewed yea and if there be no such distinction of fundamentals and non-fundamentals in points of faith the objection is more strong against them For then if it be proved that the Roman church errs in points of faith it errs in fundamentals if all points of faith be fundamental which will prove not only the fallibility but also the nullity of the Roman church and so H. T. will pull down what he endeavours to build up But H. T. goes on thus Ob. Those things only are fundamental which are absolutely necessary to salvation and every man is bound expliciâ—ly to know and believe Answ If this were true the Bible or written Word which you will have to be the onely rule of faith and Judge of controversies were not a fundamental for faith depends not essentially on writing but on hearing many were good Christians and saved before any of the new Scripture was written or received among them the first Gospel being not written till seven or eight years after the death of Christ I reply 1. This scribling is idle also in which that is brought in as Protestants objection against the infallible and supreme judicature of the Roman church in controversies of faith which is only an explication of one term they use in their dispute against the assertors of it 2. It is idle that he saith they will have the Bible or written Word to be the only Judge of controversies when some of them as Chillingworth whom he after names Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. p. 114. deny it properly to be the Judge of controversies but make it only the rule of faith or the rule to judge by yea p. 75. H. T. himself chargeth this on Chillingworth as if he had forgotten what he said p. 73. that right reason is the only Judge of controversies and others who term the Bible the Judge of controversies do not make it the only Judge but the Spirit of God by it and the teachers of the church and each believer for himself by it 3 It is idle again that he makes that an absurdity which they will not own when Chillingworth Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. p. 114. and some others do grant that the Bible or written Word is not a fundamental point of faith in their sence because if the matter of the Bible should be believed by one that never saw or heard of a Bible yet he should have a true faith to salvation And yet they make it necessary to be believed by all to whom it is made known 4. It is yet more idle that he gives that for a reason why it should be absurd to say the written Word is not fundamental to wit for faith depends not essentially on writing but on hearing which concludes it is not absurd For if faith depend not essentially on writing but on hearing which concludes it is not absurd For if faith depend not essentially on writing then is the written Word not fundamental for that is not fundamental without which faith may be 5. It is idle which he saith in opposing writing to hearing whereas faith may be by both and if he had spoken accurately he should have said not by seeing but by hearing or not by writing but by speaking 6. It is idle also and false that faith depends essentially on hearing For then it could never be that deaf men should believe for want of hearing 7. That which he adds to confirm it is as idle For though there were good Christians afore the Gospel was written yet it being written upon supposition there were no other means but writing to beget faith it would depend essentially on writing 8. This discourse of H. T. overthrows himself and his party For if faith depend essentially on hearing not on writing then they have not faith who read except they hear the infallible Judge whether Pope or council approved by him nor is the point of faith sufficiently proposed unlesse it be delivered viva voce and if so there is no Papist hath
necessity of Infant baptism or for changing the Saturday into Sunday c. all which notwithstanding are necessary to be known by the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular as Protestants will acknowledge if they be once sufficiently proposed to us by the Church Nor is it sufficient we believe all the Bible unless we believe it in the true sense and be able to confute all Heresies out of it I speak of the whole Church which she can never do without the Rule of Apostolical Tradition in any of the Points forementioned I Reply unless the man had a minde to plead for Arians Photinians Macedorians and Socinians I know not why he should so often make the Doctrines of three distinct Persons in one divine nature the Sons consubstantiality to the Father the Procession of the Holy Ghost from both and his Godhead as Apostolical unwritten Tradition Sure this is the way to bring into question these Doctrines which if they be not in Scripture will never be believed by intelligent Christians for the Pope and Council of Trent's sayings whose proceedings never tended to clear truth but to juggle with the World This is one certain evidence that they never intended to clear truth because they condemned the Doctrines of Protestants unheard nor would ever permit them to come to plead for themselves in any impartial assembly till which be done no man can construe the proceedings of a Council to be any other than practises to suppress truth And for their juggling they were so notorious that many Papists themselves have observed them as may be seen in the History of the Council of Trent especially about the divine right of Bishops of the Laity having the Cup Priests Marriages in which Papists themselves found that they were meerly mocked by the Pope and Court of Rome As for this mans denying the Antecedent it seems to me to savour of such an imputation of a defect in God as tends to Atheism For sure he is not to be termed a provident and just God who declaring his minde in the Scripture and promising life to them that observe his Word and threatning Death and Damnation to them that do not believe and obey yet doth not set down all necessary points therein to be believed and obeyed unto life Yea doth not H. T. by denying it contradict himself who saith pag. 105. In the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith And for the Consequence if it be not good The Bible contains all things necessary to salvation either for belief or practise for all sorts of men whatsoever and that explicitly and plainly therefore the Bible is the Rule of Faith neither is his own second argument good for Tradition pag. 105. In the Doctrines which Christ and his Apostles taught and the Books which they wrote are contained all things that are of Faith therefore the infallible means of knowing them is the infallible and true Rule of Faith in both the Consequence being the same As for his Instances I say If the three Creeds and four first Councils be not in the Scripture they are not necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular though they be sufficiently proposed to us by the Church that is in their non-sense gibberish the Pope or a general Council approved by him require us to receive them Neither hath the Church as he terms it power to propose any thing as necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular but what is contained in the Bible nor hath it such authority as that we are bound to believe them if it do propound them though never so sufficiently but are bound to reject them as contrary to the duty we ow to Christ of acknowledging him our onely Master much more reason have we to contend against them when they are propounded by the Popes of Rome who teach not the Doctrine of Christ but cruelly and proudly tyrannize over the souls and bodies of the Saints in a most Antichristian manner and impose on them as Apostolical traditions things contrary to Christ and his Apostles in the Bible Nor is it true that all Protestants will acknowledge all thsse Points he mentioneth as necessary to be known for the whole Church and to be believed by us in particular I grant it not sufficient for us to believe all the Bible unless we believe it in the true sense but aver we can believe it in the true sense and be able to confute all Heresies out of it without the Rule of Apostolical tradition unwritten in any of those points in which the Errour is as our Lord Christ was able by it to vanquish Satan for which reason it is termed the Sword of the Spirit Ephes 6. 17. And for Traditions or Popes Decrees they are but a Leaden Sword without Fire and Faggot yea there is so much vanity in them as makes them ridiculous and so unfit for refutation and were it not for the horrid butchery and cruelty which Princes drunken with the Wine of the Cup of the Fornication of the Whore of Babylon make of their best Subjects at the instigation of Popes and Popish Priests nothing would appear more contemptible than their decisions Yet more Object Doubtless for speculative Points of Christian Doctrine Books are a safer and more infallible Way or Rule than oral Tradition Answ You are mistaken Books are infinitely more liable to Casualties and Corruptions than Traditions as well by reason of the variety of Languages into which they are translated as the diversity of Translations scarce any two Editions agreeing but all pretending one to mend the other besides the multiplicity of Copies and Copists with the Equivocation and uncertainty of dead and written words if captiously wrested or literally insisted on Who can prove any one Copy of the Bible to be infallible or uncorrupted those that were written by the Apostles own hands we have not or who can convince that any one Text of the Bible can have no other sense and meaning than what is convenient for his purpose insisting onely on the dead Letter All which dangers and difficulties are avoided by relying on Apostolical tradition which bindes men under pain of Damnation to deliver nothing for Faith but what they have received as such by hand to hand from Age to Age and in the same sense in which they have received it Think me not foolish says St. Augustin for using these terms for I have so learned these things by Tradition neither dare I deliver them to thee any other way than as I have received them Lib. de utilit cred cap. 3. I reply A more impudently and palpably false Discourse than this is a man shall seldom meet with it being contrary to all experience and use among men and condemns all the customes of the most civil people of folly
God Acts 20. 26 27. and elsewhere Ergo. 10. If there were many Saints and Martyrs acknowledged even by the Romanists to be such who did not hold communion with the Bishop of Rome so as to own him to be supreme visible head of the whole church but did oppose him and lived and died in that opposition and yet were in the church of God then they who hold not communion with the See of Rome may be the true church of God But the antecedent is true in Cyprian Augustine and many more opposing the Bishop of Rome about rebaptization appeals from Africa keeping Easter therefore either they must be unsainted or else it must be yielded that persons who are not now in communion with the See of Rome may be true churches of God I need not insist any longer in proving the falsity of a tenet so palpably absurd and demonstrated to be so by Bishop Mortan in his Grand Imposture of the Roman Church and by others elsewhere Let 's view H. T. his proof SECT IV. The succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks required by H. T. is not necessary to the being of a true Church THat saith he is the onely true Church of God which has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time But the Church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other has had a succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time therefore the Church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other is the true church of God For proof of the major he alledgeth Isa 59. 21. 60. 1 3 11. 62. 6. Ezech. 3. 26. Dan. 7. 13 14. Matth. 28. 20. John 14 16. Ephes 4. 11 12 13 14. Answ The succession he means is expressed p. 45. to be a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith This succession may be either in the same place or some place or other indefinite and it may be said to be continued without the least interruption for the smallest space of time or so continued that in each age or century there hath been such a succession though with some intermission The succession in the profession of the same faith may be either universal in every point or limited to fundamentals The succession may be said to be continued either so conspicuously as that there is an Assembly of that people in each age which any Christians in any part of the world did or might know as they do the Commonwealth of the Venetians or Kingdom of France oâ— as heretofore the Roman Commonwealth was known or else obscurely so as to be known onely to themselves and some near neighbors The proof of this succession may be conceived to be out of History or other clear Writings Records or Monuments extant expressing persons and their faith or else it may be conjectured from some more obscure intimations This Author I conceive from many passages following understands his major here thus That is the onely true Church of God which has had in the same place a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time without interruption any notable time in any age of a number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith not onely in fundamentals but in other points also so conspicuously that all Christians did or might know it as the Roman Empire French Kingdom or Venetian Republique may be known and this to be proved out of History or other clear Writings Records or Monuments expressing the persons and their faith For such a succession this Author would have necessary to a true church which he imagines may be proved to be in the Roman church and no other But in this sense his Proposition is most false and no whit proved out of the Texts he produceth and nullifies the Roman church it self which he indeavours so much to magnifie as to make it to be the onely true church of God In opposition thereto I say 1. There may be a true church of God where there are no Bishops or Priests at all Which I prove 1. From Acts 14. 23. where it is said that Barnabas and Paul after they had gathered the churches they returned to them and ordained Elders in every Church which supposeth they were churches sometime afore they had Elders ordained for them therefore it follows there may be a true church without Bishops Priests or Elders sith those churches were such afore they had them 2. From the definition of a true church That is a true church which hath the definition of a true church H. T. confesseth often this Proposition to be true But a number of believers in Christ who have no Elders or Priests or Bishops hath the definition of a true church Ergo The minor is proved from the received definitions Bellarm. Tom. 2. Controv. l. de Eccles milit c. 1. Ecclesia est evocatio sive caetus vocatorum the church is the company of the called out and other Authors speak conformably But there may be a caâ—ling out or a company of persons called out though they have no Bishops or Priests therefore they may be a ture church of God 3. That company which hath the essential parts of a true church is a true church of God But a number of believers professing the faith of Christ hath the essential parts of a true church They are the matter of a church in that they are men the form is faith or the profession of it no other thing can be rightly assigned to be essential as constitutive of a true church their governours order special gifts and other things tending to their well-being are common accidents which may be or not be and yet the church remain a true church Therefore a number of believers professing the true faith of Christ without Bishops is a true church of God 2. It is not necessary to the being of a true church that there be a succession of Bishops distinct from Presbyters whom H. T. terms Priests For 1. There are many Fathers and popish Writers who make them but one Order at first Lumbard senâ—ent l. 4. distinct 24. Apud vcteres iidem Episcopi Presbyteri fuerunt The Antients took Bishops and Priests for the same therefore with them there were churches in which were no Bishops distinct from Presbyters 2. Where there were two Orders yet they were not so necessary but that the church may be without them otherwise in the vacancy of the Episcopal See which hath in Rome it self been sometimes some years together often many moneths and days the church should cease to be a true church of God for then it would follow that in such vacancies the Roman church did cease to be 3. It is not necessary to the being of a true church that there be a profession of the same faith in every point for then the Roman church should not be a true church
be right as having these words added in the minor or tenets c. which were not in the Major whereby there is a fourth term which makes a syllogism naught 2. By denying his Major and as a reason of that denial I say agreement of doctrin with Christ and his Apostles in the main points of faith and worship though there be no Bishops nor Priests is sufficient to a true Church and such succession as H. T. requires is not necessary 3. To the Minor though Protestants have not a continued number of Bishops Priests and Laicks succeeding one another from Christ and his Apostles to this time in the profession of the same faith or tenets the thirty nine Articles or any other set number of tenets expresly holding and denying all the same points yet they do agree with Christ and his Apostles in the doctrin of the Christian faith and the Christian worship and there hath been a succession in all ages hitherto of Christian professors holding the same points of faith in the fundamentals although sometimes more purely and conspicuously than at other times and they have opposed though not with the like success agreement or largeness in every age the Popish errors now avouched in Pope Pius the fourth his Creed and the Trent Canons And for answer to the proofs of the Major I deny that the Major proceeds from the definition to the thing defined a continued number of Bishops Priâ—sts and Laicks succeeding one another in the profession of the same faith from Christ and his Apostles to this time being not the definition of the continued succession necessary to the being of the true Church of God as hath been proved before in the answer to the former Article Sect 4. 5. And to the proof of the Minor I answer that Protestants may have true succession from Christ and his Apostles and may be esteemed Christians and Catholicks though they differ in many material points as long as they hold the same fundamental points and Protestants opposing all or some of the chief points of Popery as they arose and were discovered to them though they did not discern all their errors nor relinquish all their practises or the communion of the Churches subject to the Bishop of Romes rule but they were truely Protestants however otherwise named while they did hold the same fundamental truths we hold and opposed as they appeared to them all or some of the Popish corrupt worship and errors which the Protestants now do And for proof of this we rightly name the Waldenses Hussites Wicklevists Albigenses Puritan Waldenses Beringarians Grecians of whom writers testifie they excepted against the Popes supremacy purgatory half communion transubstantiation setting up and worship of Images propitiatory sacrifice of the Masse for quick and dead invocation and worship of Angels and Saints deceased seven Sacraments with other errors of the now Romanists and yet in the chief points of Christian faith and worship did agree with the now Protestants as may be gathered from the confessions and writings of their own either extant or acknowledged in the histories and writings of their adversaries such as were Rainerius Aeneas Sylvius Cochlaeus and others See Samuel Morlands history of the Evangelical Churches in Piedmont the first book by which their confessions and treatises are brought to light agreeing with Protestants What H. T. brings against this is either falsly ascribed to them by the calumnies of their adversaries whose recitals of their opinions to the worst sense no man hath reason to believe especially considering their works extant do refute them and it hath been often complained of that they have been misinterpreted and misreported or else if true is insufficient to invalidate our allegation of them H. T. tells us the Waldenses held the real presence that the Apostles were lay men that all Magistrates fell from their dignity by any mortal sin that it is not lawful to swear in any case c. Illiricus in Catalog Waldens Confes Bohem. a. 1. and Waldo an unlearned Merchant of Lyons lived but in the year 1160. Answ Sure he was not altogether unlearned of whom it is said by some that have seen his doings yet remaining in old parchment monuments that it appeareth he was both able to declare and to translate the books of Scripture also did collect the Doctors minas upon the same Yet were he unlearned sure he had store of companions among the Romanists Friers Bishops and Popes of those times by one of whom a Bishop was condemned as an heretick for holding that there are Antipodes and Paul the second saith Platina pronounced them hereticks who should from thence forth mention the name of the Academy either in earnest or in jest The very decrees and Epistles of the Popes in their Canon law shew that few of them had any skill in the Scriptures or the original languages competent to divines and who so readeth their writings observingly shall find that the ablest of their schoolmen in those dayes were very ignorant of the Scripture sense and language Nor do I think the Popes and generality of Bishops and Priests and Preachers among the Romanists at this day are men of much learning in the holy Scriptures So that I presume Waldus as unlearned as he was was comparable to the Roman Clergy at that time in learning and for holiness of life by the relation even of Popish writers exceeding them as much as gold exceeds lead and therefore as likely to know the mind of God as any Pope or Bishop or Frier at that time Now clear it is by an ancient manuscript alledged by the Magdeburg cent 12. c. 8. that the Waldenses held that the Scripture is the only rale in the Articles of faith fathers and councils no otherwise to be received then as they agree with the Scriptures that the Scriptures are to be read by all sorts of men that there are two Sacraments of the Church that the Lords supper is appointed by Christ and to be received by all sorts in both kinds that Masses were impious and that it was a madness to say Masses for the dead purgatory to be a figment the invocation and worship of dead Saints to be idolatry the Roman Church to be the whore of Babylon that the Pope hath not the supremacy of all the Churches of Christ marriage of Priests to be lawful with sundry more which are agreeable to Protestant tenets against Papists which is confirmed because much to the same purpose Aeneas Sylvius in his Bohemian history writes of their opinions Nor is it likely they held what they are said by H. T. to have held For it appears by the dispute between them and one Dr. Austin set down by Mr. Fox Acts and Monuments at the year 1179. out of Orthuinus de gratiis that their opinion was that Christ is one and the same with his natural body in the Sacrament which he is at the right hand of his Father but not after the same
but they are not meerly visible believers as some Reprobates are who profess faith which they have not But the true Church of Christ against which the Gates of Hell shall not prevail Matth. 16. 18. contains onely such believers as have that faith which is true and that Election of God which with their faith are invisible and so are rightly denominated the invisible Church from that which is more excellent and the Reprobate have not ARTIC IV. One Catholick Church not the Roman The Church of Rome is not that one Catholick Church which in the Apostolick and Nicene Creeds is made the Object of Christian Faith SECT I. Unity in non-fundamentals of Faith and Discipline is not essentially presupposed to the Universality of the Church Militant H. T. to his fourth Article gives this Title The true Church demonstrated by her Unity and Universality and then saith Unity being essentially presupposed to Universality I thought it not improper to joyn these two in one Article Answ IF this Authour had meant to deal plainly he should have told us what Unity is essentially presupposed to Universality and how the true Church is demonstrated by her Unity and Universality Unity in general is so far from being essentially presupposed to Universality in general that the contrary seems more true that one is not universal Unity not consistent with Universality it being in effect as if iâ— were said One is many or all yet I deny not some unity in special may be essentially presupposed to some universality in special There are many sorts of unity which Logicians and Writers of Metaphysicks reckon up in respect of which it is certain that the true Church of Christ cannot be said to be one as it cannot be said to be one with generical or specifical unity for that is not essentially presupposed to universality of time and place but is abstracted from it But he seems to mean unity in Doctrine Discipline and Faith by the words following Universality likewise is manifold as Logicians and Writers of Metaphysicks shew as there is an universality of predication of essence and existence Now this Authour seems to mean universality of existence for time and place and his meaning is this that unity of Doctrine Discipline and Faith is essentially presupposed to universality of existence for time and place that is that Church which hath not the same Doctrine Faith and Discipline which all Churches of Christ in all times and places have had is not the true Church of Christ and that which hath is the true Church of Christ Now these Propositions I grant if meant of Doctrine and Faith in the Fundamentals but not if meant of meer outward Church-discipline or Doctrine and Faith in points not fundamental having learned from the Apostle 1 Cor. 3. 11 12 13 14. that some may build Hay and Stubble that is some errors upon the foundation Christ who yet may be saved which they could not be if they were not of the true Church of Christ or that is no true Church of Christ which consists of such In like manner the Apostle Rom. 14. 2. expresly tells us in the Church of Rome one did believe he might eat all things and another did eat herbs one esteemed one day above another others esteemed every day alike and yet God received them both and they were Gods servants v. 3 4 5. And that in Discipline there may be disagreement yea Schism and disorder is apparent from the Church of Corinth 1 Cor. 1. 11 12. 51. 6. 7. 11. 17 c. 14. 26. 15. 12. who are termed the Church of God 1 Cor. 1. 2. And therefore without distinction and due limitation which this Authour omits his Position is not true But let 's view what he writes SECT II. The antiquity of H. T. his saying of the Roman Church its unity and universality is shewed Now saith H. T. that the church of Rome is both perfectly one and also universal for time and place is thus demonstrated Answ HEre again this Authour deals sophistically putting the Roman church for the true church as if they were the same and not explaining what he means by the Roman church which may eitherâ— signifie the church that is in Rome which is the expression of the Apostle Rom. 1. 7. or the Church where ever it be which holds the Roman faith And this Roman faith may be either the faith in all points which now at this day the Bishop and Priests and People dwelling at Rome hold or which the Christians at Rome held in the days of Paul and some Ages after If it be meant in this this last sense the true Church is no more the Roman church than Corinthian nor so much as the Hierosolymitan whence all churches received the faith if in the former sense the term is not according to the ancient use either in Scripture or ancient Ecclesiastick Writers though I conceive it so meant by this Authour To be perfectly one is also ambiguous it may be meant either that they have not the least disagreement in Doctrine Discipline and Faith or they hold the same Faith and Doctrine in the main or points fundamental To be universal for time and place may be either meant thus that the persons now termed the Roman church are universal for time and place But this is contrary to sense it being known by it that they were born within a certain definite time at certain definite places not in all times and every place existent or that the faith which now the Romanists hold is that which in all times and places the true church of God hath held And this we deny if it be meant of the Articles in Pope Pius the fourth his Creed and are willing to put all our controversies to this issue But H. T. looks quite awry from this as will appear by viewing his dispute which is thus SECT III. Unity under one visible bead without division in lesser points and disciplin is not proved from 1 Cor. 10. 17. Ephes 1. 22 23. John 10. 16. 1 Cor. 1. 10. Act. 4. 32. John 17. 11. and the Nicene Creed H. T. saith The argument for unity The church of Christ is one body one fold or flock of which he himself is the supreme invisible head and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial But the Roman Catholick church and no other is this one body one sold or flock therefore the Roman Catholick church and no other is the church of Christ The Major is proved We are one bread and one body as many as participate of one bread 1 Cor. 10. 18. He hath made him Christ head over all the Church which is his body Ephes 1. 22 23. There shall be made one fold and one Pastor John 10. 16. I beseech you that you all speak one thing and that there be no Schisms among you but that ye be perfect in one sense and one judgement 1 Cor. 1. 10
faith but he onely who hears the Pope speak by word of mouth from his chair or a council approved by him speak with audible voyce the reading of the Trent canons or the Popes Bull is not sufficient to beget faith much less the hearing a Priest or Prelate tell us their determination By which it may appear that if H. T. his dictates hold then there is neither church nor faith among the greatest part of Papists 9. All this discourse is idle because Papists themselves do grant in effect the distinction he excepts against and his own words do in a manner confesse it is right as the objectors explain it and therefore in this is but a meer humour of quarrelling as having a minde to say somewhat against Mr. Chillingworth and Dr. Potter the Lord Falkland and Dr. Hammond who have fully beaten them out of this their last hold of the infallibility of the Roman church which they would fain have fortified being unable to keep the field in the several points of controversie between us and them H. T. goes on thus Ob. In Gregory the greats time the discipline and doctrine of the Church was altered and corrupted Ans That cannot be for from Gregory the greats time to this day even the least substantial part of either hath not been lost or changed as is visible in all the councils liturgies and constitutions of the Church I reply this is so notoriouslly false and the contrary so fully demonstrated even out of the confessions of Popish writers themselves and in the points of the Popes supremacy out of Gregory himself l. 4. Epist 32 34 38 39. in the point of worshipping of Images in his Epistle to Serenus and in other points by Bishop Morton in his first book of the Protestants appeal against Brerely his Apology that were not this Author resolved to out-face the most manifest verities against the now Roman tenents he would never have vented so grosse a falshood The very confessions of Popes the decrees of reformation even in the Trent council prove the contrary to what H. T. saith Claudius Espentaeus com in 2 Tim. c. 4. digres 21. confesseth that toyes and lyes were in almost all their portesses And if there were no more to prove this Author an egregious lyar yet this is enough which is apparent to all the world that they have had councils opposing councils about the superiority of a Pope above a council since the time of Gregory the great and even in their Miffals and Bibles many things have been changed and purged Clemens the eighth hath altered many things in Sixtus the fifth his Bible and thereby shewed how corruptions have crept into their own authentick translation H. T. adds Object That which may happen to any one particular man or Church may happen to all but it may happen to any one particular man or Church to erre in faith therefore to all Answ I distinguish the first proposition that which may happen to one may happen to all in a divisive sense I grant in a collective I deny and granting the second proposition I deny the consequence for it proceeds from a divided to a compound sense and is as equivocal as this That which may happen to any one egge in the Parish may happen to all But it may happen to any one egge in the Parish to go into your mouth at once therefore it may happen to all the eggs in the Parish to go into your mouth at once I reply I know not whose argument this is Dr. Rainold in his Thesis saith thus but it may happen to every Church which may happen to any certainly what happened to the Church of Jerusalem which had much more ample promises then ever the Church of any City As it is formed by this Author I think the Major is not universally true but being formed thus that error which may be in each man and church singly and it 's not assured shall be removed from them met together may happen to them so met But error in faith may be in each man and Church singly and it 's not assured to be removed from them met together therefore error in faith may happen to them so met The Major is I conceive without question The Minor consists of two parts 1. That all men and Churches singly or severally may erre in faith I think will not be denied That the Popes as private Doctors may erre in faith it 's not denyed by the stiffest assertors of the Popes infallibility That any particular Church also even the Roman may erre it 's not denied the infallibility which H. T. would have to belong to it is as Catholick and this must be when the whole Church diffused over the world unanimously teach a point of faith or it 's representative in a perfectly Oecumenical council called out of the whole world and approved by the Pope 2. That to none of these is such infallibility assured which is proved in that there is no promise of such infallibility to any of them The texts urged by H. T. in this article yeild not that promise nor that text Mat. 18. 20. For 1. Christ may be in the midst of men and yet they not infallible He walks in the midst of the Churches Revel 2. 1. yet they might and did erre in faith So God hath promised inhabitation to every true believer and walking with them 2 Cor. 6. 16. and yet they were not infallible 2. If infallibility were there promised it was promised to two or three gathered in Christs name and so to a Church neither collectively nor representatively Catholick 3. The promise is but conditional upon supposition of being gathered together in Christs name which whether any council be it is uncertain to us As for H. T. his distinction and application they seem to me to savour of unskilfulnesse in the meaning of Logick terms A proposition is true in a divided sense which is not true in a compound when the predicate agrees to the subject considered as at different times upon an alteration as when it is said the blind see the deaf hear the dumb speak this is not true in a compound sense that at the same time that persons are blind deaf dumb they see hear speak but in a divided sense But the Major proposition as set down in the objection is understood of the same time without alteration And so it is not true that it proceeds from a divided to a compound sense Nor is there any consequence in the proposition as he unskilfully speaks but the proposition is a simple or categorical proposition As for his similitude of eating eggs they may be kept for his breakfast as now being unseasonable But he proceeds Object The Apostles were not each of them to depend on the decrees of the Church Answ True the Church was to depend on them as on the first masters and proposers of faith who had each of them a peculiar prerogative of divine assistance
in Writing and Printing their Statutes Records Deeds Wills Histories that they may be more certain and safely preserved as knowing that oral Traditions are apt to be lost and corrupted persons understandings memories reports lives and all their affairs being mutable and liable to innumerable casualties Yea hereby God himself is condemned of imprudence in causing Moses and all the sacred Writers to write Books and our Lord Christ in giving John express charge to write Revel 1. 19. commending the Scripture Rom. 15. 4. 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. as inspired of God directing to it John 5. 39. praising the searching of it Acts 17. 11. making it a persons excellency to be mighty in it Acts 18. 24. usefull to convince in the greatest point of Faith vers 28. Wit not Printing a great Benefit to the World Was not the finding of the Book of the Law 2 Chron. 34 15. the reading of it by Ezra Nehem. 8. the having of ready Scribes counted a happiness to the Jews Do not men more credit eys than ears Do not men complain of the Darkness of Times for want of Books Are not the ninth and tenth ages since Christ counted unhappy for want of learned Writers Was not this the great unhappiness that came into the West by the Inundations of barbarous Nations in that they spoiled Libraries Is it not a thing for which Ptolomaeus Philadelphus was renowned that he stored the Library at Alexandria in Egypt with Books do not we count them great Benefactours who build and preserve Libraries Are not therefore Students encouraged and they that search Libraries the men that discover truth to the World Were the things done before the Flood or since better preserved by oral Tradition than by Moses Writing Were the things done before the Wars of Troy better preserved thereby than these Wars by Homer's Poems Or the British Antiquities by the Songs of Bardes than by Julius Caesar's Commentaries Tacitus and other Historians Writings How quickly are men apt to mistake and misreport sayings appears by the mistake of Christ's speeches John 2. 19. Matth. 26. 62. John 21 23. That which Eusebius saith of Papias lib. 3. Eccles hist cap. 35. of his delivering divers fabulous things received by oral Tradition through his simplicity Irenaeus of the Elders of Afia lib. 2. advers Haeret. cap. 39. and innumerable other instances prove there is nothing more uncertain than oral Tradition from hand to hand A man may easily perceive this man is resolved to outface plain truth who is not ashamed thus to aver that it is a mistake to say that Books are a more safe and infallible way or Rule than oral Tradition when his own printing his Books proves the contrary For why did he write but for more sure conveying and preserâ—ing of his minde Yea his own Reason is truly retorted on himself Oral Reports are infinitely more liable to casualties and corruptions than Books as well by reason of the variety of Languages in which Reports are uttered as the diversity of Interpreters scarce any two Interpreters agreeing but all pretending one to mend the others besides the multiplicity of expressions and relatours one not agreeing with the other as Mark 14 56 59. with the equivocations and uncertainties or Witnesses words if captiously wrested or literally insisted on Who can prove any one oral Tradition which is not universal and written also to be infallible or uncorrupted those that were delivered by the Apostles own tongues we have not or who can convince that any one oral Tradition can have no other sense or meaning than what is convenient for his purpose insisting onely on the sound of a reporter All which dangers and difficulties are avoided as much as is necessary by relying on the written Word of the Bible which under pain of Damnation bindes men to deliver nothing for Faith but what they have received as such from Christ and his Apostles in their Writings by hand to hand from age to age and in the same sense in which they have received it It is true Books are subject to casualties and corruptions yet not to so many as oral Tradition and the casualties are better prevented by Writing which remains the same than by Reports which vary Fama tam ficti pravique tenax quam nuncia veri And as the Enemies malice hath been great in seeking to deprive the World of Bibles so the providence of God hath been wonderfull in preserving them and their genuine writing and meaning even by the dispersing of Copies that what is amiss in one may be mended in another by ordering variety of Translations to the same end persecutions that they should not be in all places at once stirring up others to make Tractates and Commentaries on them all Christians till the late Faction at Trent and the late Papal tyranny denied the liberty of translating and reading of the Bible in the vulgar Tongue without leave and began to punish in their Inquisition the having them reverencing and reading the holy Scripture however the Decree of Councils and Popes were neglected yea Traditours of the Bible to be burnt were most infamous As for the words of Austin lib. de util cred cap. 3. they are falsly cited and meerly impertinent to H. T 's purpose Having said The Old Testament is delivered that is expounded four ways according to the History Aetiology Analogy Allegory he then adds Think me not a Fool using Greek names First because I have so received neither dare I intimate to thee otherwise than I have received which is nothing at all about Apostolical traditions unwritten as the Rule of Faith besides the Scripture but of certain terms used by Expositours of Scripture But that which a little after he adds is justly charged on the Romanists and among them on H. T. Nothing seems to me to be more impudently said by them the Manichees or that I may speak more mildely more carelesly and weakly than that the divine Scriptures are corrupted when they cannot convince it by any Copies extant in so fresh a memory But H. T. in his sottish vein adds As to your difficulty of speculative Points I answer that the whole frame of necessary Points of Christian Doctrine was in a manner made sensible and visible by the external and uniform practise of the Church The incarnation and all the Mysteries thereof by the holy Images of Christ erected in all sacred places the Passion by the sign of the Cross used in the Sacraments and set up in Churches The Death of Christ by the unbloody Sacrifice of the Mass which is a lively Commemoration of it The Trinity and Unity by doing all thing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost c. now who can doubt but that oral Tradition thus seconded by the outward and uniform practise of the whole World is a much safer and more infallible Rule for conserving revealed verities than Books or dead Letters which cannot explicate
ROMANISM DISCUSSED OR An Answer to the nine first Articles of H. T. his Manual of CONTROVERSIES Whereby is manifested that H. T. hath not as he pretends clearly demonstrated the Truth of the Roman Religion by him falsly called Catholick by Texts of holy Scripture Councils of all Ages Fathers of the first five hundred years common sense and experience nor fully answered the principal Objections of Protestants whom he unjustly terms Sectaries By John Tombes B. D. And commended to the World by Mr. Richard Baxter Jer 6. 16. Thus saith the Lord Stand ye in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way and walk therein and ye shall finde rest for your Souls LONDON Printed by H. Hills and are to sold by Jane Underhill and Henry Mourtlock in Paul's Church-yard 1660. TO THE English Romanists Who term themselves CATHOLICKS Specially to those of the Counties of Hereford and Worcester ALthough the prejudice wherewith you are prepossessed against the Truth avouched by me the Ingagements whereby you are linked to the Roman See the Hopes that it 's not unlikely you feed you selves with of seeing your Native Countrey reduced under the obedience of the Roman Papacy besides the long experience which hath been had of the fruitlesness of Attempts to alter your Opinion in Religion how gross soever they have been proved to be might have deterred me from this Writing yet sith I have been instantly urged to it and am loath to imagine all of you tobe of so deplorable a wilfulness of spirit as that you will obstinately persist in your manifest Errours and thereby cast away your Sâ—uls I have adventured to publish this ensuing Treatise that I might not be guilty of betraying the Truth and your Souls by my silence I have been many years a Preacher in England chiefly in the Counties of Hereford and Worcester and though I have not had much acquaintance with any of you yet some Conferences have left me not without hope that you might see your Errour about the Supremacy and Infallibility of the Pope and Church of Rome which is the chief Point on which your Religion rests as it is opposite to Protestantism although formerly and of late the French and some other Churches have strongly opposed the Popes or Roman Churches Superiority above a General Council and their Infallibility in their Determinations Certainly these two Points which are the Pillars of the Religion of the Roman party are so far from being Catholick that to him that shall impartially examine the Proofs it will appear that they have been late Innovations and are yet contradicted by a great part of those Churches which hold communion with the Roman See And for many other Points of your Religion if you would either use your Senses or your understanding in judging by the Scripture translated by your own party what is true or false you could not be so besotted as to believe Transubstantiation Invocation of deceased Saints Justification by your own Works and their Meritoriousness of eternal Life Purgatoryâ—fire Prayer for the Dead another Propitiatory Sacrifice for Quick and Dead besides Christ's Communion under one kinde onely Worshipping of Images and Reliques with some other of your Tenets For freeing you from which Errours which are pernicious to your Souls if I could contribute any thing I should count it a part of my happiness of which I should have some hopes were it that I perceived you free from the Imposition of your Leaders on you not to reade such Writings as are against them which must of necessity enslave you to their Opinions and hinder you from an impartial Search after Truth wherein what deceit is used by your imagined Pastour the Pope may appear as by many other things so especially by the late carriage of Pope Innocent the tenth in the Controversies between the Jansenists and Molinists in France who being importuned to give Sentence concerning the five Propositions of Jansenius if we may believe Thomas White one of your chief Disputants and one whose approbation is to this Manual of Controversies of H. T. did in shew condemn Jansenius his words but did allow his meaning And that I may not be thought to misreport him I will set down his words in his Appendicula to his Sonus Buccinae about the Censure of the five Propositions of Jansenius Sect. 9. where after he had shewed that the Propositions of Jansenius might be true in their sense though the words were liable to Exceptions he adds But whereto are all these things said Is it that I might enervate or reprehend the Popes Decree Nothing less I profess that was published by the best Counsel and special guidance of the Holy Spirit which governs the Church The Church was afflicted with Dissentions one part stood propped by the Truth and Authority of holy Scripture the other being guarded with the multitude of Princes and of the common People circumvented with the sound of words flattering humane weakness took great courage What should the Father of the Church do He allayed the more unquiet part by granting them their words the more obedient part he flatteringly comforted by commending to them their Senses The former part of the Saying was confirmed by a publick Instrument The later if there be any credit to be given to men of tender conscience was done before the Oratour of the most Christian King It is manifest by what hath been said with what rectitude of Faith and Divinity this part shines that that exhibites prudence worthy the Pope thus take it Wherein it may be perceived that however White speak favourably of the Pope yet he sets out his dealing in that business as unworthy an infallible Judge of Controversies which should have decided openly for Jansenius whose Propositions stood propped by the Truth and Authority of holy Scripture according to their meaning which Innocentius the tenth commended to them that they might hold them still in that meaning in a Conference and yet he condemned their Propositions in their words by his Bull published to quiet the wrangling and potent party of Jesuits that had drawn the Princes and common People to their side by words that flattered humane weakness in stead of Truth glorifying God than which in so weighty a matter what could be done more like a Juggler or man-pleaser than a Servant of God constant in asserting Truth Which shews that the Popes resolve not by the Spirit of God or the holy Scripture but by humane policy as it may be for their advantage to keep their party in obedience to them And that it is not indeed any sincerity in seeking Truth or serious intention to feed the Souls of People with true Doctrine but to accommodate all their Determinations and Negotiations as to uphold their credit authority might be made abundantly appear by the History of the Council of Trent and many other ways which I shall not mention being shewed by many and particularly by Mr. Richard
in Paul's days in which it is clear from Rom. 14. 2. that one believed he might eat all things another who was weak did eat herbs Ver. 5. One man esteemeth one day above another another esteemeth every day alike In after Ages the differences in the Roman church it self if reckoned would make a large catalogue 4. It is not necessary to the being of a true church that the company and their profession be so visible as that they may be discerned as the Roman Senate was or the Venetian Republique and French Kingdom are For then the disciples which were assembled the doors being shut for fear of the Jews John 20. 19. had not been a true church of God nor the woman in the wilderness Revel 12. 14. nor those that wand red in dens and caves of the earth in desarts and mountains Heb. 11. 38. then the Saints in persecution should not be blessed as Christ saith Matth. 5. 10. but cursed as ceasing to be the true church of God 5. It is not necessary to the bring of a true church that there should be in it a succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks professing the same faith for then the first company of such professors though called out of the world should not be a true church of God for want of succession 6. Much less is it necessary that there should be a succession in the same place For then when Christ removed the candlestick that is the church out of it's place as he threatens Revel 2. 5. though believers should come to dwell there a thousand years after they should not be a true church because of the interruption of succession in that place the church at Jerusalem after the persecution had not been a true church if the Apostles had been scattered as well as the rest Acts 8. 1 2. Doth a church persecuted and driveâ— out of a place cease to be a church because they and their successors are removed out of their dwellings Suppose the place wasted and destroyed shall that destroy the being of the church which was there before 7. Much less is it necessary that there should be a continuance without any notable interruption in each age For there may be many hinderances of elections of Bishops and ordinations of Priests there may be scatterings of the Laicks as was at Jerusalem Acts 8. 1. and yet the being and verity of the church continue 8. If a church must be judged no true church because no Writings or Monuments have kept the catalogue of Bishops Priests and Laicks professing the same faith from Christ till this time a church shall be condemned as no true church for want of Writings and Monuments or because they are now lost by reason of the inundation of barbarism and barbarous people who spoil Learning and Arts which yet Popish Writers acknowledge to have happened in the ninth Age tearmed by Genebrard Chron. l. 4. the unhappy age for want of learned Writers and H. T. himself p. 25. saith In this tenth Age or Century I find no General Council nor yet provinciaâ— in which any controversie of moment was decided SECT V. None of the Texts alledged by H. T. prove a necessity of such a succession as he imagines to the being of a true Church AS for the Texts he alledgeth they are all so impertinently alledged that it 's likely had he not presumed he should meet with very credulous Readers he would not have mentioned them or at least he would have shewed how he proves his Proposition from them it being necessary to do so if he had a mind to instruct and not impose on his Readers The first Text Isa 59. 21. is no promise of such a succession in any visible church as H. T. speaks of but of a continuance of Gods Word and Spirit with the persons there meant which seem to be peculiarly the Jews by the Apostles alledging Rom. 11. 26. However they are onely the Elect who can be there meant sith the promise is made good to none other none other have the Spirit of God not departing from them not any whole visible church among the Gentiles from whom the Spirit of God may depart In the three next Texts Isa 60. 1 3 11. Isa 62. 6. Ezek. 37. 26. the very words apply the promises to Hieruâ—alem and the people of Israel so that if they speak of any continued succession in any visible church in all Ages it must be the Jewish which it is certain hath had no such succession but is broken off from the true Olive to this day and therefore cannot be meant of them in H. T. his sense till they be reingrassed The next Dan. 7. 13 14. speaks not of the continued succession which H. T. imagines of every true visible church but of the duration of Christs dominion which shall not pass away to another that is there is no kingdom which shall succeed to it as there did to the former Monarchies nor shall it be destroyed as they were but shall be continued to Christ without any succession So that this Text mentions not H. T. his succession but excludes succession of any other to Christs dominion Matth. 28. 20. intimates a succession to the end of the world of teachers and so doth Ephes 4. 11 12 13 14. but not in every true visible church nor so conspicuous as that all may know and discern the church as men discern the assembly of the people of Rome nor so apparent as that there may be produced a catalogue of Bishops Priests and Laicks professing the same faith from Christs time till now Much less doth John 14. 16. prove such a succession it being onely a promise of the Spirits abiding with the Apostles for ever which is no promise to the Bishop of Rome or any other visible church now SECT VI. The succession pretended to be in the Roman Church proves not the verity of the Roman Church but the contrary BUâ— H. T. contenting himself to have set down these Texts leaves the Reader to extract what he can out of them and passeth on to the proof of his minor That the Church now in communion with the See of Rome and no other has had a continued succession from Christ and his Apostles to this time which according to his meaning is as if he had said The Church either in Rome or Italy or Spain or France or Germany or Poland or any other part of the world which hath owned the Pope and his doctrine and been subject to his rule and no other has had a continued succession of Bishops Priests and Laicks professing the same faith with the now Bishop of Rome so conspicuous as that there may be a catalogue of such produced out of good records and no other can do so So that then if he proves his Minor he must prove 1. That church to have this succession continued 2. That no other hath Which he takes on him to do by a catalogue of the Roman churches
authority of the Church but to know the true faith by which alone the true Church is known and it is a most impudent assertion which H. T. takes on him in his first Article to maintain that the Church now in communion with the See of Rome is the only true Church of God unless he can prove none are believers but they So that this very definition of the Lateran council is sufficient to overthrow the main drift of H. T. in this book and to shew how heedless or impudent a writer he is H. T. tells us also that the fourth Lateran council defin'd in the profession of faith can 1. that the true body and blood of Christ is in the Sacrament of the Altar under the forms of bread and wine the bread being transubstantiated by the divine power into the body and the wine into the blood Which is granted if it be true that the Council it self did define any thing and not Pope Innocent himself three years after the Council Platina saith in his life that many things then came into consultation indeed and yet not any thing could be openly decreed But were it the Council or the Pope alone that thus decreed it was a most bold and presumptuous act in either or both to make that a point of faith of which as Bellarm. tom 3. cont l. 3 c. 23. confesseth Scotus in quartum sent dist 11. q. 3. said that the tenent of transubstantiation was no tenet of faith before the Lateran Council and Scotus and Cameracensis expresly say that neither by words of Scripture nor by the Creeds nor sayings of the ancients are we compelled to the tenet of transubstantiation And Cardinal Cairt in 3. Aq. q. 75. art 1. saith that nothing out of the Gospel doth appear to compel us to understand these words this is my body properly To the same purpose John Fisher Bishop of Rochester contra capt Babylon c. 1. For which reason Cuthbert Tonstal l. 1. of the Eucharist p. 46. said perhaps it had been better to have left every curious man to his conjecture concerning the manner of Christs body being in the Eucharist as before the Lateran Council it was left at liberty and therefore he was ost heard to say if he had been present at the Lateran Council he would have endeavoured to perswade Pope Innocent to have forborn the decreeing of transubstantiation as an article of faith And indeed the reason of the Council is so grosly absurd that had there been any understanding men at the making of the decree it 's likely it had not passed For this reason they give of their decree that to perfect the mystery of unity we our selves may take of his what he received of ours the bread being transubstantiate into the body the wine into blood by the divine power intimates 1. That the bread is transubstantiate into the body and wine into the blood not either into body and blood and then he that drinks not the wine drinks not the blood nor is it said to be transubstantiate into it as an animate body so that that determination makes it a transubstantiation without life 2. It faith that we may receive of his what he receives of ours which in plain sense intimates that Christ receives our body and blood by eating and drinking as we do his 3. It makes this the mystery of our unity as if the mystery of our unity by faith were not perfect without this gross Capernaitish Cannibalitish eating Christs very flesh made from bread by a Priest and drinking his very blood with our mouth in drinking transubstantiate wine All which are such gross irrational unchristian absurdities as had not the age been blockish and Popes and popish writers and people dementate they would with abhorrency have rejected that determination H. T. adds that the fourth Lateran Council can 1. defined in the profession of faith that no man can make this Sacrament but a Priest rightly ordained by the keys of the Church given to the Apostles and their successors which although it be otherwise in the text Matth. 16. 19. expresseth wherein the keys not of the Church but of the Kingdom of heaven are mentioned as given to Peter not to the Apostles and their successors yet were it true that the keys were given to the Apostles and their successors this would overthrow the Popes supremacy if it be deduced from that gift of the keys For if Christ himself gave the keys of the Church to the Apostles and their successors then not to Peter only and his successors but to other Apostles and their successors as well as Peter and consequently according to their own principles to other Bishops as well as the Bishop of Rome As for the definition of the Council that none can make this Sacrament but a Priest then it is to Priests only that it is said do this for from those words he deduceth p. 215. the power to make Christs body but that is most absurd for then they only should eat the doing this being meant plainly of eating the bread being spoken not to the Priest conficient only but to all the Apostles at table also and if so not only the cup should be kept from the people but the bread also contrary to 1 Cor. 10. 16 17. 11. 28. H. T. tells us that they defined that baptism profits little ones as well as those who are of riper years unto salvation and condemned the heresie of Abbas Joachim which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants though it be suspected that if Abbat Joachim had not been a man whose reputed holiness and free speeches against the Popes and the clergy troubled them he might have escaped that censure The definition concerning confession and receiving at Easter are points of disciplin not part of the profession of faith and so impertinent to the present business H. T. mentions also the Council of Lyons Fathers one hundred Pope Gregory the tenth presiding Anno 1274. against the Grecians which is nothing against the common tenet of the Protestants and that which is added this hitherto saith the Council the holy Roman Church the mother and mistris of all Churches hath preach'd and taught besides the non-sense how frequently soever it be used of the Churches preaching and teaching who preach not nor teach but they are preached to and taught it is but a piece of palpably false flattery the Church of Rome being not the mother of all Churches it being certain that the Church of Jerusalem was before that of Rome and the Jerusalem from above is stiled the mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. Among his Catholick professors of this age H. T. nominates St. Dominick and St. Francis Institutors of their holy orders of Friers but how they should be Saints whereof one was a bloody instigator of war against the innocent sheep of Christ the Waldenses and the other an observer of humane inventions with neglect of Gods command to work with his
he had seven thousand at that time in Israel where he was therefore Elias spake figuratively when he complained he was left alone 3 Kings 19. Nay the contrary follows that he did not speak figuratively because God corrects him and shews his mistake in saying he was left alone that is there were no more besides himself left 2. But yet if it were granted that the speech is figurative and the meaning as H. T. would have it it no whit avoids our objection that the Church of God though consisting of seven thousand yet were so obsâ—ure that they appeared so few to Elias as that he took himself to be left alone As for the other exception of the Kingdom of Juda it takes not away the objection as the Protestants frame it but as H. T. frames it it is not our objection and so though the consequence be false yet it hurts not us who gather not hence the failing of the Church but the obscurity of it and that there may be a true Church which is so hidden that it is not discerned at some times no not by such an eminent Prophet as Elias and so though we cannot shew our Church in every age before Luther yet there might be then and we may be now a true Church for all that The next objection he brings is that though Arian heresie infected the whole world Ergo c. and answers you mistake the fury of that lasted not full fouâ— years viz. from the council of Ariminum to the death of Constantine and that only in the Eastern Churches the Western feeling little or nothing by it St. Augustin answers the Donatists objecting the same that even the canonical Scriptures have this custome that the word seems to be addressed to all when it reaches home only to some few Epist 48. To which I reply If the Arian fury lasted but four years and in the Eastern Churches only yet it might have been more than one hundred and then the succession had ceased and the Eastern Churches then were so obscure that a catalogue of professors could not be given though there were doubtless then true Churches in the East But it is false which H. T. writes that the Western felt little or nothing by the Arian fury for in Italy the Arians prevailed so far as to bring Liberius Bishop of Rome to subscribe to the council of Ariminum Nor do I know how the words of Augustin yeild any thing in answer to the objection that in the time of the Arian prevalency the Church was so obscured that the whole world seemed to be Arians therefore the Churches succession may be so interrupted or obscured at least as that a catalogue of it's pastors and professors at all times cannot be framed For suppose the meaning of the speech should be that the words concerning the number of Arians seem to be addressed to all when they reach home only to some few yet if the words shew the number so great as that the other part of the Church were obscured so as not to be discerned they serve to prove there may be Churches which are so hidden as that a catalogue cannot be framed But the objection is further pressed thus Object St. Hierom says the whole world groan'd and admired to see it self become Arian in his book against Luciferius To which H. T. saith Answ If she wondred she knew not when it was done if she groaned she approved it not being done therefore the major part were still Catholick To which I reply if H. T. did not presume he should meet with silly readers he would not have thus frivolously inferred from those words which were delivered to shew the Arians to be the greater part that the major part was still Catholick For who knows not that the expression is Rhetorical and the meaning this that Arians prevailed so much that the whole world that is all the churches of the East and West were so infected that they were burdened with Arians as a man that groans under a burden and that on such a sudden as that the accident was as it were a wonder now from such Catachrestical metaphors to infer as if they were proper that while the world was Arian it knew not it was done or approved it not is all one as to say when they were Arians they knew not nor liked Arian doctrine that is while they were Arians they were not Arians which is to make Hieroms speech self-contradicting But H. T. adds Let St. Hierom answer for himself The Bishops saith he against Luciferius that did the fact of Ariminum were deluded viz. by the new Creed there made which might have born a good sense few defending the fact and some lamenting it And St. Augustin tells us that the church then appeared in her most constant members Athanasius and others ep 48. To which I reply It is true that when they came to see their error they did lament it yet were for the time Arians and though Athanasius did not yeild to subscribe to it yet Liberlus Bishop of Rome did And I believe H. T. his fellow Papists will not allow his speech that the decree made at Ariminum might have born a good sense It is added by H. T. thus Obj. The church will fail in the time of Antichrist according to that unless there come a revolt first c. 2 Thes 2. 3. Answ No she will not she shall then suffer great persecution Apoc. 20. 8. and therefore shall be to suffer many will revolt all shall not I reply that if the revolt be of so many and the persecution so great as that they shall be dispersed and obscured so as not to appear it is sufficient to prove the succession to be then either so interrupted as not to be or so obscured as not to be discerned by enemies or brethren further off and so as that the making a catalogue of Pastors and professors in that age cannot be expected justly from the churches in after ages which is enough for our purpose to shew that the defect of such a catalogue shews not the nullity of the Protestant churches nor is with any justice or reason such a catalogue of Pastors and professors in all ages required of them by Papists Yet however this Author conceives his fellows the Rhemists Annot. on 2 Thes 2. 3. think the Apostasie shall be so great as that Antichrist shall pull down generally all kind of religious worship saving that which must be done to himself alone nor is that Apoc. 20. 8. to the contrary For neither is it certain that time is the time of Antichrists reign nor if it were doth it appear that the thing done is afore the end of that reign But H. T. adds Obj. What if men would not persevere how then you hold freewill I hope Answ With St. Augustine to the Donatists as if the holy Ghost were ignorant what would be the freewill of men which yet foreseeing he foretold that the church
and their invocation of what sort he meant being not expressed it serves not the turn to prove his confession of the Fathers of the first five hundred years holding Popish Invocation of Saints deceased SECT VI. The Answers of H. T. to the Objections of Protestants concerning their Succession are shewed to be vain and the Apostacy of the Roman Church proved AFter the rest of his scribling H. T. under the Title of Objection solved saith thus Object In all the Ages before Luther Protestants had a Church though it were invisible Answ This is a meer Mid-summer nights Dream that a Church which is a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations should be extant for a thousand years and yet be all this while invisible neither to be seen or heard of in the World I reply who frames the Objection as this Authour sets it down I know not sure I am that many of the Protestants do frame it otherwise that the Protestants had Churches afore Luther who did oppose popish innovations and that these were visible though not to their Enemies nor in so conspicuous a manner as the Roman Senate or Common-wealth of Venice and this is no Mid-summer nights Dream any more than that Papists have a Church in England in communion with the See of Rome and that they have Masses Baptizing c. although it be not known to Protestants nor so conspicuous as that we know where to go to them And these Churches have been seen and known in the World partly separate from the Roman Church partly continuing within the Roman Church but yet opposing the pâ—pal usurpations and corruptions As for H. T. his Definition of a Church it is to me more like a Mid-Summer nights Dream For is the Church a congregation of visible men preaching baptizing and converting Nations Are all the visible men in the congregation which is the Church men preaching baptizing and converting Nations May not a Church be a congregation of men that convert not any Nation if themselves be converted that baptize not others if themselves be baptized that preach not if they have heard received and profess the Word preached Are not Women part of the congregation which is the Church Do they preach and baptize However it is well this Authour sets down Preaching and Baptizing as acts whereby the men who are of the congregation which is the Church are visible which is all one with the marks of the visible Church given by the Protestants to wit preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments H. T. adds Object The Church in communion with the See of Rome was the true Church till she apostatized and fell from the faith Answ If she were once the true Church she is and shall be so for ever she cannot fail as hath been proved nor erre in faith as shall be proved hereafter I reply It is true Protestants yield that the Churches in communion with the Bishops of Rome were true Churches while they held the faith of Christ entire and did not by their innovations subvert it which was in process of time done by altering of the rule of faith the Apostolical tradition of the holy Scripture into unwritten tradition the Popes determinations and canons of councils as the sense of the Scripture or the revelations of the Spirit of God and by bringing in the invocation and worship of the Virgin Mary and other Saints altering the Sacrament of the Lords Supper instituted for a commemoration of his death into a propitiatory sacrifice for quick and dead asserting transubstantiation and adoring of the bread worshipping images and reliques perverting the Gospel by bringing in the doctrines of humane satisfactions for sin power to fulfill the law justification by works and meriting eternal life instead of free remission of sins to the penitent believer only through the blood of Christ and justification by faith in Christ without the works of the law In which points that the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized is apparent by this argument Those Churches have apostatized who have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ But the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have left the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ therefore the Churches now in communion with the See of Rome have apostatized The Major is evident from the terms apostasie being no other thing than leaving the faith once delivered to the Saints by the Apostles of Christ The minor is manifest by comparing the doctrine of the council of Trent and Pope Pius the fourth his Creed with the Apostles writings especially the Epistle to the Romans by Paul which shews what once the church of Rome believed For instance it is said Rom. 15. 4. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope 2 Tim. 3. 15 16 17. And that from a child thou hast known the holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished unto all good works Eph. 2. 20. And are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone which plainly prove the Scriptures use for all sorts sufficiency and divinity and the needlesness of unwritten traditions to guide us to salvation Rom. 12. 5. We being many are one body in Christ and every one members one of another 1 Cor. 12. 12. For as the body is one and hath many members and all the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ Ver. 13. For by one spirit we are all baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles whether we be bond or free ver 27. Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular ver 28. And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles c. Ephes 1. 22. and gave him to be head over all things to the Church which is his body which prove the Catholick Church to have extended to all believers of Jews and Gentiles and that they and not the Roman only or those that are in communion with it are that one body or Catholick Church and that there is no other head of the whole Church but Christ nor any Apostle above another and consequently the Roman Church and Pope have no supremacy over the rest of the Churches Rom. 10 14. How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed 1 Tim. 2. 5. There is one God and one Mediator between God and men the man Christ Jesus which prove they then received not the invocation of Saints nor made the Virgin Mary or any other deceased Saint Mediators between God
no right Baptism almost throughout the Churches under the Papacy there being nothing but watering of Infants with some frivolous Ceremonies no immersion or plunging into the Water after Profession of Faith as was in the primitive times and is the onely Baptism Christ appointed Infant-sprinkling perfusion or dipping being meer Innovations begun after the Apostles ages and being onely by unwritten tradition as their own learned men confess conveyed to the Church not instituted by Christ himself And for administring the Lords Supper he that reades their Missals or Sees their Mass may easily discern there is not that done by them which Christ appointed but such a change there is in it from Christs institution as that it cannot be termed a Sacrament of Christ but a meer ridiculous or abominable device of men more like a Play than a religious service 2. When they say that the Church hath always exterior Consecration and Ordination of Ministers they necessarily put themselves upon it to prove that it hath been so in the Roman Church which they can never prove to have been always in the Roman Bishops much less in their Priests the Records of their Consecrations and Ordinations being in many respects either none or very doubtfull at best but humane testimony which is fallible and if these were certain yet their own Canons make many things necessary to their Sacraments specially that sottish conceit of the Trent Council that the Minister of Sacraments must intend to do what the Church doth without which there is a nullity in what is done and yet it is impossible to be proved and so many things according to their Canons nullifie their Ordinations as Simony and other irregularities of which nevertheless their own Writers accuse a great number of their Bishops and Priests and sometimes one Pope hath made void the Acts of another and in despite hath cut off his fingers which did ordain Priests as Platina relates in the life of Stephan the sixth concerning the usage of Pope Formosus besides this the Ordination of their Priests is to sacrifice for quick and dead which is no part of the Ministerial Office which Christ required Matth. 28. 19 20. which being considered if this be the note whereby the true Church must be proved no Church in the World hath less proof for its truth than the Roman but the Exceptions will be so many against their exterior Ordination and Consecration as will by their own Canons and arguings prove the Roman Church to be no true visible Church at all and so this Argument will be retorted on H. T. Let us go on to his second Argument onely taking notice that he useth the term Ministers which other Papists do deride in the Protestants SECT II. Isai 2. 2. Matth. 5 14. Psal 18. with us 19. 4. prove not such a Church-visibility as H. T. asserts nor the words of Ireneus Origen Cyprian Chrysostom Augustin A Light saith H. T. always shining to the World and a City so seated on a Hill that it cannot be hid must needs be always visible But the Church of Christ is a Light always shining to the World and a City so seated on a Hill that it cannot be hid therefore the Church must needs be always visible The Major is manifest by the very terms The Minor is proved by Scripture The Mountain of the House of our Lord shall be prepared on the top of Mountains Isai 2. 2. You are the Light of the World a City seated on a Hill cannot be hid St Matth. 5. 14. He hath put his Tabernacle his Church in the Sun Psal 18. 4. Answ THough the Conclusion might be granted in some sense yet in the sense meant by the Romanists it is denied and in the Argument the Minor is to be denied and to the proof of it it is denied that the Texts produced prove it Not the first For though the Prophecies Is 2. 2 3. be meant of Christ and the times of the Messias yet whether by the Mountain be meant Mount Sion properly or the Church or Christ or the Apostles it is certain that it is meant of that time wherein the Gospel was at first preached to which sense Hierome expounds it and the exaltation of the mountain of the Lords house is in respect of the first promulging of the Gospel in respect of which neither at first nor now is Rome exalted above the Hills and therefore it is not meant of every particular Church visible nor of such conspicuity in government and outward appearance as the Romanists maintain The second Text Matth. 5. 14. is particularly meant of the Apostles and such Preachers of the Gospel as continued that Work with them or after them and doth not foretell what shall be but declares what they were in existence or duty rather and their conspiracy is in respect of the Preaching of the Gospel But this is not spoken of every particular or the whole Church militant at all times as if it were so visible as that every Christian might know where to address themselves to them and have resolution from them in their doubts The other Text is less to the purpose speaking of a Tabernacle for the Sun not a Tabernacle in the Sun the Suns Tabernacle not Gods put in the Heavens not on earth as Hierom reades according to the Hebrew although the Septuagint and Vulgar reade as H. T. and Augustin in his allegorical way expound it of the Church But it is frivolous upon Augustin's conceit in his Enarration on the Psalms to infer a Tenet from a place that hath quite another grammatical sense which is onely argumentative As for the sayings of Fathers the words of Irenaeus lib. 4. advers Hoeres cap. 45. are not that every true Church of Christ hath such a continued Succession and so visible as that every Christian may discern where to repair to it but onely in opposition to heretical Teachers tells us God hath set other Teachers in the Church than those he there opposeth Origen's words Hom. 3. on Matthew shew what was in his time not what must of necessity be and are meant of brightness of doctrine or truth not of outward glory in a conspicuous rule and state like some flourishing Empire Cyprian's words de unit Eccles are less to the purpose being not concerning the visibility but the unity of the Church but in neither for the Romanists purpose The words are thus Cut off the River from the Fountain and being cut off it will be dry so also the Church cloathed with the light of the Lord spreads its beams through the whole World yet it is one light which is every where diffused and yet the unity of the body not separated Chrysostom's words Hom. 3. on Isai 6. are that the Church is more rooted than the Heaven and then adds let the Greeks learn the power of truth how it is easier that the Sun should be extinguished than that the Church should 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that
is not as H. T. renders it be obscured but vanish away as the words following shew which are Who had these things He that preacheth hath founded the Heaven and the Earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away Whence it is manifest that he there speaks not of the Churches visibility but permanency as the Sun Augustin lib 3. cont Parmen cap. 5. tom 7. against the Donatists saith thus Who therefore would not sit in the assembly of vanâ—â—y let him not become vain in the type of pride seeking the Conventicls separate from the unity of the just of the whole world which he cannot finde But the just are through the whole City which cannot be hid because it is seated on a Mountain that Mountain I say of Daniel in whom that stone cut out without hands grew and filled the whole earth And after There is no security of unity but in the Church declared by the promises of God which being seated as was said on a Mountain cannot be hid and therefore it is necessary that it be known to all parts of the earth By which it is manifest that in opposition to the Donatists appropriating the Church to their party he asserts it to be manifest not by its outward splendour but its extension to all parts The words l. 2. cont Petilian c. 104 are thus Ye are not in the Mountains of Sion because ye are not in the City seated on the Mountain which hath this certain sign that it cannot be hid therefore it is known to all Nations but the part of Donatus is unknown to many Nations therefore it is not that Church It is evident he spake of the Church at that time which was known or manifestly visible to all Nations not from a potent Monarchy in one City but its diffusion through all parts of the world SECT III. H. T. hath not solved the Protestants Objections against the visibility of the Church H. T. adds Objections solved Object The Church is believed therefore not seen Answ She is believed in the sense of her Doctrines and to be guided to all truths by the Holy Ghost but seen in her Pastours Government and Preaching wherefore I deny the Consequence I Reply Though Protestants deny not the Church militant to be visible in the outward Government and Preaching of the Pastors yet they deny that it is always so conspicuous as that it may be known to every Christian as an Assembly of the People of Rome or Common-wealth of Venice to which all may resort for direction Nor by this Argument do they prove that the Church militant is not visible but that the Church in the Creeds Apostolical and Nicene which is one Catholick and Apostolick as such is not visible but invisible being the Object of Faith not of Sight nevertheless the Answer takes not away the force of the Objection if it had been alleged against the visibility of the Church militant For the Church is believed not as teaching but as being it is the existence of the Church not the Doctrine of it that is believed as even the Trent Catechism expounds it now that being Catholick that is according to the Catechism consisting of all believers from Adam till now in all Nations cannot be the object of sense but of faith and therefore the Catholick Church in the Creeds is the invisible of true Believers not the meer visible now militant H. T. adds Object The Woman the Church fled into the Wilderness Apoc. 12 6. Answ But is followed and persecuted by the Dragon v. 17. therefore visible I reply this Answer is ridiculous For whereas Protestants hence prove that at some times the Church is hid from men this Authour saith It was not hid from the Dragon that is the Devil which is not in question So that it appears he had nothing to answer this Inference from the Womans flying into the Wilderness and being hid that sometimes the Church is so hidden as it were in a Wilderness that though it be yet it is not so visible or conspicuous as that men can discern it so as to repair to it howbeit the Devil knows where they lurk Yet once more H. T. Object The Church of the Predestinate is invisible Answ There is no such thing as a Church of the Predestinate Christ's Church is the congregation of all true believers as well Reprobate as predestinate There is in his Floor both Wheat and Chaff St. Matth. c. 3. and in his Field both Corn and Tares which shall grow together till the Harvest the Day of Judgement St. Matth. c. 13. The Predestinate are as visible as the Reprobate It is true indeed their Predestination is invisible and so is also these mens Reprobation I reply To salve their main Tenet of the Popes being Head of the Church of Christ who is often so wicked as that if the Church of Christ be determined to be of elect persons onely many Popes cannot be termed Members much less Heads of the Church is this audacious Assertion invented that there is no such thing as a Church of the Predestinate contrary to express Scripture which mentions the Church of the first-born written in Heaven Heb. 12. 23. and the Church elected together with Peter or those he wrote to 1 Pet. 5. 13. and saith such things of the Church in many places to wit Ephes 5. 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32. Ephes 1. 22 23 c. as cannot agree to Reprobates who cannot be said to be Christ 's body his fulness to be loved sanctified whom he nourisheth intends to present without spot as he saith there of Christ's Church He that desires more proof may reade Dr. John Rainold his fourth Conclusion where he proves it fully both from Scripture and Fathers that the holy Catholick Church which we believe is the whole company of Gods elect and chosen which hath not been yet answered that I know Nor do I see how the fourth Lateran Council could mean otherwise which determined as H. T. saith here art 1. pag. 30. that the universal Church of the faithfull is one out of which no man can be saved which can be true onely of the Church of the Predestinate As for what H. T. saith here The Church of Christ is the congregation of all true believers as well Reprobate as Predestinate it supposeth true believers may be reprobate but this is false meaning it of the truth of being opposite to feigned counterfeit or in shew onely For our Lord Christ hath said John 5. 24. John 3. 15 16 18 36. that such as believe on him shall not perish come not to condemnation are passed from death to life have everlasting life Nor do the Texts Matth. 3. 12. where the Floor is not Christ's Church but the Jewish people or Matth. 13. 30. where the Field is expresly interpreted vers 38. to be the World not the Church speak to the contrary It is true The Predestinate are as visible as the Reprobate
The multitude of believers had one heart one soul Act. 4. 32. Christ prayed that his Disciples might be one St. John 17. 11. I believe one holy Catholick and Apostolick church The Nicene Creed Ans 1. THe thing pretended to be demonstrated by her unity was the true church after he changeth it into this that the church of Rome is both perfectly one and also universal for time and place is thus demonstrated here the conclusion is the Roman Catholick church and no other is the church of Christ By comparing of which it is apparent that this Author supposeth the true church the church of Rome and the Roman Catholick church to be synonymous or diverse names of the same thing which is supposed but not proved nor yeilded nor can be true as shall be shewed after 2. This Author pretends to demonstrate by this argument the church of Rome to be perfectly one which should have been his conclusion whereas not heeding his words he makes it the Minor 3. He puts in by a parenthesis in the Major many words which are not in the Minor though they belong to the middle term which should be the same in both premises nor is any proof brought for them here to wit that the Pope is Christs deputy on earth the visible or ministerial head of that church which is one body one fold or flock 4. That the Major might be for his purpose it should have been thus that church which is one body one fold or flock of which he himself is the supreme invisible head and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial and no other is the church of Christ but such is the church of Rome ergo But as it is now framed it is in the second figure of all affirmatives which is against Logick rules and makes the syllogism naught as the very freshmen know But to it as it is now framed I answer If the words and the Pope his deputy on earth the visible or ministerial be left out the Major is granted in this sense that the universal church of Christ are one body by unity of one spirit and faith of the fundamentals and one flock by unity of one head and supreme Pastor But in H. T. his sense it is most false that it is one by the same faith in every point without any difference in lesser points or without any divisions in rites and disciplin and in subjection to one universal Bishop on earth as Christs deputy and the churches visible head Nor do any of the texts prove it in this sense For the first doth not express what all Christians were in respect of their state but profession and the unity is not derived from either subjection to one universal Bishop on earth or agreement in all points but from participating of one bread in the Lords Supper For it is not to be read as this Author after the vulgar translation reads it as many as participate of one bread but for we all partake of one bread it being in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in some copies of the vulgar nam omnes as in the Plantin edition by the Lovain Divines 1574. I finde it in the margin so that the meaning is this we do shew our selves one body one bread forasmuch as we all partake of one bread in the Lords Supper The next text Ephes 1. 22 23. proves only that the church is one body by unity of one head to wit Christ as H. T. rightly interprets it And the third text John 10. 16. also makes the whole church one flock as it should be read not one fold in respect of one Pastor which the very words ver 11. 14 15 16. do shew plainly to be Christ himself who gave his life for them and no other and therefore none of these texts derive the unity of the church from subjection to the Bishop of Rome as visible head or chief Pastor The next text 1 Cor. 1. 10. doth only prove that the church ought to be of one mind and one judgement without Schisms not that they are or must be if they be the true church but the text proves the contrary that they may be a true church though there be Schisms and difference of judgement among them The fifth Acts 4. 32. only proves that the church at Jerusalem once were so at which time they had also all things common which doubtless H. T. will not say must or doth agree to the whole church at all times but not that the whole church shall be so still The last John 17. 11. is a prayer of Christ that it may be so and so will be accomplished but by the words ver 21 22 23. it seems most likely not to be till they be consummate in glory or if afore yet certainly the unity cannot be meant of unity in every thing for so Peter and Paul did not agree as Gal. 2. 11 12 13 14. it appears but of such unity in communion with God and aiming at his glory as is only in the elect by vertue of Christs indwelling by his Spirit which is nothing to the unity which H. T. here requires as peculiar to the Roman church The passage of the Nicene creed proves only an unity of the church but not an unity by agreement in all points and subjection to one Catholick Bishop on earth So that H. T. after his fashion cites many texts but not one for his purpose SECT IV. It is notoriously false that the Romanists are perfectly one or have better unity or means of unity than Protestants and H. T. his argument for the truth of the Roman church from its unity proves the contrary H. T. adds The minor is made evident even to the weakest understanding by the present manifold Schisms and divisions which are now among Protestants and all other Sectaries as well in doctrine as government whereas Catholicks are perfectly one both in disciplin and doctrine all the world over even to the least Article or point of faith being all united to one supreme invisible head Christ Jesus and all subordinate to one visible and ministerial head the Pope his Vicar on earth we all resolve our selves in points of faith into one safe and most unchangeable principle I believe the holy Catholick church we look on her as the immediate and authorized proponent of all revealed verities and the infallible Judge of controversies God himself being the prime Author and his authority the formal motive and object of our faith Answ 1. The Protestants are not Sectaries nor divided from the Catholick church but from the now Roman party who are really a faction divided from the Catholick church holding a new faith never established till the Tridentin council though with an impudent face H. T. avouch a most palbable falshood of the Romanists universality and arrogates to the Roman the title of Catholick church Nor are the now divisions of Protestants in doctrine or government such as cut them
Catholick for time and place is not the church of Christ 2. But the Protestant church and the like may be said of all other Sectaries is not universal or Catholick for time and place 3. Therefore the Protestant church is not the church of Christ The Major hath been proved before The Minor is proved because before Luther who lived little above â—ixscore years ago there were no Protestants to be found in the whole world as hath been proved by us and confessed by our adversaries To which you may adde they have never yet been able to convert any one Nation from infidelity to the faith of Christ nor ever had communion with all nations nor indeed any perfect communion among themselves therefore they cannot be the Catholick Church Answ The Major That church which is not universal for time and place is not the Church of Christ If meant of actual or aptitudinal universality is not true For the church of the Jews afore Cornelius was converted by Peter had been no church of Christ which was actually yea and aptitudinally that is according to Peters and other Christians circumcised their opinions and intentions to be confined to the Jews and therefore no other church than on earth were or was believed by Peter and those who contended with him Act. 11. 2. and yet there was a Church of Christ before as is manifest from Acts 2. 47. But if the Major be understood of universality of faith thus That church which is not universal for time and place by holding the faith once delivered by the Apostles to the Saints is not the church of Christ it is granted but in that sense the Minor is false the Protestants church is universal for time and place that is holds the same faith which was in all places preached by the Apostles and Apostolical teachers to believers And in this sense Protestants have been in every age before Luther and have as really converted Nations from infidelity to the faith of Christ as the Popish church or Teachers and have had more perfect communion with all Nations and among themselves then Papists as such have had and the Papists have not been so but have held a new faith not embraced by a great part of Christians nor in all places received or known nor for many hundreds of years taught in the churches but lately by the Italian faction devised to uphold the Popes tyranny and their own gain And therefore I retort the argument thus That church which is not universal or Catholick for the time and place is not the church of Christ But the Popish Roman church is not universal or Catholick for time and place but is of late standing therefore it is not the true church of Christ SECT VII The words of Irenaeus Origen Lactantius Cyril of Hierusalem Augustin are not for the universality of H. T. which he asserts the Catholicism of the Roman church but against it AS for the words of the Fathers which H. T. allegeth on this Article they are not for H. T. his purpose to prove that that is the only true church which is subject to the Bishop of Rome or that the Roman church is the Catholick church but they prove the contrary For the words of Irenaem l. 4. adv haereses c. 43. are these Wherefore we ought to obey those Presbyters which are in the church those which have succession from the Apostles as we have shewed who with the succession of Bishoprick have received the certain gift of truth according to the pleasure of the Father but to have the rest suspected either as hereticks and of evil opinion or as renters and lifted up and pleasing themselves or again as hypocrites working for gain and vain glories sake who depart from the original succession and are gathered in every place For all these fall from the truth By which it may be perceived 1. That H. T. omitted sundry words which would have shewed that Presbyters and Bishops were all one 2. That Irenaeus requires that those to whom he would have obedience given be such as have not only succession of place but also the certain gift of truth Whence it follows 1. That this speech doth not prove that we are to obey only the Bishop of Rome or the Roman Church but any Presbyters 2. That the succession required is not confined to Rome but extended to any place 3. That succession to any of the Apostles as well as Peter is termed original succession 4. That Presbyters who in any place depart not from the truth are in the church And therefore this place is so far from proving the necessity of unity with the Roman church or that it is the Catholick church that it proves the contrary The words of Origen are not for H. T. which require no other doctrine to be kept but that which is by order of succession from the Apostles and remains in the church to his time For neither do they say the church is only the Roman church nor that doctrine to be kept which remains in it or that which is delivered from Peter only or by order of succession from his chair or is delivered by unwritten tradition but that which is delivered any way from the Apostles by succession in any place The words of Lactantius are lesse for H. T. which do not at all call the Roman the Catholick church nor say in it only is Gods true worship and service and hope of life but in the Catholick church that is the Church of true believers all over the world as the words of Cyril of Hierusalem next alleged do shew in which is nothing for H. T. or against us And for the words of Augustin in his Book de vera religione cap. 7. We must hold the communion of that church which is called catholick both by her own and strangers they are maimedly recited Augustin saying that we are to hold the Christian Religion and communion of that church not onely which is named catholick but which is catholick and is named catholick and cap. 6. he explains what is meant by Catholick church per totum orbem validè latéque diffusa spread over the whole World firmly and largely and of the Religion which he terms the History and Prophecy of the temporal dispensation of the divine Providence for the salvation of mankinde to be reformed and repaired unto eternal life Whereby it may be perceived that he neither accounted that Christian Religion which is about the Bishop of Rome's power or any of the Popish Tenets which Protestants deny but the Doctrine of Salvation by Christ nor the catholick church the Roman onely but the Christian church throughout the World which consists of them who are named Christians Catholicks or Orthodox that is Keepers of integrity and followers of the things which are right as he speaks cap. 5. And for the words of Augustine Epist 152. that whosoever is divided from the catholick church how laudable soever he seems to himself to
live c. he shall be excluded from life they are impudently appropriated to the Roman church For a few lines before Augustine declares whom he calls the catholick church that which is spread over the earth which is designed by the divine testimonies of holy Scriptures which beginning from Hierusalem increased in places in which the Apostles preached and have written the names of the same places in their Epistles and Acts and was spread over the other Nations So that clearly Augustine tells us it was not the Roman Church onely which he meant by the Catholick but also the Corinthian Ephesian Thessalonian and all the rest in the world And therefore it is apparent that neither this not any other Father understood by the Catholick Church the Roman onely and those who acknowledged the Bishop of Rome's Supremacy nor did they hold a necessity of union with it SECT VIII That it is non-sense or falshood to term the Roman Church the Catholick Church and the shifts of H. T. to avoid this Objection are discovered H. T. adds Object The Roman Catholick Church is a particular Church therefore it is not Catholick or Universal Answ I distinguish your Antecedent the Roman Church as taken onely for the congregation of Rome or Italy is a particular Church I grant as taken for the whole collection of Churches holding communion with the See of Rome I deny it For so it is an universal Church containing all particular Churches as all the parts are contained in the whole and in this acception also it is called the Roman church because the particular Roman church is the mother church and hath a power of headship and jurisdiction over all the rest Object How can a church of one denomination be universal Answ I have told you already by the extent and latitude of her power which is over all So a particular man is called a General by reason of his power over all the Army I Reply Protestants do rightly object that the terming of the Roman church catholick is according to the right sense of words to speak contradictions to call that the whole which is not the whole but a part universal which is onely particular The Answer is by a Distinction which is meer non-sense The Church of Rome as taken onely for the congregation of Rome or Italy is a particular Câ—urch as taken for the whole collection of churches holding communion with the See of Rome so it is universal But was ever such language used by any Apostle or Ancient to term the Church of Rome any other than the believers dwelling or being at Rome Did ever any of the first Ages term the congregation of Italy or the whole collection of churches holding communion with the See of Rome the Roman church Paul when he wrote to the Church of Rome wrote to all that were in Rome Rom. 1. 7. and Ignatius the Martyr when he wrote to the Church of Rome terms it the Church which is seated in a place of the Region of Romans and the old Councils termed the Bishop of Rome The Arch-bishop of old Rome to distinguish it from new Rome and a Roman Synod is always meant of a Synod in the City of Rome If the new-minted gibberish of these men be received then the Church of Millain of Paris of Toledo and the rest are all one with the Roman Church and the Bishop of Millain c. the Bishop of Rome Who would not think that man crazed that should talk or write so By this kinde of talk the Roman Church should not be one and the Corinthian another but the Roman church the Corinthian Ephesian and all and the Apostle writing to the Corinthian should write to the Roman Church charging the Corinthian with Schisms should charge the Roman But this new canting Language is fit for these Juglers who have by such terms bewitched silly Papists to receive their new Doctrine H. T. saith As the Roman church is the collection of all churches holding communion with the See of Rome so it is an universal church containing all particular churches as all the parts are contained in the whole I reply Neither doth he shew any approved Authour for his speech nor what sort of parts other particular Churches are as they are contained in the Roman as the whole He will not make it an universal whole which is predicate or said on more churches in quid that is when the question is what the more churches are to say they are the Roman For then it were true to say the church of Naples is the Roman and so of other churches If any were asked who is in his wits What is the church of Naples Would he say It is the church of Rome Nor are other churches essential parts For then the Roman church should not be if the churches of Naples c. were not if they apostarize the church of Rome ceaseth to be Nor will it be said other churches are integral parts For then the church of Rome should be maimed and be but half a church if they revolted from the faith or obedience to the See or church of Rome What other parts he means I understand not nor do I think H. T. distinctly knows himself but that he is used to this unintelligible Jesuitical non-sense of Roman catholick church Sure before he made this the definition of catholick that it is nothing else but to be coexistent with all time and to be spread or diffused over all places according to which by terming the church of Rome catholick he should mean that the Roman church hath been in all places since Christ built this church and in every place of the world but both these are palpable Lies contrary to all Histories and sense nor in this sense should it be as a whole that hath parts but be the onely and an ubiquetary church But he gives two Reasons of this Title that it is the Mother Church and hath power of headship and jurisdiction over all the rest I reply 1. that both these are manifestly false For the Roman Church is not the mother Church in any true sense It is a saying indeed that God is a believers Father and the Church his Mother But however the Ancients have used it yet the Scripture saith not so nor is it in any good sense true For the church is but a congregation of believers who are first such aâ—ore they are a church now then the sense must be the church that is believers are the mother of believers that is the church which is ridiculous It is true it is said Gal. 4. 26. The Jerusalem which is above is free which is the mother of us all but that is the Evangelical covenant v. 24. not the church Nor is there any thing done by the Church or upon the church from which in a meet resemblance the church may be termed the mother of believers They are the Preachers of the Gospel not the church who bring forth souls to
Christ If the term Mother Church be from hence that from it the Gospel went forth it can be meant of none but Jerusalem from whence the Gospel went into all the world not from the Roman church Nor is it true that the Roman church hath the power of headship over all the rest no not according to the Papists own opinion which is that the Bishop of Rome hath this power and that it belongs to his pastoral office now I suppose they will not say the church hath the pastoral office or that they are Pastors if they should they must make Women who are of the Church as well as Men Pastors and all the Believers who are the church Pastors as well as the Bishop aud if the church be Pastors or have power of jurisdiction who are the Sheep who are to be fed and over whom this jurisdiction is to be exercised But if they mean onely by the church universal the Pope of Rome then all that is to be enquired is who is the true Pope when enquiry is made which is the true church and when there is no Pope then there is no church and when the Pope is uncertain it is uncertain which is the church So ridiculous is the Papists talk and dispute about the church that there is no tolerable sense can be made with truth of the Roman church being catholick the mother of churches having power of Headship and Jurisdiction over all churches Nor is it true that the Pope of Rome hath either of right or in possession such power not of right as shall be shewed art 7. where it will appear that the claim to it is meerly impudent and arrogant without any colour of right nor in possession For besides the Protestant churches the Greek churches neither now nor heretofore when unquestionably orthodox were ever subject to the Romish Bishop Yet were these things granted to H. T. that the Roman church were Mother and Head is this a fit reason to term it catholick Will any call a mother of twenty children all her twenty children Will any man call Julius Caesar because Dictator of Rome or the Roman Senate because Rulers all the Roman people or all the people of that Empire H. T. his instance is frivolous Though men call the Rulers of an Army the Captain General yet not a general man or the universal Army and sutably if it were allowed that the Bishop of Rome were universal Bishop yet in no good sense could he or the Roman church be termed the universal church But this talk about the Roman catholick church is manifestly ridiculous non-sense or false H. T. adds Object You communicate not with us and many others therefore your communion is not catholick or universal Answ I grant the Antecedent but deny the Consequent For universal communion requires not communion with all particular sects or persons but onely with all true believers no A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Tit. 3. 10 11. Answ To catholick communion is requisite communion with all Christian churches though not with all particular sects And that the Protestant churches are no Hereticks is manifest from their confessions which agree with the Scripture Doctrine although Papists do clamorously term them such and destroy them as such and therein shew themselves Successours to Nero not to Peter whereas Papists are the most manifest Schismaticks and greatest Hereticks that ever were I pass on to the next Article ARTIC V. The Roman Church is neither proved to be the Catholick Church nor the highest visible Judge of Controversies nor is it proved that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all Points of Faith nor to have power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation but all this is a meer impudent and arrogant claim of Romanists that hath no colour of proof from Scripture or Antiquity SECT I. The deceit of H. T. is shewed in asserting an Infallibility and Judicature of Controversies in the Church which he means of the Pope H. T. entitles his fifth Article thus The churches infallibility demonstrated and saith Our Tenet is that the Roman catholick church is the highest visible Judge of controversies and that she is infallible both in her Propositions and Definitions of all points of faith having a power from God to oblige all men to believe her under pain of damnation And six pages after p. 70. he saith thus Note here for your better understanding this whole Question that when we affirm the Church is infallible in things of faith by the word Church we understand not onely the Church diffused over all the World unanimously teaching whose Doctrine of Faith we hold to be infallible but also the Church represented in a Council perfectly oecumenical that is to say called out of the whole world and approved by the Pope whose Definitions of Faith we hold to be infallible Ans WE have here a most arrogant proud claim like that of the King of Tyrus Ezek. 28. 2 3. I am God I sit in the seat of God there is no secret that they can hide from me For what is this less which is here ascribed to meer men often the worst of men than the prerogative of the Son of God surely it's more than Angels have Job 4. 18 But though this Author is bold enough in the title and tenet yet in his after note he hath such subterfuges as shew his despair of making it good and his deceitful mockage of his unwary reader For 1. He deals like a sophister that after his arguments states the question 2. He doth so shift off this infallibility from one to another that he knows not well where to fix it Fain he would fasten it on the Pope as he doth in a manner at last and Hart more plainly confesseth with Rainold ch 7. divis 7. though it behove the Pope to use the advise of his brethren and therefore I spake of Confistories Courts and Councils yet whether he follow their advise or no his decrees are true But then the arguments from Scripture and Fathers which speak of the church not of the Pope had appeared to be impertinent Therefore he doth not in plain words disclaim it's infallibility but saith When we affirm the church is infallible in things of faith by the word church we understand not only the church diffused over all the world unanimously teaching whose doctrines of faith we hold to be infallible Wherein you may perceive 1. Egregious vanity in making the Roman church Catholick 2. The Church diffused over all the world teaching 3. Teaching unanimously which are all like a sick mans dreams of a golden mountain there having never been any such thing as this in the world nor ever is likely to be 2. Egregious deceit in the terming this church infallible Judge of controversies propounding and defining points of faith having power from God to oblige all men under pain of
do prove the infallibility of the Roman Church or Oecumenical council or Pope but are impiously wrested to uphold the most cruel tyranny that ever was in the world SECT IV. None of these texts Matth. 28. 20. 1 Tim. 3. 15. Matth. 16. 18. John 14. 26. John 16. 23. Act. 15. 28. do prove the infallibility in points of faith of the Catholick or Roman Church or the Pope or a general council approved by him H. T. adds a third argument for the Churches infallibilâ—ty thus If Christ be alwayes with his Church and have made her the pillar and firmament of truth against which the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and given her the holy Ghost to assist her to all truth so that her definitions in an approved general council are the very dictates of the holy Ghost then is it impossible the Church should erre in faith But all this Christ hath done for his Church therefore it is impossible the Church should erre in faith The sequel of the Major is manifest by the very terms of the supposition the Minor is proved go ye teaching all Nations c. And behold I am with you all daies he is with her teaching St. Matth. 28. 20. The house of God which is the pillar and firmament of truth 1 Tim. 3. 15. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it St. Matth. 16. 18. He will give you another paraclere that he may abide with you for ever â—c He shall teach you all things and suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall say to you in all points of faith St. John 14. 26. He shall â—â—ach you all truth no errors St. John 16. 13. It hath seemed good say the Apostles in council to the holy Ghost and to us Act. 15. 28. Answ This Author still abuseth his reader by putting his conclusion otherwise then his tenet For whereas his tenet was that the Roman Catholick Church is infallible he puts his conclusion thus the Church is infallible as if the Church and the Catholick Church were all one and the Catholick and the Roman were all one and the Church of Christ and the visible Church militant were the same which are indeed fallacies which easily take with silly or prejudiced Papists that take what is said of the Church to be meant of the visible militant Church and what is said of the visible militant to be said of the Catholick Church and by the Catholick imagin the Roman meant and by the Roman the Pope But to discover the vanity of this argument 1. The sequel of the Major is denied nor is it manifest by the terms of the supposition For Christs presence is with every believer and he hath made every believer a pillar and firmament of truth and against every true believer the gates of hell heresies shall not prevail and he hath given the holy Ghost to every true believer to assist him to all truth as well as to the Church and his definitions are the very dictates of the holy Ghost when he defines according to Scripture and yet it is not impossible he should erre in faith Christ hath made promises of his presence and of his spirit and his spirit is said to be in and with every true believer as well as the Church Rom. 8. 1 9 15. 1 Cor. 6. 19. 2 Cor. 1. 22. and 13. 5. Gal. 4 6. Ephes 1. 13. 2 Cor. 6. 16. John 10 16 27 28 29. and yet believers may erre in faith Rom. 14. 2 3 5. 1 Cor. 15. 12. Gal. 3. 1. and 4. â—0 21. And therefore it is not true which this Author supposeth manifest Not is the Minor trâ—e or proved by the texts he brings For the promise Matth. 28 20. is not to the Church but to the Apostles and other teachers who succeed them nor is the promise made to them that they should teach no error in faith but that teaching as H. T. speaks or as long as they teach the true faith he would be with them by assisting and prospering them in their work The words 1 Tim. 3. 15 may be meant of the mystery of godliness mentioned v. 16. thus the Mystery of godliness is the pillar and firmament ground or seat of truth and without controverâ—ie great which I do conceive after Cameron and others to be the truest exposition as the same Apostle in other places gives such elogies to the great points of faith 1 Tim. 1. 15. and 4. 9. and 2 Tim. 2. 11. and the conjunction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and ver 16. doth make it very probable Nor doth Grotius his reason avoid it For the mystery even according to this exposition is the subject not the predicate Others refer it to Timoâ—hy but then it should be in the accusative case But let it be granted that it is meant of the Church which is said that it is the pillar and firmament of truth yet it is certain from the very words that it is meant of that Church in which Timothy was directed how to behave himself which was the Church of Ephesus as appears 1 Tim. 1. 3. not the Church of Rome and therefore must be understood in such a sense as agrees to it which the Papists themselves will not say was infallible or could not erre in faith And therefore they must yeild it to be meant either of what they were in duty to be or what they were actually thus they were such as by profession and practice did hold forth and maintain and uphold the truth in those parts not that they held nothing but tenets nor so held forth the truth but that they might erre and decay in their holding out the truth For it is certain they did so Rev. 2. 4 5. Act. 20. 29 30. The terms the pillar and firmament or ground or seat of truth are but metaphors and whereas there are these two things signified by hem 1. The upholding of the truth so as that otherwise it should fall 2. The fixing of the truth there so as that it should abide and be permanent there doubtlesse the former sense cannot be true For though God should have no Church on earth or in heaven no Apostle Prophet Bishop yet his truth would be upheld his word is for ever settled in heaven Psal 119. 89. Christ who is the truth John 14. 6. abides for ever and the spirit of truth remains for ever and will uphold his truth If it were as some of the Romanists say the Church only abode in the Virgin Mary at Christs death or as others say in the time of Antichrist there shall be no sacrifice nor ceremonies nor religion yet the Gospel of Christ shall be everlasting as the Angel terms it Revel 14. 6. therefore of necessity it must be understood in that sense in which it notes stability permanency fixednesse or abiding and the sense is the Church is the company among whom the truth abides unshaken in which sense Revel 3. 12. it is said him that overcometh will
I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used 1 Cor. 7. 37. for stedfast and 1 Cor. 15. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stedfast unmoveable are made synonymous and Col. 1. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grounded and setled in the faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not moved away from the hope So that the meaning is no more but this the Church of the living God is not a tile which is often shaken and blown down with the winde but a pillar that abides unshaken and the seat or ground or basis of truth where it abides being received and embraced by it Which is to be understood of the invisible Church of true believers and though not of every truth yet of the main truth of the Gospel as it is termed Gal. 1. 5. the Word of truth James 1. 18. the truth John 17. 17. which is expressed in the next words 1 Tim. 3. 16. from which he foretels an Apostasie 1 Tim. 4. 1. and cannot be meant of any truth whatsoever which may be in controversie For it is certain no meer mortal man nor all men were ever so infallible Which being rightly understood makes nothing for infallibility in all points which the Catholick Roman Church Oecumenical council or Pope or all together shall define as H. T. would have it The next text Matth. 16. 18. is as little to his purpose For it is not said against the Roman Church much lesse it is said against an Oecumenical council or the Pope of Rome the gates of hell shall not prevail but against my Church that is Christs wheresoever 2. Nor is it proved that by the gates of hell are meant heresies as this Author supposeth The truth is however by the modern use the term hell is appropriated almost to the place of the damned and the tormented there yet the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated hell is either never or not many times used in the bible for that place or those persons nor was of old the word hell appropriated to that place of torment but meant of the grave or the state of the dead in which sense it was meant of old that Christ went into hell that is for a time to abide among the dead as the learned Usher proves in his answer to the Jesuits challenge ch 8. and the gates of hell are no more than the gates of death or the grave as Isa 38. 10 Psal 9. 13. c. is meant So that the meaning of Matth. 16. 18. is no more but this the gates of hell or the grave that is death shall not so prevail against my Church but that I will raise it up at the last day to life eternal as our Lord Christ speaks John 6. 39. Which being the genuine meaning it is true onely of the church of the elect not of the meer visible nor of that is such a prevalency denied but that they may erre in faith however it be assured that it shall not erre in faith finally to perdition The next Text John 14. 26. is ill translated shall suggest to you all things whatsoever I shall say to you the words being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is he shall minde you of all things which I have said to you nor is this meant onely in points of faith as this Authour adds without any reason in the Text that he might restrain it to them in which he would have the church to be accounted infallible but also in matters of practise and this is meant onely of the Apostles as the words which I have said to you and particularities expressed vers 25 28 29. chap. 15. 27. chap. 16 4 6 12 13. shew And in like manner is the next Text John 16. 13. appropriate to the Apostles to whom the words were spoken Nor are the words restrained to matters of faith but extended also to points of practise and there is a promise of shewing them also things to come Which argues plainly that it is not a promise to the whole Church or Pope or Council or every particular believer sith it is certain that to none of these it is verified they have not things to come shewed to them according to that promise and therefore it must needs be impertinently alleged by H. T. to prove his Minor The last Text Acts 15. 28. H. T. himself confesseth was said by the Apostles in council not by Peter onely nor by a council without the Apostles much less by any Bishop of one City as Rome is and therefore proves not any unerringness in any but the Apostles nor in them at all times in all points of faith but onely their not erring in their determination at that time So that his Texts do none of them prove his Minor SECT V. There may be good assurance of the Word of God and its meaning and of our salvation without supposing the churches infallibility H. T. adds The consequence is confirmed because were not the Church infallible in things of faith we could have no infallible assurance at this distance what were the Word of God what not or what is the true sense and meaning of any one Book or Chapter in the whole Bible nor consequently of our salvation since without faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11. 6. Answ H. T. Hath here vented a most poysonous and impious speech which tends to ruine the Foundation of Christian Faith and to promote Atheism yea in seeking to promote the arrogant claim of the Roman Bishop he doth by his arguing quite pull it down For if there be no infallible assurance without the churches infallibility in things of faith what is the Word of God what not nor what is the meaning of one Book or Chapter in the whole Bible then there is no certainty but from the Churches testimony of the truth of Christian Religion and that being questioned we have no way to convince an Atheist or Jew or Maâ—omâ—tan who deny such inâ—allibility nor hath the Pope any way to prove his Supremacy or Transubstantiation to be certain points of Faith but by the Churches infallibility that is indeed his own saying in which he that believes him upon no better ground is departed from faith in God to faith in a confesâ—edly sinfull and oft times notoriously wicked man and so makes not God's authority the formal moâ—ive and object of his faith as H. T. said pag. 58. falsly the Romanists do Besides how injurious is it to God to make him to have delivered his minde so as none can understand it without the Pope or a Council approved by him of whom according to H. T. his Doctrine who saith pag. 202. that sense cannot judge at all of substance though it be under sensible accidents there is no certainty whether they be men or not if we cannot judge of substance by sense Surely Christ did very ill to direct Infidels to search the Scriptures John 5.
the Apostles or if restrained to the church of that age it is meant of those that preâ—ched the Gospel to him 2. The words ego vero evangelio non crederem nisi me Catholicae Ecclesâ—ae commoveret authoritas are not well rendred by H. T. as if they did declare his purpose for the future or that he would not believe the Gospel or any other reason but the Roman or present universal churches authority For this had been an impious speech in this sense and unfit for a holy man much more for a Bishop and contrary to many passages of the same Author as particularly lib. confes 9. c. 5. in which he saith that God would not have given so excellent an authority to the Scripture through all lands unless he would that by it God should be believed But either he used the Imperfect tense for the Praeterperfect after the African dialect as he doth in a like speech in his book de beata vita sic exarsi ut omnes illas vellem anchoras rumpere nisi me nonnullorum â—ominum existimatio commoveret where commoveret is used for commovisset which is the same word here used and so the sense is I my self verily had not believed the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholick Church had moved me noting thereby the occasion of his first believing not the sole Reason or Motive of his present believing and to this sense the speeches Obtâ—mperavi dicentibus credite Evangelio ipsi Evangeliâ— catholicis prâ—edicantibus credidi recte credidisti catholicis laudantibus Evangelium quibus prae ipientibus Evangelio credidi per â—os illi credideram which express the means by which he believed and that was not authority of empire in the Church by reason of their infallible Function and right to define what is to be believed but the credit of their persons by reason of their holiness honesty wisdom and such other acts of Gods providence mentioned in the Chapter before which held him in the Church 3. Or else he speaks upon supposition that the Gospel is not believed by reason of its most sincere wisdom unto the knowledge of which few spiritual men come in this life then in that case nothing would move him to believe the Gospel but the authority of the catholick church unto which sense the words chap. 4. and the series of the Dispute seem to lead and Bellarmine lib. 4. de notis Eccles cap. 14. to reconcile Augustine's words in his Dispute against Donatists that the Church is not demonstrated by Miracles but by the Scriptures and yet against Manichaeus his Epistle of the Foundation that the Church is demonstrated by Miracles not by the Scriptures but the Scriptures by the Church saith that he speaks upon supposition because the Manichees did admit Miracles but deny the Scriptures which countenanceth this last sense Any of these ways which have their probabilities the speech may be right but not for H. T. his purpose Certainly they ascribe no infallibility or supreme judicature in controversies of faith to the Roman Pope or Church If the speech be not understood in the last sense of not believing the Gospel but by the Churches authority on supposition of the excluding the innate evidence of wisdom and truth therein or if the second sense hold not that he speaks of what he had not done at first conversion it it certain the first sense must be acknowledged that he means it of the Catholick Church from the Apostles commending it by the authority of their universal tradition in other sense specially that in which the Papists allege it it were an impious speech and contrary to many other places in his Works Sure he that reades his first second and third Chapters of his second Book of Baptism against Donatists will finde him after Cyprian fully against the ascribing to any Bishop on earth supreme judicature over other Bishops or making any Church or Council infallible but asserting that the former fullest general councils may be mended by the later and that there is no determination of any Pope or Council or Church to be rested on as infallible in points of faith but onely the holy Scripture After all this empty scribling of H. T. he yet adds I now resume the priâ—cipal Argument and retort it thus upon our adversaries The Catholick Church is infallible in all her Proposals and Definitions of Faiâ—h But the Protestant Church and the like of all other Sectaries is not infallible in her Proposals or Definitions of Faith therefore the Protestant Church is not the Catholick Church The Major hath been fully proved before The Minor must be granted by our Adversaries because they have no other way to excuse themselves from being Heretickâ— in the revolt from our Church but by falsly pretending the whole Church errs in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till they began their blessed Reformation a most blasphemous evasion as hath been proved before by which they have excluded themselves from all possible assurance of true faith or salvation and therefore to arrogate infallibility to themselves which they deny to the whole Church were a most frontless impudence And then he adds his Note whom he means by his infallible Church which is set down in the first Section of the Answer to this Article Answ 1. Understanding by the Protestant Church that Church which hath been since the year 1517. termed Protestants from the protesting against the Decree made at Spires Anno 1529. as Sleidan lib. 6. Com. reports the Conclusion is granted we yield the Protestant Church or Churches are not the Catholick Church but Members of it conceiving it would be indeed to hold the Errour of Donatists if they should appropriate the Title of the Catholick Church to themselves or count all out of it that are not of that party as the Romanists do who are in this Successours to the Donatists But if by the Protestant Church be meant the whole number of them who held the same Faith in the Fundamentals which now the Protestants hold so it is the Catholick Church 2. We deny that the Protestants are justly termed Sectaries meaning by Sectaries a party which hath departed from the primitive Christian faith or doth separate from the universal Church as it is or was at any time in its integrity 3. We deny the Major to have been proved understanding it of the universal Church of this or any Ages in which the Apostles were not and did not concur in the Proposals and Definitions of Faith 4. We grant the Minor but to the proof of it we say it is utterly false that we have no other way to acquit our selves from Heresie than by pretending the whole Church erred in Faith and taught Idolatry and Superstition for nine or ten hundred years together till the Reformation begun 1517. yea we say that the Errours in Faith the Idolatry and Superstition we now accuse the Roman Church of â— were many of
and infallibility in matters of faith yet were they each consonant to other in all their doctrines of faith and whatever was taught by any of them was stedfastly believed by all I reply H. T. saith in his Epistle to the reader that it is agreed by all parties that Christ our Lord hath founded and built a Church in his own blood which was the onely Mâ—stris of divine faith and sole repository of all revealed truths at least for an age or two which if true then the Apostles were in that age to depend on their decrees But here he eats his words in the Epistle the Church was the sole Mistris of divine faith here the Church was to depend on the Apostles as on the first masters and proposers of faith How these hang together I understand not That which he saith here of the Apostles is very true understanding by masters not Lords but teachers The Church neither now nor in any age was Mistris of faith it is not the Church in right sense that is the teacher or propounder of divine truths but the learner It is the meer sophistry of Papists to term the Pope and Prelates the Church and to call a hundred or two of Bishops some of them meer titulars without any Diocesse such as never knew what the office of a Bishop was nor ever preached the Gospel to any people the Catholick Church The concession that the Apostles had each of them a peculiar prerogative of divine assistance and infallibility in matters of faith proves that this was not Peters prerogative and if it were a peculiar prerogative to each Apostle then it descends not to any successors and so by this Authors own words the infallibility of the Pope or council is a meer figment Nor is infallibility to be sought from any but Christ and his Apostles doctrin who do still propound matters of divine faith to us in the holy Scriptures Nor hath the Church of Rome any more priviledge of keeping or conveying to us the truths revealed by the Apostles then that at Jerusalem Antioch Ephesus Alexandria or any other which the Apostles founded and therefore Ireneus Tertullian and such of the Fathers as direct us to repair to the Apostolick Churches for establishment against hereticks direct us to other Churches where the Apostles preached besides the Roman It is further objected the Church hath now no new revelations nor can â—he make now any new points of faith therefore we are not bound to believe her definitions H. T. Answers I grant the antecedent but deny the consequence for though she can make no new points yet she can explicate the old and render that clear which was before obscure and can define against new herefies I reply The grant of the antecedent is sufficient to prove that if the Church as it is termed teach any other points of faith then were revealed to the Apostles we are not bound to believe her definitions and consequently she must prove her definitions by Apostolical tradition and not only say they are Apostolical ere we are bound to believe them it being still to be heeded which Paul saith Gal. 1. 8. If he or an Angel from heaven or any man preach I may adde or believe any other Gospel then what was preached by Paul and received by the Galatians he is accursed and consequently each person is to examine and judge for himself whether that which is preached or defined for him to believe by Pope or council agree with the Apostles Gospel or no and if the Church can onely explicate the old then an heresie cannot be made by a council which was not before and if Pope John the two and twenteth his tenet condemned in the council of Constance were heresie after the council condemned it it was so before contrary to what Bellarmin saith l. 4. de Rom pontif c. 14. and it follows he that can best explicate the old and render it clear which was before obscure hath the best title to infallibility and if the Church or Pope have no new revelations then he must explicate by study and so not by prerogative of his chair but by ability in languages arts and other knowledge in which if he have lesse knowledge as certainly some if not all the Popes for a thousand years have had one of them as Alpâ—onsus a Castro saith not understanding Grammer and one of them being necessitated to substitute another to do divine offices for him by reason of his ignorance in literature there is lesse reason to adhere to their explications then to others who have more skill therein Arias Montanus Vatablus and such other learned men are to be relied more upon for explications and definitions in points of faith then the Pope or Bishops if they be such as were in the Trent council of whom it is manifest by Frier Pauls history of that council that there were scarce any of them learned in the Scriptures especially in the main point of the Gospel concerning justification by faith then it is unjust to tye men to follow the Fathers who had lesse skill then others in interpreting Scripture as the learned of the Roman party do often shew in their writings then did Innocent the third ill to make a new point of faith in defining transubstantiation which was but an opinion before as Scotus and Tâ—nstal have asserted then it is monstrous tyranny beyond all that ever any tyrants before practised to burn to death men women children old and young Bishops and Noblemen for not holding it then are the Popâ—s and Popish party guilty of shedding a sea of blood in England France Belgia Germany Italy Spain Poland and elsewhere for denying transubstantiation the Popes supremacy and such other new tenets as Popes have thrust on the Christian Churches then hath Pope Pius the fourth done wickedly in imposing on men a new Creed and Popish Doctors do ill in justifying it and not opposing it But is not this a mockery to say the Church may not do it and yet they do it and H. T. avoucheth it what else are their tenents of receiving the eucharist under one kinde of worshipping images of purgatory invocation of Saints indulgences service in an unknown tongue monastick vows with many more but new points of faith and is it not all one to make new points of faith as by authority onely without any agreeablenesse to the meaning of the words so to explicate the Scriptures as that they shall be wrested to maintain that which is not there taught and that condemned as heresie which is not contrary to them Rightly said Chillingworth Answ to Char. Maint part 1. ch 2. num 1. Tyranny may be established as well by a power of interpreting laws as by making them and so doth the power of Rome set up the greatest tyranny that ever was in the world by usurping this vast power of being an infallible interpreter of Gods laws though in their Prefaces to their corrected editions of their
Council be not How is it an Oecumenical definition when it determins against John Hus or against Christs own expresse command for communion under one kinde and nor Oecumenical when it decrees the supremacy of the Council above the Pope This is meer jugling of hâ—â—us pocus which shews that when it likes them the Council shall be approved when not rejected and thereby take upon them to be above Pope and Council But if this be the fashion of their Councils who can tell when one decree is contrary to another if these were not or who can tell when a decree is approved by a Pope if neither of these were where 's the agreement where 's the infallibility they so vainly arrogate to their Church Martin the fifth expressely confirmed the acts of the Council of Constance in the 45. Session of which one was in the fourth Session that every one though of Papal dignity was bound to obey a general Council in the things pertaining to faith That which Bellarm. l. 2. de Concil aut c. 19. saith that he onely approved some things not others because he said sic conciliariter facta is but a shift for that expression is not set down by way of limitation and distinction but explication noting the reason of approving all because they were done conciliariter as the word sic shews which implies his acknowledgment that they were all so done Besides he not excepting it expressely could not be interpreted to except that from his confirmation more then any thing else there acted it might as well be said he excepted the decree about half communion yea if he had excepted that decree of the Councils being above the Pope he had meerly deluded the Council that decree being their principal decree and for which it was called Add hereto that the words of his Bull thereupon do more fully manifest that he did not except it and the decree of the Council of Basil called after by vertue of his Bull shews that they understood it to confirm that decree proceeding against Pope Eugenius conformably to it And for the other Council that Pope Leo the tenth did not confirm the decree of the Popes being above a Council is contrary to Bellarmin l. 2. de Concil aut c. 18. who recites the decree as a proof and c. 5. reckons it among the general Councils approved by the Pope as appears saith he in that he was president in person And for the other answer of H. T. it is ridiculous sith the Councils words are expresse that any person though of Papal dignity was to obey the general Council and the decree was made of purpose to justifie their fact in putting down a Pope And there was no question nor need be who is above other when both joyn but all the question is and so the definition must be construed when they are severed Yea it would be trifling to say the Pope should obey the Council when the Pope concurred for it 's all one as to say be should obey himself and to say the Council is above the Pope when the Council and Pope are one is frivolous for in all such comparisons the words expresse what each is severally as they stand in competition according to their several authorities and therefore the similitude of H. T. is frivolous as being not to the purpose Lastly with what face can this man say that neither Council err'd when Bellarmin saith c. 7. that in the Florentin and last Lateran the Council of Constance was rejected in respect of the first Sessions wherein it defined a Council to be above a Pope so that all the wit of man is not able to avoid this objection but that according to the suppositions of Popish Doctors either a general Council approved by a Pope may erre in a point of faith or else there is no error in a main point of their faith when one general Council approved by a Pope contradicts a former general Council approved by a former Pope of greater freedome and celebrity by reason of the Emperours presence and for other causes which was seconded by another Council not long after as appears by the next objection which is thus set down by H. T. Ob. The Council of Basil defined that a Council was above a Pope Answ The decree was not approved nor any other of that Council but onely such as concerned Church benefices See Eugenius with Terrecremata l. 2. c. 100. I reply I finde no such distinction in Pope Nicolas the fifth his Bull but that it is confirmed altogether But it seems when it pleaseth these men the Council shall be approved when not rejected So that it is not either the calling of a Council by a Pope or the universality of the Fathers or the approbation of the Pope can confirm it if another Pope reject it which they will do when it 's against their power and profit And hereby is proved that Popes are vertiginous that Popery is as mutable as the weathercock that there is so little shew of agreement unity and infallibility in Popes and Councils approved by him that scarce any states are more full of changes in matters civil then they are in matters Ecclesiastical and of faith nor in any part of the world more disagreement then among Papists Further saith H. T. Ob. The Council of Ariminum defined Arianism Answ It did not and that equivocal decree that was there made was never approved by the Pope and the Fathers themselves who were deluded by the Arians with words that bare a double sense when they perceived the fraud lamented and renounced the fact I reply H. T. his own words confirm the objection For 1. If the Fathers were deluded by the Arians then they were not infallible and so a general Council approved by the Pope may erre in a main point of faith 2. If that Council did not define Arianism how were they deluded wherein was the fraud but in that the words being of double sense yet indeed decreed Arian doctrine what need they lament or renounce the fact if it were not so why doth Austin l. 3. contra Maximinum c. 14. oppose that council to that of Nice and Maximinus allege it for himself if it did not decree Arianism why did Ruffinus Socrates Basil cited by Bellarm l. 1. de concil c. 6. reject it and Bellarmin reckon it among the reprobate councils if it were not Arian and that Pope Liberius did subscribe to it is related by Hierom in his catalogue of writers in Fortunatianus in his Chronicle by Hillary sundry times and others Yet saith H. T. Ob. The council of Trent erred by adding to the Canon of Scripture Answ It did not the third council of Carthage approved all the same books by name excepting Baruch whom they compared with the Prophet Hieremy whose Secretary he was and this twelve hundred years ago I reply if the council of Trent did not erre Pope Gregory the great did who expressely denied the books of
fathers to sons lib. 1. de Decret Concil Niceni sith that delivery was according to him by Scripture Chrysostom on 2 Thess 2. 15. saith The Apostles did not deliver all things by writing but many things without and these are worthy of credit as the others but doth not say there remain still in the Church Traditions unwritten in matters of Faith that are different from the written and that they are to be the Rule of Faith yea Homily in 2 Tim. 3. 15 16. he determines all is to be learned from Scripture and the same answer may serve for the words of Epiphanius Haeresi 61. The words of Augustine lib. 5. de Bapt. cap. 23. are about a point in controversie between Cyprian and Pope Stephanus in which both sides pretended Tradition Cyprian for Rebaptization and here Augustine pretends Tradition for the contrary by which and by Augustine's words lib. 1. de pecc merit remiss cap. 24. in which he makes the giving of the Sacrament of the Eucharist to Infants an ancient and Apostolical tradition which Pope Innocentius Epist 93. among Augustine's Epistles determined to be necessary yet is now condemned in the Trent Council it is apparent how unsafe it is to rely on a Popes determination or Austin's opinion of Apostolical tradition and that gross Errours have been received under the name of Apostolical traditions As for the second Council of Nice Act 7. Anno Dom. 781. it was a late and an impious Council condemned by the Synod of Francford and at Paris for their impious Doctrine of worshipping Images and therefore we count its speech not worthy to be answered but with detestation Nor is there any reason to be moved with the words of the Council at Sens in France which was later and but Provincial SECT VII Objections from Scripture for its sufficiency without unwritten Traditions are vindicated from H. T. his Answers H. T. proceeds thus Objections solved Object You have made frustrate the Commandments of God for your Tradition St. Matth. cap. 15. v. 4. Beware lest any man deceive you by vain fallacy according to the Traditions of men Col. 2. Answ These Texts are both against the vain Traditions of private men not against Apostolical tradition I Reply they are against the Popish unwritten Traditions which are falsly called Apostolical which are indeed the meer Inventions of men either devised by superstitious Prelates Priests Monks or people or upon uncertain report received by credulous people as from the Apostles as the Traditions about Easter Lent Fast Christ's age and many more shew And in such kinde of mens Inventions doth almost all the Popish Worship and Service consist which causeth breaking the command of God to observe mens Traditions as is manifest in Monkish Vows whereby honouring of Parents is made void and the keeping of the Cup from the people whereby the express command of Christ is evacuated Object There is no better way to decide controversies than by Scripture Answ Than by Scriptures expounded by the Church and according to the Rule of Apostolical tradition I grant than by Scripture according to the dead Letter or expounded by the private spirit I deny For so as Tertullian says there is no good got by disputing out of the Texts of Scripture but either to make a man sick or mad De praescript cap. 19. I reply it is well this man will grant There is no better way to decide controversies than by the Scriptures expounded by the Church and according to the Rule of Apostolical tradition then Knot 's Reasons for a living Judge against Dr. Potter come to nothing we desire no other than to have our controversies decided this way rejecting any one infallible Judge that shall take on him as the Pope doth to prescribe to the Church of God how they shall understand the Scripture The Church of God that is the company of believers who are the Church of God by Papists own definition having the help of their godly and learned Guides may expound the Scriptures any where in the World at Geneva London Dort and other places as well and better than the Pope and his Cardinals at Rome or a Council of Canonists titular Bishops sworn vassals of the Pope that never knew what it was to preach the Gospel sophistical School-men at Trent And for the Rule of Apostolical tradition we like it well to expound Scripture by it meaning that which is in the Books of Scripture as Austin taught lib. 1. de doctr Christ cap. 2. 35. 37. 40. lib. 2. cap. 8. 9. 11. lib. 3. cap. 2 3. 5. 10. 17. 18. 27. 28. lib 4. cap. 3. as the words are cited and vindicated from Hart's Replies by Dr. John Rainoll Confer with Hart. chap 2. divis 2. Nor do I know any other Apostolical tradition which is a Rule to expound Scriptures by for deciding controversies but their Epistles and other Writings If H. T. can shews me any such to expound them by let him produce them and I will embrace them Sure I am Popes Expositions and Popish Councils Canons are so far from being Apostolical traditions that they are rather the most ridiculous profane and blaphemous pervertings of Scripture that ever any sober man used as may appear by their Canon Law Yea the very Council of Trent hath absurdly abused Scripture as might be made manifest by going over their Canons and the like may be said of the Roman Catechism What H. T. means by the dead Letter I understand not unless he mean the literal sense which sure Bellarmine and others allow for one sense and that most genuine and if it be not why did the Trent Council decree the vulgar Translation not to be refused Why did Cajetan Arias Montanus the Râ—emists and many more translate and expound according to the Letter Is the Scripture any more a dead Letter than the Popes Breves or Trent Canons Are they any more a living Judge than the Scripture Pope Pius the fourth ties Papists to expound the Scriptures according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers which is except in very few things a meer nullity and if it were a reality impossible to be done yet however could it be done the exposition must be by a dead Letter in H. T. his sense as much as the Scripture But how intolerable is it that such a Wretch as H. T. should thus blasphemously call that a dead Letter which Stephen calls Living Oracles Acts 7. 38. Paul the word of life Phil. 2. 16. It is true for Popes of whom some if Alphonsus a Castâ—â— lib. 1. advers Haeret. cap. 1. say true were so unlearned as not to understand Grammar it is desirable that the Scripture should not be expounded according to the Letter sith they are unable to do it that they may vent their illiterate fopperies under pretence of Apostolical tradition of which sort many of their Decrees are in their Canon Law But me thinks all the learned Romanists even the Jesuits themselves
all which we may easily come to know by means of Apostolical tradition without which we can have no infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine I reply neither the Church nor her Ministers can sufficiently propose to any man for the Word of God any other than the Scripture by which we may have infallible assurance of any Point of Christian Doctrine without oral Tradition unwritten And to say that the whole Church in general and not each man in particular is obliged to know all divinely revealed verities which are necessary to the salvation of all mankinde is to speak contradictions Yet once more saith H. T. Object You dance in a vicious Circle proving the Scripture and the Churches infallibility by Apostolical tradition and tradition by the Scripture and the Churches infallibility Answ No we go on by a right Rule towards Heaven We prove indeed the Churches infallibility and the credibility of the Scriptures by Apostolical tradition but that is evident of it self and admits no other proof When we bring Scripture for either we use it onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem I reply if this be so then doth H T. in his Title-page pretend demonstration of his falsly called Catholick Religion by Tents of holy Scripture in the first place onely as a secondary testimony or argument ad hominem but it is oral Apostolical tradition which he principally relies on for his demonstration as being evident of it self and admits no other proof which oral Apostolical Tradition being no other than what Popes and Councils approved by him have approved it follows that what Papists call Catholick Religion is not what the Scriptures teach but what Popes and their Councils define into which their Faith is ultimately resolved No marvel then they decline Scripture or if they use it do it onely because of Protestants importunity not because they think it is to be rested on and if so sure H. T. plays the Hypocrite in pretending to demonstrate his Religion out of Texts of holy Scripture If other Papists would stick to this which H. T. here saith we should take it as a thing confessed that Popery is not Scripture doctrine but onely unwritten Tradition and to have for its bottom foundation the Popes determination and so to be imbraced upon his credit which sure can beget no other than a humane faith and in fine doth make the Pope Lord of their Faith which is all one as to make him their Christ and that is to make him an Antichrist Therefore I conceive other Romanists will disown this resolution of H. T. and seek other ways to get out of this Circle and herein they go divers ways Dr. Holden an English man and Doctor of Paris in his Book of the Analysis of divine Faith chap. 9. rejects the common way and sticks to that of universal Tradition which by natural reason is evident and firm But when he hath urged this as far as he can this must be the evidence that what all say and was so manifestly know by so many Miracles as Christ and his Apostles wrought must be infallibly true But the being of Christ the Mossiah and his Doctrine from God as the holy Scriptures declare is avouched by all the Church and manifestly known by Miracles therefore it must be true which is no other than Chillingworth's universal Tradition confirming the truth of the Scriptures and deriving our Faith from thence which if Papists do relinquish and adhere to the Popes resolutions whether they be with Scripture or without they do expresly declare themselves Papists or Disciples of the Pope not Christians that is Disciples of Christ I conclude therefore that H. T. and such as hold with him according to the Principle he here sets down are not Believers in Christ whose Doctrine is delivered in the Scripture but in men whether Popes or Councils or the universal Church or any other who delivers to him that oral Tradition which is his Rule as being evident of it self and admits no other proof though I have shewed it to be uncertain yea not so much as probable I go on to the next Article ARTIC IX Schism and Heresie are ill charged on Protestants Protestants in not holding Communion with the Roman Church as now it is in their Worship in not subjecting themselves to the Pope as their visible Head in denying the new Articles of the Tridentin Council and Pope Pius the fourth his Bull are neither guilty of Schism nor Heresie But Papists by rejecting them for this cause and seeking to impose on them this Subjection are truly Schismaticks and in holding the Articles which now they do are Hereticks SECT I H. T. his definitions of Heresie and Schism are not right H. T. intitles his ninth Article of Schism and Heresie and begins thus Nothing intrenching more on the Rule of Faith or the Authority of the Church than Schism or Heresie we shall here briefly shew what they are and who are justly chargeable therewith Our Tenet is that not onely Heresie which is a wilfull separation from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church but also Schism which is a separation from her government is damnable and sacrilegious and that most Sectaries are guilty of both Answ I Think Infidelity doth more intrench on the Rule of Faith than Heresie and Heresie may be where there is no intrenching on the Authority of the Church in this Authour 's own sense as when a man living in communion with the Roman Church and owning the Pope or being the Pope himself is an Arian as Pope Liberius or a Monothelite as Pope Honorius And for his definition of Heresie it is in mine apprehension too obscure and imperfect For it neither shews what is the Catholick Church the separation from whose Doctrine makes Heresie nor what Doctrines of it the separation from which makes Heresie nor what separation in heart or profession or other act nor when it is wilfull when not nor how it may be known to be wilfull Nor doth this definition agree with their own Tenets who acquit many from Heresie who wilfully separate from the Doctrine of the Catholick Church as they define it to wit that which is defined by a general Council approved by a Pope As for instance The Popish French Church is acquitted from Heresie yet they hold a Council to be above the Pope contrary to the last Lateran Council approved by Pope Leo the tenth Nor is this definition at all proved by this Authour but taken as granted though it may be justly questioned And for the use of the terms Heresie and Hereticks in the Ancients it is certain that many are put in the Catalogue of Hereticks by Philastrius Epiphanius Augustin and also by other Writers elder and later and those opinions termed Heresies which were not so The like faults are in the definition of Schism in not setting down which is the Catholick Church what is her government what separation of heart or outward
drawing of the Net on the shore at the Day of Judgement is damnable and the Sacrilege of Schism which surpasseth all other crimes lib. 2. cont Epist Parmen I reply it is a Scolds trick to say we slander and not to prove it We prove out of Paul's Epistle to the Romans that the Roman Church then held Justification by Faith without Works that every Soul even Popes were to be subject to Princes that the Scriptures are to be the Rule of Faith that the Church of Rome might fail that the Roman church is but a particular Church that it is evil to judge Christians for not observing difference of Meats and Days that it is Idolatry to do as Papists now do worshiping the Creature with such Worship as belongs to the Creatour that we are not to invocate Saints in whom we believe not with sundry more in which the present Roman church hath sweâ—ved from the primitive We prove out of Gregory the Great himself that the Doctrine and Discipline of the Roman church is not the same now as it was in all precedent Ages for he rejected the Title of Universal Bishop now usurped by the Pope and disavowed the Worship of Images with other things now received at Rome and before him Pope Gelasius termed the denying the Cup to the Lay-people sacrilegious Augustine himself hath taught us to account his words below Scripture-canon yet his speeches touch not us who do not separate our selves from the church of Christ on pretence of avoiding communion of bad men but from the Papacy on full proof that the communion of the Popish church is imposed on conditions of acknowledging such Errours and practising such Idolatry as are damnable We do not say that the church perished but that it was continued in a remnant of persecuted Saints We need not allege any Church for our Mother but the Jerusalem which is abovâ— which is the Mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. I judge it no better than an inconsiderate speech to say any visible church is the Mother of Christians it is in my apprehension all one as to say the church is the Mother of the church Christians or believers being all one with the church and therefore count such speeches whoever Father or Prelate he be that useth them no better than ridiculous non-sense and much more to call Bishops our Fathers in Christ and yet to term them the Church also and our Mother Nor need we allege a Church that brought us forth it is sufficient we can prove our Faith to be according to the Gospel and allege that we have been begotten by it which way soever it be Were not the â—berians a church of Christians who were converted by â— captive Maid when there was no church there before and the Indians by â—rumentius without a Church to bring them forth May not a man have Faith and Salvation in a Wilderness where he knows of no church Neither did Luther nor Tyndal separate themselves from all Nations but were expelled and peâ—secuted by the devilish Popes and Popish Clergy of Rome when they endeavoured to restore the purity of the Gospel to the Germans English and other Nations If Augustine meant simply that all Separation made before the Day of Judgement is damnable he wrote that which is not true it being contrary to Paul's practise Acts 18. 9. God's command 2 Cor. 6. 17. 2 Tim. 3 5. 2 Thess 3. 8. Revel 18. 4. He himself acknowledgeth lib. 2. cont Epist Pâ—rmen cap. 21. A man is not to associate with others when he cannot have society with them but by doing evil with them But if he meant it of such Separation as the Donatists made as it is likely he doth it toucheth not us who separate not from the Romanists because some evil men are tolerated but because Errour Idolatry and other evils are urged on us by them and such is their tyranny that without yielding to them there is no communion but in stead thereof Banishment or Burning Once more saith H. T. Object We did but separate from the particular Church of Rome Therefore not from the whole Church Answ I told you it the Question of the Churches universality in what sense the Church of Rome iâ— universal or Catholick and in what sense she is particular take it in which acception you will your Consequence is false for whosoever separates from an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church and such the Church of Rome then was in her particular he consequently separates from the whole and is an Heretick or Schismatick I reply neither as it is taken for the congregation of Rome or Italy nor as it notes a collection of all the Churches holding communion with the See of Rome is the Roman Church rightly termed the Catholick Church the non-sense and falshood thereof is shewed before Art 5. Sect. 8. Nor is it true that he that separates from the Catholick Roman Church in either sense is an Heretick or Schismatick And to his proof I say 1. That many Protestants deny the Roman Church a true Member of the Catholick Church when Luther separated but call it an Antichristian and malignant Church and they that acknowledge it a true Church in respect of the truth of being yet not of Doctrine and they that say it had the truth of being say it not of the predominant part but of the latent conceiving it was with them as it was with Israel in the days of Elijah that they did not own those Errours and evils which were practised in them or avouched by them though living among them or if they did yield to them or some of them they had pardon as doing it in ignorance retaining the old Creed of the Apostles And they attribute the truth of it to the few fundamental Articles which they held who were in it though very unsoundly by reason of the errours and corruptions mixed with them which made the Church among the Romanists as a leprous man unfit for converse and communion with whom though they might continue for a time in expectation of their repentance yet they might say to Rome being found uâ—câ—rable as the Jews to Babylon Jer. 51. 9. We would have healed Babylon but she is not healed forsake her and let us go every one into his own countrey for her Judgement reacheth unto the Heaven and is lifted up unto the Skies 2. That it is not universally true that he who separates from an acknowledged true Member of the Catholick Church separtes from the whole there may be a Separation partial not total privative not positive out of prejudice and passion in heat not in heart as between Paul and Barnabas Acts 15. 39. Chrysostome and Epiphanius temporary not perpetual in prudence though not out of absolute necessity necessary not voluntary just and not rash without revolt from the Faith or persecution of those from whom it is made In many of these sorts there may be a Separation which may be from
39 and never to repair to the Church to be resolved in points of faith if H. T. say true How much doth he abase the credit of the Scripture who makes it to depend on mens for such is the Churches pretended infallibility report and ascribes it to Popes and Councils who do oft contradict themselves and one another which is onely to be had from God and his Word What is this but as in another case Tertullian said of the Roman Senates decreeing who should be worshipped as God God shall not be God unless man will so Gods Word shall not be his Word unless man will Which is so much the worse in H. T. who Art 8. ascribes that assurance to unwritten tradition of which there is no assurance but from men confessedly fallible as shall be shewed Art 8. which he denies to be from Scripture as if the obscure tradition of unknown persons from Age to Age were more certain than the great written tradition received from Apostles by the whole Church Besides how doth he reckon of all other besides Popes and Councils as if they were all idiots and fools that they can understand no Chapter of the Bible without the Pope who hath been sometimes altogether unlearned What Blockheads would he have men think themselves after all their study of Languages and Arts and of the Scripture that yet they cannot be certain what is the true sense and meaning of Matth. 4. Acts 8. or any other Chapter in the Bible unless the Church that is the Pope tell them Why do not all their Commentators and Preachers first ask the Pope of the meâ—ning of the Scripture afore they by writing or preaching take on them to expound it Why doth not the Pope forbid them to expound till they have consulted him Will â—e permiâ— them to teach that of which they have no infallible assurance Why doth he tie men to follow the consent of Fathers as Pope Pius the fourth in his Bull did if the Fathers yield no infallible assurance of the true meaning of any Chapter in the Bible without the Churches that is the Popes or his Councells infallibility How did it come to pass that the Fathers Chrysostome Hiâ—rome c. did so well expound the Scriptures as that their consent must be the Rule of modern Exposition Did they first consult the Church or the Church them Pope Damasus I believe had more help from Hierome to expound Scripture by than Hierome from Dâ—mâ—sus Have the Popes any better means to expound Scripture by than the Fathers or the Fathers than other learned men in these days Wherein did any of the Fathers exceed Cajetan Arias Montaâ—us and such learned Romanists or any of all the Popes after the Apostles days in ability to open Scripture Would not such men as these secretly disdain and smile in scorn if any should prefer any of the best Expoâ—itions of Popes before their own Will the Jansenians or Moliniâ—â—s think either the late Pope Innocent or the present Pope Alexander more infallible in their Eâ—positions than themselves I trow not so little is the pretended infallibility of the Church esteemed when it toucheth themselves however they make a great noise of it against Protestants yea some Papists have well preferred the Expositions of later Writers before the Fathers and Councils and Popes giving this for a Reason that later Writers have had more help in that they have had their own abilities and diligence to boot for finding the meaning of Scripture besides the Fathers Writings and may see farther than they did as a Childe set on a Giants shoulder as Banner did fitly express it Do not at this day the learned Expositors reject the Expositions of Fathers and Popes and Councils Doth not Maldonat the Jesuit expresly reject in his Commentâ—ry on John 6. 53. the Exposition of that Verse by which Pope Innocent Augustine and many of the Fathers following held the giving the Eucharist to Infants necessary to their salvation which the Council of Trenâ— it self doth condemn So sottish a conceit hath H. T. here vented that doubtless none but the ignorant sort of Popish Proselytes can believe him in if they do not resolve not to seem to see what they do see But were it granted that the Church were infallible I would fain know how H. T. can demonstrate who or which is that Church which is infallible or give assurance at this distance from Rome that this or that point of faith is thus determined by that infallible Church Will he make every Priest or Legate or Register of the Pope to be infallible If not let him tell me how he is infallibly assured that Pope Innocent the third or the Latâ—ran Council did define Transubstantiation or Pope Leo the tenth and the last Lateran Council the Popes Supremacy If he say by universal tradition or the Records which are kept and are to be seen and the agreement of opposite parties though in the points named there are none of these means which do give such assurance of those determinations as is given by them of the Scriptures sure me thinks H. T. who makes such determinations to be assuredly theirs upon such or the like Reasons of their credibility should yield that there is more assurance from these without the infallibility of the Church of the holy Scriptures being Gods Word and the true sense and meaning of it Will H. T. be more unbelieving than a Jew who acknowledgeth the Books of Moses the Psalms and Prophets to be Gods Word Will he not allow that to a Christian which the Jew had to wit assurâ—nce infallible from Micah 5. 2. that the Messiasâ—hould â—hould be born at Beâ—hlehem without the Churches infallibility Will H. T. think he can make such men as Arias Montanus or Cardinal Cajâ—tan and other learned Romanists believe that they are not certain of the Gospel of Matthew to be Gods Word or of the true sense and meaning of the third fourth fifth sixth seventh Chapters thereof without the Churches declaration Did they gather their Expositions out of Popes Decrees Canons of Councils or examine them by them Does not he know that in many places those and other learned men have interpreted Texts otherwise than Popes and Councils approved by him have expounded them Do not they know that such an attempt would be but an exposing of Popes and Councils to contempt and make their Canon Law appear â—idiculous What unmercifulness and carelesness of mens souls is there in Popes Councils Churches if they are infallible that in the space of sixteen hundred years they have not given us such a Commentary on the Bible as may take away all doubts from inquiring Christians about the true meaning of the Scripture and determine all controversies in points of faith Sure it 's fitter work than to enrich their kindred advance base sons give audience to Embassadours over-aw Princes and Emperours subdue the holy Land About which Popes and Councils have wasted a world of