If now I say also that Hercules is not God and Bacchus is not God and Venus Mars Mercury Pallas Neptune Pluto Ceres c. are not Gods is this a new Religion or an addition to the former If the Baptismal Covenant be the Essentials of my Religion and the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue the Explication of it and if the Scripture be my Entire Religion and if the Papists will come and add a multitude of new Articles and Corruptions my rejecting of those additions is no more an alteration of my Religion than the sweeping of my house or the washing of my hands is an alteration of them So that notwithstanding all that you have said my Religion is nothing but the Law of Nature and Scripture and my rejecting of Popery is no otherwise my Religion than my freedom from the Leprosie c. is my humanity P. Observe I pray you that It is no part of your Religion to be against Popery R. Observe I pray you that Popery is against my Religion that is against much of the Christian Religion and therefore my Religion is against Popery But I will not quarrell with you about words When God hath Revealed to us his Will and the Papists add their corrupting inventions Gods Revealed Will is my Religion your Corrupting additions are contrary to it Call my rejecting such Corruptions and additions by the name of my Religion Reductively as Nihil is objectum Intellectus Malum Voluntatis and as non-agere is part of obedience or Call it no part of my Religion in the primary notion but a Rejecting of its contraries so we understand each other I care not The truth is the Rejecting of some of your errors directly contradicting the Scripture it self may be called part of our Religion as the Negation of the Contrary is included in the sense of an Affirmative But your remoter additions are contrary to our Religion but not so directly For instance when the Scripture saith There is bread after Consecration and you say There is no bread My Religion containeth the Assertion that There is bread And so includeth a contradiction to your Negative that saith There is none Now to say that it is none of my Religion to deny your Negative who say There is no bread would import that It is none of my Religion which affirmeth that there is bread Contradictions cannot both be true Properly that word that saith There is bread is my Religion But this word contradicteth you that say There is none But in another instance my Religion saith that The Righteous shall go into life everlasting and the rest to everlasting punishment and tells us of a Heaven and Hell only hereafter And you tell us of Limbus Patrum Infantum and of Purgatory The Scripture enableth us by consequence to confute this but if it did not it were enough for me to say It is none of my Religion because not Revealed by God in Nature or Scripture And as it is your Addition so to deny it is not directly and properly my Religion it self but the Defence and Vse of my Religion God tells us in Scripture that He created Heaven and Earth If one should assert as from God that God created ten thousand Heavens and ten thousand Earths this is a faith of his own invention or addition and it is enough for me to say I have no such faith because God revealeth no such thing So thaâ— still the Scripture is the Protestants Religion as your Polydor Virgil truly describeth them and others confess P. All this is meer delusion For It is not the words but the sense that is your Religion as you will confess And if your Articles or Confessions contain a false sense or your Books or Sermons shew that you falsly expound the Scripture your Religion is then false R. Such Confusion may cheat a heedless hearer But any one that will take heed may quickly perceive that you here fraudulently play with the ambiguity of the word Religion and quite turn to another question For you now speak of subjective Religion that is of the Acts and habits of the person whereas we are disputing only of objective Religion which is Gods Revelation and our Rule If I understand any Texts of Scripture amiss my faith is so far defective in my selfs But Gods Word which is my Rule is never the more imperfect I pray you consider how justly you have spoken 1. Is a mans Act of faith Gods Word or Revelation 2. What need you dispute of the Protestants Religion if we have as many Religions as persons For it is as certain that we have as many degrees of our understanding many Texts of Scripture 3. Would not this prove also as many Religions as persons among your selves Is it not most certain that no two Papists in the world have just the same sense or conceptions of the Scriptures and Councils in each particular The Law of God is my only Religion objectively as how disputed of If I mistake any essential part of it so as to deny it I am personally a Heretick If I mistake any Integral part I so far err from the Rule of my Religion or faith But I still profess that I take Gods Word or Law only for my sure unchangeable Rule or objective Religion and I am daily learning to understand it better and as soon as I see my error I will reform it and blame my self and not my Rule And I think you will say the same of your Rule and of your personal errors P. This shall not serve your turn For every Law must have its promulgation And if it be not manifested to you that Scripture is Gods Law and sufficient it cannot be your Rule I ask you therefore Qu. 1. Is it the Scripture in the Original or in the Translations which you say is your Religion Law or Rule R. I told you our Divine Rule consisteth of Words and Meaning It is only the Originals which are our Rule or Religion as to the very words that is Only the Original words were of that Divine Inspiration But every Translation is so far Gods Word in sense as it expresseth truly the sense of the original words P. Qu. 2. I pray you what then is the Religion of all the unlearned Protestants who know not a word of the Originals They may see now that you have stript them of all Divine Religion R. Their Religion is the same objectively with that of the most learned as delivered from God but it is not equally learned and understood by them Gods Word in the Original Tongues is given them as the Rule of Faith and Worship and Teachers are appointed to help them to understand it When these Teachers have Translated it to them they have the same sense though not the same words for their Religion And to know the Words is not so necessary to salvation as to know the sense or sentence though by other words For the words are but means to
When you come to prove us heretical denyers of any of its essence we will give you a sufficient answer The twelfth Principle That the Essence of our Religion or Christianity as Active and Saving is Faith that worketh by Love Or such a Belief in God the Father Son and Holy Ghost as is accompanied with a true devoting of our selves to him by Love and willingness to obey his Laws so far as we know them in opposition to the temptations of the world the flesh and the Devil And he that is truly such shall be saved P. I grant that he that truly Loveth God shall be saved But a Protestant cannot truly love God because he hath not true faith R. Do you not agree and confess then that If any Protestants do truly Love God and are sincerely willing to obey his will and to know it that they may obey it such are of the true Religion and shall be saved and that popery which denyeth their salvation is false P. If your false supposition were true these false consequents would be true But you are all deceived when you think that you sincerely Love God and are willing to know and do his will R. 1. Let all Protestants note this first that you grant that none but ☞ falshearted Hypocrites that are not what they profess to be and Love not God nor would obey him should turn Papists 2. And if a man cannot know his own Mind and Will what he Loveth and what he is willing of no not about his End and greatest concernments how can he know when he Believeth aright Why do you trouble the world thus with your noise about Believing the Proposals of your Church if a man cannot know whether he believe or not ☞ And he that cannot know what he Willeth Chooseth or Loveth can no more know what he believeth For the Acts of the Will are more plenary and easily perceived And do all Papists know their own Hearts or Minds but no Protestants What would you expect but indignation and derision by such arguing as this if you will go about the world and tell men You none of you know your own Minds and wills but we know them You think you Love God and are willing to obey him but you are all mistaken it is not so with you but you must believe our Pope and his Council and then you may know your own minds and hearts They that believe you on these rates deserve the deceit of believing you and punish themselves The thirteenth Principle That when Christ described all the Essence of Christianity by our Believing in and being baptized into the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost the Apostles and first Pastors of the Churches instructed people to understand the meaning of these three Articles And the ancient Creed called the Apostles is the exposition of them as to Belief And that this Creed was of old the symbol of the true faith by which men were supposed sufficiently qualified for baptism and distinguished from Hereticks which after was enlarged by occasion of heresies to the Nicene and Constantinopolitane Creed To which that called Athanasius's was added as a fuller explication of the doctrine of the Trinity And he that believed all these was taken for one of the true Christian Religion which was sufficient in suo genere to salvation P. All that was then Necessary to be explicitely believed necessitate medii was expressed in the Creeds if not more But not all that is now necessary when the Church hath proposed more R. 1. Some of you say no more is necessary ut medium but to believe that God is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Others say that the chief articles of the Creed also are commonly necessary And in your discord we lay no great weight on your Opinions 2. But is not Christianity the same Thing now as it was at the beginning Is Baptism altered Hath not a Christian now the same definition as then Are not Christs promises and the Conditions the same Shall not he that was a Christian then be saved if he were now alive May not we be Christians and saved by the same Constitutive Causes which made men Christians and saved them in the primitive Churches Subvert not Christianity and confound not the Church and cheat not poor souls by labouring to hide the essence of Christianity and such plain important truths You cannot deny our faith to be true without condemning the ancient Church and Christianity it self While we aloud profess that the Christian faith explained in all the ancient Creeds is the faith which we own in its Essentials explicated The fourteenth Principle That the Books which the Protestants commonly receive as Canonical Scriptures are in the agreeing Original Copies as to the very words and in true Translations as to the sence the most true Infallible word of God R. I grant that where the Copies disagree by various Readings we are no more sure that any of them is the word of God than we are sure that such a Copy is righter than all that differ from it But as long as the essence of Christianity on which our Salvation is laid is in the Covenant of Grace explained in Credondis in the Creed and in Petendis in the Lords Prayer and in Agendis in the Decalogue as explained by Christ And no one Duty or material doctrine of our Religion dependeth on the various Lections but those texts that Agree are sufficient to establish them all yea as Franc. à Sancta Clara system fid professeth the ordinary Translations so agree as that no material point of Religion doth depend on any of their differences It is as much as we assert that the Agreeing Original Copies and the sound-Translations so far as they are such are the True Infallible word of God the former both as to words and sence and the later as to sence alone Do you not grant this P. We grant the Scripture as you say to be Gods Infallible word But 1. You cannot know it to be so because you take it not on the Roman Churches Authoritative Proposal 2. And you leave out part of it R. 1. Whether we can know it shall be tryed in due place 2. And whether we have All of it or enough is another question to be debated when you will You grant us expresly that which we now desire which is the Infallible Truth of our Canonical Scripture And this is All our Religion containing not only the Essentials but all the Integrals and Accidentals needful to be recorded So that All the Protestants Religion is confessed to be Infallibly True And from hence further note that in all our disputes you are obliged to be the defendants as to Truth For we deny the Truth of much of your Religion but you deny not the Truth of one word of ours but only the Plenitude or Sufficiency P. The name of a Protestant was never known till Luthers
are less doubtful and resolved into a conceded Principle PART II. The Principles which Papists and Protestants are agreed in And therein the full â—ustification of all the Protestants Religion THe first common Principle That we are Men having Reason and Free-will and Sense whose Natural way of knowing things sensible is by the perception of our senses having no way of greater Certainty R. I take it for a common principle that we are Men having Reason and Free-will and Sense whose natural way of Knowing things sensible is by the perception of our senses And therefore that our rightly constituted or sound senses with their due media about their proper objects are to be trusted being either certain or we have no certainty P. I know what you intend I grant it as you express it R. It must then be granted us that there is true Bread and Wine in substance remaining after the words of the Mass-Priests consecration P. Yes When you can prove that the consecrated Bread and Wine are the proper objects of sense which we deny they being not now Bread and Wine R. Is it by the Perception of sense that you deny it or by other means P. No It is by Faith and Reason which are above Sense R. Now you come to deny the Principle which you granted Sense is the perceiver of its own objects No Faith no Reason can perceive them but by sense And if due sensation perceive them and Faith deny them then Faith denyeth sense to be the proper natural perceiver of its objects and our judgement of things sensible to be such as must follow that perception But we must dispute of this anon and will not now anticipate it Only remember that if you deny sense which is the first Principle no mortal man is capable of disputing with you there being no lower principle to which we can have recourse and resolve our differences The second Principle That there is One only God Infinite in Being Power Wisdom and Goodness Our Owner Ruler and Chief Good Most Holy Just and True and therefore cannot lye but is absolutely to be believed and trusted and loved R. I need not repeat it Do you not Agree with us in this P. Yes Heathens that are sober and Christians are agreed in it R. You grant then that this may be known by them that are no subjects of the Pope Remember anon that we are not to be blamed for Believing God The third Principle That the whole frame of Nature within us and without us within our reach is the signal Revelation of God and his Will to man called Objectively The Light and Law of Nature R. I suppose that this also may pass for a common granted Principle P. Yes as you express it If we agree not of the Light and Law of Nature we come short of Infidels and meer Natural men R. Observe then that we are Justified by your principles for Believing and Trusting Gods Natural Revelation The very first part of which is made to our senses By Natural Evidence God sheweth us that Bread is Bread P. Yes when sense is sound and objects and media just and God doth not contradict sense by supernatural Revelation The fourth Principle That Natural Revelation is before supernatural and sense before faith and we are Men in order of Nature at least before we are Christians and the former is still presupposed to the later R. This also I suppose is a granted Principle P. It is so But see that you raise no false consequents from it R. I conclude from it that He that denyeth the perception of sense to be the certain way of Judging of things sensible denyeth all the Certainty of faith and subverteth the very foundations of it And that we are justified for our Assenting first to Gods Natural Revelations It is God that made my senses and understanding and God that made the object and media as Bread and Wine and therefore God deceiveth me if I be deceived in taking it for Bread and Wine after Consecration But God is to be believed in his first Revelations P. You vainly call Sensation and Intellection or Knowledge of things sensible by the name of Believing R. We will not vainly contend about the Name if we agree of the Thing But this leadeth me to another Principle The fifth Principle That the Knowledge of things fully sensible hath more quieting satisfying Evidence than our Belief of supernatural Revelations alone as made to us by a Prophet or Apostle And that where all the sound senses of all men living do agree about their near and proper sensible object there is the most satisfying Evidence of all R. I suppose that we are all agreed also in this principle P. As you word it we are For our Divines distinguish of Evidence and Certainty and are so far from saying that Faith hath more Evidence than Sense and Knowledge that it is ordinary with them to say that this is the difference between Faith and Knowledge and that faith hath not Evidence but yet it hath no less certainty R. Some men use words first to sport themselves out of their understandings and then to use others to the same game Evidence is nothing but the Perceptibility or Cognoscibility of a thing by which we call it Knowable which is the Immediate necessary qualification of an Object of Knowledge Certainty is either Objective which is nothing but this same Cognoscibility or Evidence as in a satisfying degree Or it is Subjective or Active which is nothing but the Infallible or True and quieting satisfactory knowledge of a Truth Where the Certainty of Object and Act concurr For no man can be certain of a lye or untruth For to be Certain is to be certain that it is True Those therefore would befool the world who would perswade men that a clear and confident perception of an untruth or confident error is Certainty There may be Objective Truth and Certainty of the Matter where there is not in us an Active or Subjective Certain Knowledge of it But there can be no Active Certainty of an Objective Vncertainty or certain Knowledge of a lye Now if you mean that faith hath Objective Certainty without Evidence of Certainty or Ascertaining Evidence that is but to say and unsay It hath Certainty and no Certainty For this Certainty and Evidence is all one But if you mean that Faith hath an Active Subjective Certainty without an Objective Certainty in the Matter you speak an impossibility and contradiction as if you said I clearly see a thing invisible or without light P. Do you think that our Divines knew not what they said when they say that to believe without Evidence maketh faith meritorious R. The old asserters of this meant the same that Christ meant when he saith to Thomas Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed There is a sensible Evidence and an Intelligible Evidence Faith hath not an Immediate sensible Evidence that is we believe
things unseen and above sense And this is their meaning We see not God Christ Heaven Angels c. But faith hath alwaies Intelligible Evidence of Verity and as our Mr. R. Hooker saith can go no further than it hath such Evidence However I appeal to any that have not been disputed out of their wits whether If God would give us as full a sight of Heaven and Hell and Angels and Blessed souls as we have of the Bread and Wine before us and as full a Hearing of all that they say in justification of Holiness or Lamentation of sin and as full sensible acquaintance with the world we go to and our title to it as we have with this world I say whether this would not be more ascertaining and satisfactory to us and banish all doubts more than our present faith doth I love not to hear men lie as for God and talk and boast against their experience as if the interest of faith required it Things revealed to faith Are Certain and Infallible But that is because we have certain evidence 1. That God cannot lie 2. And that God revealed them and so that they are True But if we did see feel taste c. we should be more certain Else why is it said that we now know but enigmatically and as in a glass and as children but hereafter shall see as face to face and know as we are known when faith is done away as being more Imperfect than Intuition We have evidence to prove that the Revelation made to David Isaiah Jeremiah Peter Paul c. were of God and that their words are by us to be believed c. But to see hear taste feel c. would be a more quieting Assurance Therefore when all the sound senses of all men living perceive after consecration that there is Bread and Wine this Certainty is 1. in order antecedent to that of faith and 2. by Evidence more satisfying and assuring than that of meer faith as to a prophets Revelation And therefore to reject it on pretence of faith is a subversion of all natural methods of assurance and is but pretended I think by your selves The sixth Principle That except those Immediate Inspirations which none but the Inspired do Immediately and clearly perceive we have no Revelations from God but by signes which are created beings and have their several Natures and so may be called Physical though signifying Moral things And thus far our natural and supernatural Revelations agree R. Every being is either Vncreated which is God only or Created in a large sense that is Caused What God Revealed to Christ Peter Paul c. we have knowledge of but by signes In Scripture these signes are Words These words signifie partly the mind of God and the speakers or writers and partly the matter spoken or written When it is said that It is impossible for God to lye it can mean nothing to us but that it is impossible that God should make us a deceitful sign of his will The voice of an Angel Prophet Apostle a thousand Miracles c. are but signes of the matter and of Gods will And if God can ordinarily make false natural signes we are left unassured that he cannot make false signes by an Angel or a Prophet or a Miracle And so all faith is left uncertain P. Then you will make God a lyar or deceiver whenever any man is deceived by natural signes R. Not so For men may deceive themselves by taking those for signes of a thing which are none and so by misunderstanding them And the Devil and bad men may promote this deceit But whenever God giveth man so plain a sign of the Matter and his Will as that no errour of an unsound sense an unqualified object a culpable or diseased fantasie or Intellect interveneth then if we are deceived it can be none but God that doth deceive us which cannot be because he cannot lye And as it is an unresistible argument against the Dominican doctrine of Physical Predetermination as absolutely necessary to all acts of natural or free agents that If God physically predetermine every lyar to ivery lye that is mentally conceived or uttered then we have no certainty but he might do so by the Prophets and Apostles so is it as good an argument against Papists that if he ordinarily deceive the senses of all sound men by a false appearance of things seeming sensible he may do so also by the audible or legible words of a prophet The seventh Principle That he that will confute sense and prove that we should not Judge according to its perceptions must prove it by some more certain evidence that contradicteth it R. I suppose you will not question this P. No The word or Revelation of God is a more certain evidence R. How know you that there is any word of God but by your senses P. But yet by sense I may get a certainty which is above that of things sensible As I know by the world that there is a God by a certainty above that of sense R. 1. If that were so yet if things sensible be your media you destroy your Conclusion by denying them and undermine your own foundation 2. But it is not true The knowledge of the Conclusion can be no stronger than that of the principles even of the weaker of them If you are in any uncertainty whether there be Sun Moon Heaven Earth Man Beast Heat Cold or any Created sensible being you must needs be in as much doubt whether there be a God that made them The eighth Principle That Believing or Assenting is Intellection of the Truth of something revealed and therefore must have Intelligible Evidence of Truth in the thing believed R. I know that Assiance or Trust as it is the act of the Will reposing it self quietly on the Believed fidelity of God is not Intellection But the Assenting act is an Intellection or an Act of Knowledge of a Verity not as Science is narrowly confined to principles but as Knowledge is taken in genere for notitia So to believe is no other than to know that this is true because God saith it Joh. 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ c. Joh. 3.2 We know that thou art a Teacher come from God for no man could do such works c. Joh. 21.24 We know that his testimony is true See Rom. 7.14 8.28 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if this earthly house c. 1 Tim. 1.8 1 Joh. 3.2 Joh. 8.28 32. 1 Cor. 15.58 We know that our Labour is not in vain c. Therefore your denying the certainty where the evidence is most notorious and telling men of Meriting if they will but believe your Church without any Evidence of certainty is a meer cheat The ninth Principle That Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Saviour of the World and that Christianity is the true Religion and Gods appointed sufficient way to Heaven
time And the occasion of it was a particular Protestation of the German Princes and not directly a Protesting against Popery R. It is not Names but Religion which we dispute of And it is that which each party Professeth to be their Religion Therefore you must take our Profession or you change the subject of the dispute And we profess that the Law of Nature which no sober man questioneth and the Scriptures are All our Religion Therefore if you please you shall suppose that the name Protestant were not now in the world It doth not signifie our Religion But we now use it to signifie our Protesting against Popery or that we agree in substance and in rejecting Popery with those that made that particular Protestation mentioned by you Names are oft given from accidents as Africanus Germanicus Britannicus c. to several Roman Captains when yet their Humanity was the same before they were so named P. Turks Socinians Quakers c. Protest against Popery It seems then they are Protestants too and your companions R. 1. Thus some men study to deceive by turning from the question to another Our question I tell you is Whether the Religion of the Protestants be Infallible and not Whence is their name 2. But by a Protestant we mean only one that taketh the Scripture for the Rule and Christianity for the Essence of his Religion Which no one doth that denyeth any essential part of it If we do so prove it and you shall have our answer How do you judge of any man among your selves that taketh Gods word proposed by your Church for his Religion and yet mistaketh the Church in any point As Durandus that thought the matter of Bread continues whom Bellarmine yet denyeth to be an Heretick So is it with any among us that mistake the sence of Scripture in some such point When a Name is put upon any person or party from a common accident you may if you will call all by that name which that accident agreeth to And so Papists are called by some Non-conformists now in England because they Conform not But the world knoweth well enough that it is Protestants which are commonly meant by that name and not Papists Quakers Seekers c. though these conform not And so you may say if it please your self that Turks Jews Heathens Socinians Quakers Ranâ—ers are Protestants because they Protest against or reject Popery But the world knoweth who is meant by the Name Even Christians rejecting proper Popery And for my part I deal openly with you I care not if the name Protestant were utterly cast aside If any man be so deceived by it as 1. Either to think that it signifieth the Essence of our Religion unless you mean as we Protest for Christianity 2. Or that we take those called Protestants for the whole Catholick Church they make it an occasion of their own deceit Names of distinction are used because men know not else readily how to speak intelligibly of one another without circumlocutions And then cometh the Sectarian and taketh his Party for all the Church at least which he may lawfully Communicate with and the name of his party to notifie his Religion And then comes the crafty Papist and pretends from hence that such a named Religion is new and asketh you where was there any e. g. Protestants before Luther My Religion is naked Christianity the same as is where the name of a Protestant is not known and as was before it was known and as if the name of the Pope had never been known But now the Pope and his Monarchical Vsurpation over all the world are risen and known I am one of those that protest against them as being against Christianity which is my Religion But so as to addict my self to the opinions of no man or party that opposeth them wholly and absolutely and beyond evidence of truth I take the Reformed Churches to be the soundest in the world But I take their Confessions to be all the Imperfect expressions of men and the Writings of Protestant Divines to be some more clear and sound and some more dark empty and less sound and in many things I differ from many of them Choose now whether you will call me a Protestant or not I tell you my Religion which is simple Christianity Names are at your own Will I could almost wish that there were no name known besides that of CHRISTIAN as notifying our faith and Religion in the Christian world Though as notifying Heresie and sin there must be proper names as in Rev. the name Nicolaitans is used Even the word Catholick had long a narrower sense in the Empire with many than I now own it in Though as it signifieth One that is of the Church Vniversal loveth Vniversally all true Christians and hath Communion with them in Faith Love and Hope so I like it and am A CATHOLICK CHRISTIAN I dispute for nothing else I perswade this person here in Doubt to nothing else but 1. To hold fast to true and meer Christianity 2. To Reject all in Popery or any other Sect that is Evidently against it 3. To suspend his belief of all that 's doubtful and to receive nothing as a part of Divine faith or Religion till he be sure that indeed it is of God And now these Principles being supposed let us proceed and try whether Popery be of God or not PART III. The Protestants Reasons against Popery D. I Have heard what you have said in stating the Protestants Religion I now expect to hear what Reasons you have against that which you call Popery And afterwards that you prove all that you charge upon it But I adjure you first that you say nothing but what you believe in your conscience to be the truth as one that looketh to be judged for it R. With many Papists confident and vehement protestations go instead of Arguments and we oft hear them say If this be not true I am content to be torn in a thousand pieces We will seal it with our blood We will lay our salvation on it And do you think we have not souls to save c. Which is much like as if they would end all Controversies by laying Wagers that they are in the right or by protesting that they are honester and credibler men than their adversaries And it is no more than a Quaker or other such Sectary will say the most proud and ignorant being usually the most confident But yet though I expect not that you should receive any thing from me upon Protestations but upon Proofs I will here promise you that I will charge nothing on the Papists but what in my Conscience I am verily perswaded to be true The Reasons which resolve me against Popery are these and such like I. Reason Their Doctrine of Transubstantiation is so notoriously false and inhumane even contrary to the fullest ascertaining evidence that mankind can expect on earth viz. for all men on pain
give them no peace or quietness in the World unless they will say that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses are herein deceived by God as the great deceiver of the World CHAP. II. The Papists Answers to all this confuted P. IT is easie to make any cause seem odious till the accusations are answered which I shall confidently do in the present case I. All this is but argument from sense And sense must vail to faith Gods word must be believed before our senses R. It is easie to cheat fools and children into a dream with a sound of empty words To talk of senses vailing to faith and such like Canting and insignificant words may serve turn with that sort of men But sober men will tell you that sense is in exercise in order of Nature at least before Reason or faith and that we are Men and Animals before we are Christians And that the truth and certainty of faith presupposeth the Truth and Certainty of sense Tell me else if sense be false how you know that there is a Man or Pope or Priest in the World that there is a Book or Voice or any being And what possibility then have you of Believing P. Gods Revelation is surer than our senses R. This is the old song over and over Revelation without sense to you and ordinary Christians at least is a contradiction How know you that God hath any revelations If by preachers words How know you that there is a preacher or a word but by sense If by books How know you that there is a book but by sense P. II. We may trust sense in all other things where God doth not contradict it But not in this One Case because God forbiddeth us R. Say so of your Church too your Pope Council or Traditions that we may trust them in all cases save one or two in which it is certain that they do lye And will not any man conclude that he that can lye in one case can lye in more If one Text of Gods word were false and you would say You may believe all the rest save that how will you ever prove it For the formal object of faith is gone which is the Divine Veracity He that can lye once can lye twice So if all our senses be false in this instance how shall we know that they are ever true P. You may know it because God saith it R. 1. Where doth God say it 2. How shall I be sure that he saith it If you say that it is written in Scripture besides that there is no such word How shall I know that all mens senses are not deceived in thinking that there is a Scripture or such a word in it If you say that the Council saith it How shall I know that there is a man or ever was a Council or a Book in the world The certainty of Conclusions presupposeth the certainty of premises and principles And the certainty of faith and Reasoning presupposeth the certainty of sense And if you deny this you deny all and in vain plead for the rest P. I must believe my senses where I have no reason to disbelieve them But when God contradicteth them I have reason to disbelieve them R. 1. You vainly suppose without proof that God contradicteth them So you may say I may or must believe the Scripture or an Apostle Prophet or Miracle except God contradict them But if God contradict them he contradicteth his own word or revelation For we have no other from him but by man And if he contradict himself or his own word how can I believe him or know which of his words it is that 's true when one is false so here His Natural Revelation is his first nearest and most satisfactory revelation And if that be said to be false by his supernatural revelation which shall I believe and why P. III. You cannot deny but God can deceive our senses And therefore if he can will you conclude against all faith if once he do it R. 1. This is not once but as oft as God is worshiped in your Mass and our Sacrament 2. God can deceive us without a Lie but not by a Lie Christ deceived the two Disciples Luke 24. by carrying it as if he would have gone further but not by saying that he would go further God can do that from which he knoweth that man will take occasion of deceit God can blind a mans eyes or destroy or corrupt his other senses he can present an object defectively with unmeet mediums distance site c. In this case he doth not give us a FALSE SIGN nor doth he by the Nature of the Revelation oblige any man to believe it Yea Nature saith that a man is not to Judge by a vitiated sense or an unmeet medium or a too distant object or where the due qualification of the sense or object are wanting Nature there tells us that we are there to suppose or suspect that we are uncapable of certainty But Nature obligeth us to believe sound senses about duly qualified objects and to take sense for sound when all the senses of all the men in the world agree and the object to be a duly qualified object of sense when all mens senses in the world so perceive it For we have no way but by sense to know what is an object of sense 3. The question is not what God can do by his power if he will but what God will do and can will to do in consistency with his perfection and just and merciful Government of the World And God in making us men whose Intellects are naturally to perceive things sensible by the means of the perception of sense doth naturally oblige man and necessitate him also to trust his senses in such perception And in Nature man hath no surer way of apprehension Therefore if you could prove that sense is ordinarily fallible and Gods revelations to it false yet man were not only allowed but necessitated to use and trust it as having no better surer way of apprehension As among many knaves or lyars I must most trust the honestest and most trusty when I have no better to trust If I am not sure that it is a Sun or Light that I see yet I am sure that I must take my perception of it as a Sun or Light as it is For God hath given me no better If I am not sure that my sight feeling taste c. are infallible yet I am sure that I am made of God to use them and that I have no better senses nor a better way to be certain of their proper objects so that I must take and trust them as they are or cease to be a man P. IV. Christs Body and Blood are not sensible objects and therefore sense is no proper judge whether they be present R. This is one of your gross kind of cheats to change the question We are not yet come to the
blood which is shed for you 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the new Testament in my blood And here no man denyeth a double Trope at least no man expoundeth it that the Cup or the Wine was the New Testament it self And yet it is as expresly said as it is that the Bread is the Body it self How then will they prove that one is spoken properly and the other figuratively III. There is no more found in these words to assert the Bread to be Christs Body than is found in a multitude of such phrases in Scripture asserting things which all men expound otherwise As in Joh. 15.1 I am the Vine and my Father is the husbandman Joh. 10.7 9. I am the door Joh. 10.14 I am the good Shepherd and know my Sheep Psal 22.6 I am a worm and no man which being a prophesie of Christ a Heretick imitating you might deny Christs humanity 1 Cor. 10.4 That Rock was Christ 1 Cor. 12.27 Ye are the body of Christ Mat. 5.13 14. Ye are the Salt of the earth Ye are the lights of the World Joh. 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are Life Abundance such are in the Scripture as All flesh is grass Christ is the Lamb of God the Lyon of the Tribe of Juda the bright Morning Star the head Corner Stone c. And it is yet more fully satisfactory that the Hebrew constantly putteth is for signifieth as you may find in all the old Testament having no other word so fit to express signifying by And as Christ spake after that manner so the New Testament ordinarily imitateth As Daniel and the Revelation agree in saying of the Visions This is such or such a thing instead of this signifieth it So Christ Matth. 13.21 22 23 37 38 39. He that soweth is the Son of man the field is the world the good seed are the Children of the Kingdom the tares are the children of the wicked one the enemy is the Devil the Harvest is the end The reapers are the Angels And thus ordinarily IV. Yea the same kind of phrase used before in the Passeover teacheth us how to expound this Exod. 12.11 Ye shall eat it in haste It is the Lords Passeover vers 27. It is the sacrifice of the Lords Passeover V. Yea the ordinary way and phrase of Christs teaching may yet farther put us out of doubt For he usually taught by Parables and expresseth his sense by such assertions As Matth. 13.3 Behold a sower went out to sow c. Luk. 15.11 12. A certain man had two sons and the younger said c. Luk. 12.16 The ground of a certain Rich man c. Luk. 16.19 There was a certain Rich man c. Mat. 21.28 A certain man had two sons c. Vers 33. There was a certain housholder which planted a Vineyard c. The Gospel aboundeth with such instances which teach us how to interpret these words of Christ VI. But most certainly all those forementioned texts teach it us which expresly call it Bread after the Consecration If we will not believe the Holy Ghost himself who so frequently calleth it bread it is in vain to alledge any text of Scripture in the Controversie Now to feign a course of ordinary Miracles Greater and more than Christs and this to every Priest how ignorant and impious soever to pretend that every Pope and Bishop can for money sell the Holy Ghost or the Gift of Miracles in Ordination and all this when no eye seeth the Miracles when it is confessed that Angels cannot naturally see it yea when all mens senses perceive the contrary and all this because that Christ said This is my Body while abundance such sayings in Scripture yea the words about the Cup it self are confessed to be tropical and when the Scripture expresly telleth us that there is Bread Judge whether it be possible for Satan to have put a greater scorn upon the Christian faith or a greater scandal before the enemies of it or a greater hinderance to the Worlds Conversion than to tell them you must renounce not only your Humanity but all common sense if you will be Christians and be saved or suffered to enjoy your estates and lives VII Lastly It is ordinary with their subtilest Schoolmen to confess that this their doctrine of Transubstantiation cannot be proved from Scripture and that they believe it only because their Church saith it which must be believed and because that by the same spirit which wrote the Scripture the Church is taught thus to expound it So that all their faith of this is by them resolved into a phanatick pretence of Inspiration As I have elsewhere shewed out of Durandus Paludanus Scotus Ockam Quodl 6. li. 5. q. 31. Rada vol. 4. Cont. 7. a. 1. pag. 164 165. And no General Council ever determined it till that at Rome under Innoc. 3. Where saith Matth. Paris many decrees were proposed or brought in by the Pope which some liked and some disliked And this was 1215 years after Christs birth And Stephanus Aeduensis is the first in whom the name of Transubstantiation is found about the year 1100. CHAP. VIII Arg. 6. From the Nature of a Sacrament Arg. 6. THat Doctrine which by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament is false The Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation by consequence denyeth the Lords Supper to be a true Sacrament Therefore the Papists doctrine of Transubstantiation is false The Major I know no man that will deny that we have now to deal with The Minor needeth no other proof than the common definition of a Sacrament and Christs own description of this Sacrament in the Scripture I. Aquinas concludeth 3. q. 60. a. 1. that a Sacrament is a sign and a. 2. that it is a sign of a thing sacred as it sanctifieth men and a. 3. that it is a Rememorative sign of Christs passion a demonstrative sign of Gods Grace and a prognosticating sign of future Glory And a. 4. that it must be Res sensibilis a sensible thing it being natural to man to come to the knowledge of things intelligible by things sensible and the Sacrament signifieth to man spiritual and intelligible Goods and a. 5. that they must be things of Divine determination c. But 1. If the Bread and Wine be gone there is nothing left to be a sign a Real sensible sign to lead us to the knowledge of spiritual and intelligible things If they say that the species of Bread and Wine is the sensible sign what mean they by that cheating word species Not the specifying form or matter but only the outward appearance And is it a true or a false appearance If True then there is Bread and Wine If false it is a false sign And what is that false appearance which God maketh a Sacrament of It is plainly nothing but the Accidents of Bread and Wine without the substance But 1. When they take the Cup from the
Full and Easie SATISFACTION WHICH IS THE TRUE AND SAFE RELIGION In a CONFERENCE Between D. A DOUBTER P. A PAPIST and R. A REFORMED CATHOLICK CHRISTIAN In Four Parts I. The true stating of our Difference and opening what each Religion is II. The true easie and full Justification of the Reformed or Protestant Religion III. The Protestants Reasons and Charges against Popery enumerated IV. The first Charge viz. Against Transubstantiation made good In which Popery is proved to be the SHAME OF HUMANE NATURE notoriously contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the Judgement of the Antient and the Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels By Richard Baxter London Printed for Nev. Simmons at the Princes Arms in St. Pauls Church-yard 1674. and still continueth so to do And while I can say that I know of no Nobleman living who hath read more of my Writings than You have done all that know the End of Writing will consent that there is no Noble Name which I should prefer And as I long ago read in the Learned Spanhemius's Dedication of his Dubia Evangelica p. 3. to You well joyned with the famous Usher the predication of Your Judicium supra aetatem maturum rerum omnium cognitione subactum pectus and that as attested by the Illustrious Duke of Rohane the Most Sagacious Arbiter of ingenies And years and experience have been long adding to Your knowledge Being not a stranger to the Truth of this my self I have great reason to be Ambitious to stand right in Your esteem For who reverenceth the Judgement of ignorant Readers Or doth not reverence the Judgement of the Wise And therefore to give You an account of my self and of this writing Since I overgrew that Religion which is taken up most on humane trust by increasing knowledge I increased mens displeasure and my judgement not falling just into the mold of any Sect among Church-dividers there is scarce any Sect which doth not according to their various interests signifie their displeasure Some only by Magisterial Censures more credibly acquainting the world what they are themselves than what I am or what is my judgement But from others I take a meer slander for Clemency and as Philostratus saith de Dicto Phavorini Et dum Socratis cicutam non bibam aereâ privari statuâ non laedit Simple Christianity is my Religion I determine to know nothing but Christ Crucified and Glorified And I am past all doubt that till simple Christianity become the terms of Church-Unity and Concord the Church will never see Unity or Concord which shall prove universal or durable So certain am I that the Wits of the Learned much less of the Community of vulgar Christians will never arrive at the stature of Concord in numerous and difficult points Nor the marvellous diversity of Educations occasions temperatures and capacities be ever united in any thing but what is plain and simple And as Certain am I that the Universal Conscience of true believers will never unite in any thing which is not evidently divine And yet as certain am I that the forsaking of the determination of the Holy Ghost and the Apostles Acts 15.28 and of Pauls Decision Rom. 14. 15. hath been the Engine of Church-Divisions and many calamitous distractions to this day And that that blessed Prince who must have the honour and comfort of beginning the true healing and Concord of the Churches must pare off all their superfluities and leave them at best among their things indifferent and unite them on the terms of simple Christianity And as to Popery I have certainly found that the Cross Interests and Passions of Disputers have made us though really too distant to seem commonly about many Doctrinals more distant than indeed we are And that it had been better with us if such men as judicious Ludov. le Blank had had the stating of our Controversies at the first that differing words and methods might not have passed with either side for damnable errors in the faith I mean in the points of fore-knowledge predestination providence predetermination concurse original sin free-will universal Redemption sufficient Grace effectual Grace the nature of Faith Justification Sanctification Merit Good Works Certainty of Justification and of Salvation Perseverance c. For my knowing this to be true I am censured by those on one extream as too favourable to the Papists being indeed an Enemy to injury calumny uncharitableness or cruelty to any in the world But I am much more displeasing to the Roman party Because I know that One man is naturally uncapable of being the Monarch of all the world That the King of Rome as the Geographia Nubiensis calls him was never by Christ made King of Kings and Lord of Lords That he never was nor can be a Pastor at the Antipodes and over all the Earth or as far as Drake and Candish did Navigate That it 's a sorry Argument Monarchy is the best Government Ergo An universal Monarchy is best That the Government setled in Nature and Scripture is for Princes to rule Churchmen and all by the Sword and the Pastors of all particular Churches to rule their Congregations by the Church-Keys that is by the Word using Synods for due concord and correspondency And this much will do better than all the stir that the Clergies Ambition hath made in the world I know that the Pope standeth on no better a foundation than the other four Patriarchs And that he was but the chief Prelate or Patriarch in one Empire as the Archbishop of Canterbury is in England And that the Greek Church never took his Primacy in that one Empire to be of Divine Right For if they had they had never set up the Patriarch of Constantinople against him who never claimed his Primacy as jure Divino I know that the great Council of Chalcedon decreed Act. 16. Bin. 734. We following alwayes the definitions of the holy Fathers and the Canon have our selves also defined the same things concerning the Priviledges of the same Most Holy Church of Constantinople New Rome For to the Seat of Old Rome because of the Empire of that City the Fathers consequently gave the Priviledges And the one hundred and fifty Bishops most beloved of God being moved with the same intention have given equal Priviledges to the Most Holy Seat of New Rome Reasonably Judging that the City adorned with the Empire and Senate shall enjoy equal Priviledges with Old Regal Rome I know that their late Bishop of Chalcedon saith against Bishop Bramhall Survey pag. 69. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is St. Peters Successor and this all Fathers testifie But whether he be so jure Divino vel humano is no point of faith Vid. Bellarm. 1.2 de Pont. l. 12. And Holden Analys fid l. 1. c. 9. p. 161. Multa sunt quae traditione universa firmiter innituntur puta S. Petrum fuisse Romae
it me with such evidence as may make it indeed my own The Lord Unite us by Truth Love and Humility Amen Septemb. 1. 1673. Richard Baxter THE CONTENTS PART I. WHat is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists pag. 1. Chap. 1. The occasion of the Conference with an humbling consideration to staggerers ibid. Chap. 2. The Conditions of the Conference p. 6. Chap. 3. What is the Religion of the Protestants Of the name Protestant The Augustane and other Confessions The thirty nine Articles The Essentials of Christianity to be distinguished from the Integrals and Accidentals p. 9. Chap. 4. What is the Papists Religion out of Veron Davenport c. p. 25. PART II. Fourteen Principles in which the Papists and Protestants seem agreed by which the Protestant Religion is by the Papists confessed and maintained to be all true p. 40. PART III. Twenty five Charges against Popery enumerated to be all in order proved as Reasons why no one that hath Religion or Sense and Reason should turn Papist p. 61. PART IV. The first Charge made good viz. against Transubstantiation In which Popery is fully proved to be the shame of Humane Nature contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTVRE and TRADITION or the Judgement of the antient and the present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels p. 75. Chap. 1. The first Reason to prove that there is Bread after the Consecration from the certainty of the Intellects Perception by the means of sense ibid. Twenty Reasons against the denying of common senses p. 77. Chap. 2. The Papists Answers to all this confuted p. 88. Chap. 3. The second Argument against Transubstantiation from the contradictions of it p. 96. Chap. 4. The third Argument from the certain falshood of their multitudes of feigned Miracles in Transubstantiation Thirty one Miracles in it enumerated with Twenty aggravations of those Miracles p. 99. Chap. 5. The Minor proved viz. That these Miracles are false or feigned p. 110. Chap. 6. Arg. 4. Transubstantiation contrary to the express Word of God p. 117. Chap. 7. Arg. 5. All these Miracles are proofless yea the Scripture abundantly directeth us otherwise to expound This is my Body p. 123. Chap. 8. Arg. 6. Transubstantiation nullifieth the Sacrament p. 128. Chap. 9. The Novelty of Transubstantiation as contrary to the faith of the antient Christians And the singularity contrary to the Judgement and Tradition of most of the Christian world p. 132. Chap. 10. The second part of the Controversie That it is not Christs very flesh and blood into which the Bread and Wine is turned p. 146. Chap. 11. The Conclusion The Scandal of our difference removed Whether the falshood of one Article prove the Papists foundation false Whether it do so by the Protestants Whether Papists have any more Infallibility than others The necessity of discerning the Essentials of Christianity The distinction of Explicite and Implicite faith considered How come so many Princes Nobles Learned men and whole Nations to be Papists All Christians besides Papists are of one Church though of many opinions How come so many among us at home of late inclinable to Popery What hope of Concord with the Papists How to help them off their Councils Snares in the point of Transubstantiation Of their denying the Cup to the Laity p. 152. Reader I Hope the Printers Errata are not many and I am discouraged from gathering them because I see men had rather err themselves and calumniate the Author than take notice of them So hath Mr. Danvers done by me in a Book against Infant Baptism where as an Introduction to abundance of mistakes in History he abuseth his Reader by several scraps of a Book of mine so curtail'd as to be insufficient to signifie the sense And among them feigneth me to write Chr. Direct p. 3. pag. 885. l. 13. to Institute Sacraments as that which man may do instead of Nor to Institute Sacraments and so maketh his credulous flock to believe that I assert that very thing which I write against Though the place was markt with a Star in the Errata and the Reader desired specially to Correct it But such dealing is now grown so common with such men that we must bear it as the effect of their disease PART I. What is the Protestants Religion and what the Papists CHAP. I. The occasion of the Conference D. SIR I am come to crave your help in a matter of great importance to me I was bred a Protestant but the Discourses of some Roman Catholicks have brought me into great doubts whether I have not been all this while deceived And though I cannot dispute the case my self with you I desire you to dispute it in my hearing with a Catholick Priest whom I shall bring to you R. With all my heart But let me first ask you a few Questions Quest 1. Did you ever understand what the Protestants Religion is D. I take it to be the 39 Articles Liturgie and Government of the Church of England R. No wonder if you be easily drawn to doubt of that Religion which you no better understand Can you hold it and not know what it is Quest 2. Do you know what it is to be a Christian D. It is to believe in Christ and to Love and obey Him Our Baptism is our Christening R. Very true And in your Baptism you are Dedicated and Vowed to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost renouncing the Lusts of the Flesh the World and the Devil Quest 3. And have you been a true Christian and lived according to this Vow Have you obeyed God more than the desires of your flesh Have you preferred the Kingdom of Heaven before all the pleasures honours and riches of this world Have you sincerely submitted to the healing saving Doctrine Law and example of Christ and to the sanctifying motions of his Holy Spirit And have you lived soberly righteously and Godlily in the world and made it your care and business to deny your self and mortifie all fleshly inordinate desires as it is the care of sensual men to gratifie them D. I have had my faults as all men have but I hope none can say but I have lived honestly towards all And if I have been faulty in drinking sports or gaming it hath been to no ones injury but my own R. I ask you not whether you are a sinner For so are all men But whether you are a truly Penitent Converted sinner and whether yet you are true to your Baptismal Vow and Covenant Can your Conscience say that you Love and Trust and obey God and your Redeemer before all the world and that you love not Pleasure Riches and Honour more than God and Holiness and Heaven and that it is more of the care and business of your life to Know and Love and serve God better and to make sure of your salvation than to please your flesh or prosper in the world In a word Do you heartily and in
You hear his conditions you shall hear my answer 1. The Case which you told me you were in doubt of and desired satisfaction in was Which is the True and Safe Religion This he refuseth to Dispute Pretending that we cannot dispute of our whole Religion at once But did you never hear him give any Reasons against our Religion If he have Why can he not do it now I expect not all in a word but let him give them one by one and say his worst I am sure I can give you many against theirs And we will after debate them particularly as largely as you please 2. If Writing be it that you desire for your satisfaction I ask you whether you have read all or the fourth part of what is written against Popery already Have you read Dr. Challoner of the Catholick Church Dr. White Dr. Field Dr. Downame of Antichrist Chillingworth Dr. Abbot Dr. Willet Bishop Vsher Bishop Morton Dr. Stillingfleet and an hundred more Why should I expect that you should read what I shall write if you will not read what 's written already 3. Can you stay so long unresolved without injury to your soul till he and I have done writing You cannot but know that from Sheets we must proceed to the writing of Volumes in answering each other as others have done And this is like to be many years work for men that have other business And how know you that we shall all Live so long 4. Are you able when it cometh to tedious Volumes to examine them and find who is in the right Or will you not rather take him to conquer who hath the last word And it 's like that will be the longest liver 5. And as to a strict syllogistical form do you understand that best I avoid it not but shall consent to use it as far as you understand it Do you know all the Logical forms of arguing all Moods and Figures and all the fallacies Or do you not perceive that you have broken your promise with me and brought a friend of darkness who cometh purposely to hide the truth D. I must needs profess that the Question which I would have debated is Which is the True and Safe Religion And that it is not tedious writings nor long delayes but present conference which must satisfie me And that it is plain Scripture and Reason that must satisfie me who understand not Logick I pray let me hear your own Conditions which you think more just R. The Conditions which the nature of the Cause directeth us to are these I. That we first truly state the question to be disputed For we cannot dispute till we are agreed of what That is 1. That we agree what we mean by our Religion and 2. That I tell you what is the Religion of Protestants which I undertake to defend And that he tell us what is the Religion of the Romanists which must be compared with it II. That our Conference consist of these several parts 1. That premising the principles in which we are agreed I tell you the Reasons why you should not be a Papist 2. That he tell you the Reasons why you should turn Papist or what he hath against Our Religion 3. That then we come to dispute these Reasons distinctly where I will prove my charges against them and he shall prove his charges against us one by one III. And that in all our disputes we shall consent 1. Not to interrupt each other in speech but if the length seem to overmatch the hearers memory we will take brief Notes to help our memories as we go and crave the recitation of what shall be forgotten For the strength of Truth lyeth so much in the connexion of its parts that when it is mangled into scraps by uncivil interruptions it is deformed and debilitated and cannot be well understood 2. That we bind our selves by solemn promise to speak nothing which we unfeignedly judge not to be truth nor any thing designedly to hide or resist the truth which we discern These terms are so just and necessary that I will avoid him as a fraudulent wrangler who will deny them For I come not to scold nor to try who hath the strongest Lungs the nimblest Tongue or the lowdest voice or the greatest confidence or fiercest passion but to try who hath the truth and which is the true way to Heaven For the servant of the Lord must not strive especially about words and barren notions for that doth but tend to increase ungodliness D. Your Method is so reasonable and so suited to my own necessity that I must profess no other can so much tend to my satisfaction And therefore I hope it will not be refused Here after long opposition the P. at last agreeth to these terms CHAP. III. What is the Religion of the Protestants R. I. THe word Religion is sometimes taken Objectively And so I mean by it The objects of Religious Belief Love and Practice which are 1. The Things themselves which are the principal objects called by Logicians The Incomplex terms 2. The organical object or the Revelation of these Things containing 1. The Words or other Signs 2. The sense or notions signified For instance Matth. 17.5 This is my Beloved son in whom I am well pleased Here 1. The Real Incomplex object is Christ Himself the beloved Son of God and God the Fathers well-pleasedness in him 2. The signal part of the organical object or Revelation is the Words themselves as spoken then and written now 3. The signified notions are the Meaning of the words and are the chief part of the organical object that is the Divine Revelation The word Religion is of larger extent in its sense than Faith For it containeth all that Revelation which God hath made Necessary to salvation which is twofold 1. That which is to inform the understanding with necessary knowledge and faith 2. That which is necessary to a Holy Will and a Holy Life to the Love of God and man and to well doing which are Precepts Promises and Threatnings II. The word Religion is oft taken also subjectively as they speak For the Acts and habits of Love and Obedience Now I suppose we are agreed that it is not Religion in this last sense that we are to dispute of which is as divers as persons are But it is that which we call Objective Religion even the Organical part directly And if by all this D. understandeth us not in plainer words our Question is Of the True Divine Revelation viz. Which is the True Rule of Faith Will and Practice that which is held to be such by the Protestants or that which is held to be such by the Papists P. I grant you that this is the state of the Question R. I here declare to you then What is the Religion of the Protestants IT IS THE LIGHT and LAW OF GOD CONCERNING HOLY KNOWLEDGE and BELIEF HOLY WILL and PRACTICE CONTAINED IN NATURE and THE
TRUE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES Here note 1. That our Religion hath its Essential parts And its Integral parts and Accidentals I. The Essentials of our Religion are contained in the Baptismal Covenant which is expounded in the CREED the LORDS PRAYER and the DECALOGUE as delivered and expounded by Christ and the Law of Nature II. Our Entire Religion in the Essentials Integrals and needful Accidentals is contained wholly in the Law of Nature and the Canonical Scriptures The Essentials are delivered down to us two wayes 1. In Scripture with the rest 2. By the sure tradition of the Vniversality of Christians in actual Baptizings and the daily profession of Christianity This is all the Protestants Religion If you fasten any other on us we deny it we own no other And none know What is my Religion that is What I take for the Rule of my holy Faith Love and Life so well as my self P. This is meer craft you will make that only which is past controversie among us to be Your Religion that so your Religion may be past controversie too R. It is such Craft as containeth that naked truth which we trust all our own salvation on I say that I have no other Religion And if you know better than I disprove me P. I disprove you three wayes I. Because the Name Protestant signifieth no such Religion but somewhat else lately taken up II. Because the Angustane Confession the thirty nine Articles and such like are by your selves called The Articles of your Religion III. Because all your Writings declare that besides these you hold all those controverted points which are contrary to that which you call Popery R. I pray you mark D. that he would perswade you that he knoweth my Religion better than I do my self What if I should pretend the like as to his Religion Were I to be believed P. No but if you have an odd Religion of your own that proveth it not to be the Protestant Religion R. Remember D. that I come not hither to perswade you to any other Religion than this which I have mentioned Let him talk as long as he will what is other mens opinions I perswade you to nothing but this to take Gods Law of Nature and the Scripture for your Religion Either this is Right or Wrong If Right fix here and I have done If Wrong let that be disputed But yet I open to you all his three deceits I. The name Protestant doth not signifie our Religion but our Protesting against the Papists corruptions and additions I have no Religion but Christianity I am a Christian and that signifieth all my Religion I am a Catholick Christian that is of the Common Christian Faith and Church and not of any heretical dividing Sect And I am a Reformed Protestant Christian because I renounce Popery Therefore I rather say The Protestants than the Protestant Religion As if I were among Lepers If I say I am no Leper that signifieth not my Essence But if I say I am a Man and I am not a Leper I speak my Nature and my freedom from that disease So if I say I am a Christian Protestant I mean only that I am a Christian and no Papist or renouncing Popery as by the word Catholick I renounce all Sects and Schisms I tell you This is my meaning when I say I am a Protestant and can you tell my meaning better than my self II. And as to what he saith of the thirty nine Articles and other Church Confessions I answer None of these are our Religion in the sense now in question that is They are not taken by us to be the Divine Revealed-Rule of our Faith Love and Life which is our Religion now disputed of And that this is so I prove to you past all question For 1. Else should we have as many Religions as we have Church Confessions and should alter our Religion as oft as we alter our Confessions and our Religion should be as New as those Confessions All which the Protestants abhor 2. All those very Confessions themselves do assert that Gods Word is our only Religion and all mens Writings and Decrees are lyable to mistakes To pass by all the rest these are the words of our sixth Article Holy Scripture containeth all things Necessary to salvation so that whatsoever is not read therein nor may be proved thereby is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an Article of faith or be thought Requisite or necessary to salvation What would you have more plain and full And in the Book of Ordination it is askt Are you perswaded that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ And are you determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge and to teach Nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which you shall be perswaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture Is not this plain P. Why then do you call the thirty nine Articles the Articles of your Religion And what is their use And why are all required to subscribe them R. 1. Their Use is to signifie how the Conjunct Pastors who use them do understand the Holy Scriptures in those points And that partly for the satisfaction of all forreign Churches who may hear us accused of Heresie or Error and partly to be a hedge to the Doctrine of young Preachers to keep them from vending mistakes in the Churches and also to try the soundness of their understandings 2. The Confessions and Articles and Catechisms are our Religion as the Writings of Perron Bellarmine Suarez c. or many of these agreeing are the Roman Religion They are not the Divine Revelation and Rule of faith and practice to us But they are the expression of our own conceptions of the sense of several chief matters in that Rule or Revelation So that they are the Expression of our faith or Religion taken subjectively for acts and habits and not our objective Rule it self Our Sermons and Prayers are our Religion in this sense that is The Expression of our own Religious Conceptions And so are your Sermons and your Writings also to you But if this were our Rule of Faith and Life and so our Divine Objective Religion then we should be of as many Religions as we are several persons For every one hath his several Expressions And every new Sermon or Book or Prayer would be a new part of Religion And so with you also So that this doubt is past all doubt Our Confessions are but the expressions of our personal belief and not our Rule of Faith III. And as to your third pretence that we have other Articles as opposite to Popery I answer Our Religion as a Rule of Faith and Worship is one thing And our Rejecting all Corruptions and Additions is another E. g. My Religion is that our God is only the true God
information of men So the sixth General Council condemned Honorius of Heresie by false Information and misunderstanding his Epistles p. 20. The Pope saith Suarez to a particular action belonging to humane Prudence hath no infallible assistance of the Holy Ghost As that such or such an excommunication is valid or that such or such a Kingdom is disposable by the Pope for such and such causes So far Veron who is most favourable to you in narrowing our faith R. Thus far you have resolved me but I must crave somewhat more Qu. I. Are there no Essential Constitutive parts of your Religion more necessary than the Integrals and Accidentals Have you no description for it but that It is Divine Revelation proposed by the Church The Doctrine of Sacrificing was a Divine Revelation to Adam and the difference of clean and unclean Beasts to Noah and the Jewish Law was Gods Revelation to Moses and them And yet I suppose Christianity is somewhat different from all these Is not Christianity your Religion Hath Christianity no Constitutive special Essence but only the Genus of Divine Revelation which is common to that with all other Divine Revelations And what if you add to a Prophet or Apostle Was Agabus Prophesie of Paul or Pauls of the event of the shipwrack c. essential to Christianity Hath Christianity no Essence Or is all Divine Revelation essential to it P. You take advantage of the disagreement of our Doctors You know that some few acknowledg distinct fundamentals and some deny the distinction in your sense And most of us say that no man can enumerate the things necessary to all but that it dependeth upon mens various capacities educations and means of knowing And in sum that no more is necessary to all to be explicitly believed but that Gods Revelations are true and that All are Gods Revelations which the Church proposeth as such You may take our judgement much from him that cometh nearest to you whom I have heard you much praise as most moderate and judicious viz. Dr. H. Holden Anal. fid l. 1. c 5. Lect. 2. p. 53. Divines disputing of the necessity of points to be believed do commonly tend this way to denote the Articles of things revealed the explicite and express belief whereof is as they opine altogether necessary to all Christians The resolution of which question is among them so doubtful and uncertain as that they are in this as ☞ they are in all things else distracted and divided into various Opinions which they that care for them may seek To me they are as Nothing while the Authors of them profess that they have nothing of Certainty Yea to one that meditateth the matter it self laying by all preoccupation it is most clearly manifest that the Resolution of this question is not only unprofitable that I say not pernicious as it is handled by Divines but also vain and impossible It is unprofitable because no good accrueth by it to souls ☞ It is pernicious while Divines for the most part assert that only One or Two Articles yea as some say no singular Article at all is necessary to be believed of all by an explicite faith For hence however the truth of the matter be the colder Christians taking occasion do little care to obtain that degree of Knowledge in the Mysteries of faith which they might commodiously and easily attain It is Impossible seeing it is Manifest that no particular Rule or Points to be believed or Number of Articles can in this Matter be given or assigned which shall be wholly common and necessary to all Christians For this dependeth on every individual mans natural capacity means of instruction and all the other circumstances of each mans life and disposition which are to each man so special that we can determine of nothing at all that is common to all But I handle the Necessity of points to be Believed in a far other sense For the Articles of the Christian faith which I now call necessary I do not at all understand to be such as all and every one must distinctly know or hold by explicite assent But I mean only such the belief of which is accounted universally by the whole Catholick Church so substantial and essential as that he that will deservedly be esteemed and truly be a member of it must needs adhere to them all at least Implicitely and Indirectly that is by believing whatsoever the holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of divine faith And therefore he is for that cause to be removed from its Communion and Society who shall pertinaciously and obstinately deny the least of them much more if he maintain the contrary while he knoweth and seeth that it is the Universal sentence of that Church that we must adhere to that as an Article of faith And in this sense I will henceforth use the word Necessity R. This might have been said in fewer and plainer words viz. That your Divines herein do commonly err and that perniciously and yet that indeed he is of the same mind viz. that It is impossible to name the Articles necessary to be believed explicitely of all because each mans divers capacity means and circumstances diversifie them to each But that only this one thing is explicitely to be believed That whatsoever the Holy and Universal Church doth Catholickly believe and teach as a Revealed Doctrine and Article of faith is true And therefore that no man must pertinaciously deny any thing which he knoweth the Church so holdeth So that nothing is necessarily to be believed actually and indeed but Gods and the Churches Veracity P. Another of ours that cometh as near you as most openeth this more fully Davenport alias Fr. a Sancta Clara De. Nat. Grat. p. 111 c. As to the Ignorance of those things that are of necessity of Means or End there is difference among the Doctors For Soto 4. d. 5. q. 5. l. de Nat. Grat. c. 12. Vega l. 6. c. 20. sup Trid. hold that now in the Law of Grace there is no more explicite faith required than in the Law of Nature Yea Vega ib. Gabriel 2. d. 21. q. 2. ar 3. 3. d. 21. q. 2. think that in the Law of Nature and in Cases in the Law of Grace some may be saved with only natural knowledge and that the habit of faith is not required Whom Horantius terms men of great name and will not accuse of heresie I would this great mans modesty were more frequent with modern Doctors Yea Alvarez de aux disp 56. with others seemeth to hold that to justification there is not at all required the knowledge of a supernatural object or the supernatural knowledge of the object Others hold That both to Grace and Glory is required an explicite belief of Christ Bonav 3. d. 25 c. Others that at least to salvation is an explicite belief of the Gospel or
But they must be so many as are suited to every ones capacity and means during his life And no man living can know that he understandeth and believeth as much as his capacity and means were in their kind sufficient to Nay there is no man that hath not been culpably ignorant of somewhat which he might have known 2. Mens Sacramental receptions and comforts depend on the Intention of the Priest which no man knoweth 3. Almost all Godly men must expect the fire of Purgatory and consequently none of them can be rationally willing to dye Because this life is better than Purgatory and no man will desire to go from hence into the fire And so by making all men unwilling to dye it destroyeth a heavenly mind and killeth faith and hope and love and holy joy and tempteth men to be worldlings and to love this life better than the next Yea it tempteth men to be afraid of Martyrdom lest dying in Venial sins as all do they go to a Purgatory fire more terrible than Martyrdom XXIII Reason Their Doctrine is not only contrary to many express Texts of Holy Scripture but also contrary to it self One Pope and one Council having decreed one thing and another the clean contrary XXIV Reason All this evil is made more pernicious by that professed Impenitence which is included in the conceit of their Churches Infallibility For they that hold themselves Infallible do profess never to Repent of any thing in which they suppose themselves to be so And as Repentance is the great evidence of the pardon of sin so Impenitency is that mortal sign of an unpardoned soul without which no sin doth qualifie the sinner to be Excommunicated by man or damned by God And a sin materially less is more Mortal unrepented of than a greater truly lamented and forsaken XXV Reason Every honest godly Protestant may be as sure that Popery is false as he is that he is himself sincere and Loveth God and is truly willing to obey him And no man can turn Papist without self-contradiction who is a true Christian and an honest man For by turning Papist he confesseth himself to be before a false-hearted hypocrite who neither Loved God nor sincerely desired to obey him nor was true to his Baptismal Covenant For it is a part of Popery to believe that none are in a state of salvation but the Subjects of the Pope or members of the Papal Church And consequently that no others have true Faith Repentance or Love to God Or else that God is false in promising salvation to all that have true Faith Repentance and Love to God All therefore that know their own hearts to be truly devoted to God are safe from Popery And seeing it is agreed on both sides that none can or ought to turn Papists but ungodly hypocrites or Knaves no wonder if such are deluded by the most palpable deceits and forsaken of God whom they perfidiously forsook I will name you no more If I make these or any one of these good as I undertake to prove them all you will see that I refuse not my self to be a Papist without sufficient cause And yet by this charge you will see that I am none of their extream adversaries I pass by abundance of Doctrinal differences wherein by many they are most deeply charged Not as Justifying them against all or most so charged on them but 1. As giving you those Reasons which most move my self and which I am most able to make good and leaving every one to his proper work 2. And as one that have certainly found out that in many doctrinals seeming to be the matter of our widest difference we are thought by many to differ much more than we do 1. The difference lying most in Words and Logical Notions and various wayes of mens expressing their conceptions 2. And the animosity of men engaged in Parties and Interests against each other causing most to take all in the worst sense and to make each other seem far more erroneous than they are and to turn differing names into damnable heresies And 3. Few men having Will and Skill to state controversies aright and cut off mistaken seeming differences 4. And few having honesty and self-denyal enough to incurr the censure of the ignorant Zealots of their own party by seeming but impartial and just to their adversaries I mean in such points as 1. The Nature of Divine faith Whether it be a perswasion that I am pardoned c. 2. Of Certainty of salvation 3. And Certainty of perseverance 4. Of Sanctification 5. Of Justification 6. Of Good works 7. Of Merit 8. Of Predestination 9. Of Providence and the Cause of Sin 10. Of Free-will 11. Of Grace 12. Of Imputation of Righteousness 13. Of Universal Redemption 14. Of Original Sin and divers others In all which I cannot justifie them but am sure that the difference is made commonly to seem to be that which indeed it is not In the true impartial stating whereof Lud. Le Blanck hath begun to do the Christian Churches most excellent service worthy our great thanks and his bearing all the Censures of the ignorant PART IV. The First Charge made good against Transubstantiation In which Popery is proved to be the Shame of Humane Nature Contrary to SENSE REASON SCRIPTURE and TRADITION or the judgement of the Antient and Present Church devised by Satan to expose Christianity to the Scorn of Infidels CHAP. I. The First Reason to prove Transubstantiation false R. THe Papists Belief of Transubstantiation is that There is a change made of the whole substance of the Bread into the body of Christ and of the whole substance of Wine into his blood Their opinion called their faith hath two parts The first is that There is no more true Proper Bread and Wine after the words of Consecration Hoc est Corpus meum The second is that There is the true proper Flesh and Blood of Jesus Christ under the species as they call them of Bread and Wine It is the first that I shall now prove false And you must not forget the state of the Question which is not Whether Christs Body and Blood be present But Whether there remain any Bread and Wine Arg. I. If there remain no Bread and Wine after the Consecration then all the senses of all the sound men in the world are deceived or all mens perception of these sensible things deceived though there be due magnitude site distance of the object a due abode and a due medium and no depravation of the sense or intellect But this Consequent is notoriously false as shall be proved Therefore Popery is false 1. That all mens senses perceive Bread and Wine or all mens Intellects by their senses will not be denyed Not only Protestants but Greeks Mahometans Heathens Papists all persons perception by sense is here the same Therefore it is sound senses or else there are none sound in the world 2. It is not one
God to be Cruel to Mankind and that under pretence of Grace Even to put such hard Conditions of salvation on man which seem to us impossible to any but mad men or those who by faction have cast their minds into a dream If these be Gods Conditions that no man shall be saved that doth not believe that all his senses and all the senses of all the world are deceived when they perceive Bread and Wine or substance many may take on them to believe it but few will believe it and be saved indeed Reason XI Hereby you make the Gospel or New Covenant to be far harder and more rigorous than either the Law of Moses or the Law of Innocency For neither of these did damn men for believing the agreeing senses of all mankind Perfect Obedience to a perfect nature was fit to be a delight The burdensome Ceremonies had no such Impossibilities in them None of them obliged men to renounce all their senses and to come to Heaven by so hard a way Reason XII You seem to me to Contradict Gods Law and terms of life and to forge the clean contrary as his He saith He that cometh to God must Believe that God is c. and He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned But you seem to me to say in plain effect He that Believeth Gods Natural Revelations to all mens senses shall be damned and that believeth that the said Revelations are false may be saved caeteris paribus Reas XIII And what a thing by this do you mak◠Gods Grace to be Whereas true Grace is the Repaire◠and perfecter of Nature you make it to be the destroye◠and deceiver of Nature The use of Grace according to your faith is to cause men to believe that Gods natural Revelations are false and that all the senses of th◠world in this matter are deceived Whereas a mad ma◠can believe this without Grace Reas XIV By this doctrine you abominably corrupt the Church with hypocrisie while all that will hav◠Communion with you must be forced to profess tha◠all mens senses are thus deceived And can you thin◠that really they can all believe it or rather you◠Church must be mostly made up of gross hypocrites who falsly take on them to believe it when they do not Reas XV. And by this means you make the Vnity of the Church to become a meer Impossibility For you◠condition of union is that men all believe this among other Articles of your faith And that man hath lost o◠vitiated his humanity who can believe and expect tha◠all Christians in the world should ever believe that al◠the senses of all the world are thus deceived You might as well say The Church shall never have Unity till all Christians do believe that David or Christ was a Worm and no man a door a Vine a thief a Rock in proper sense or we shall have no unity till we renounce both our humanity and animality and the light and Law of God in Nature And after this to cry up Vnity and cry down Schism what abominable hypocrisie is it Reas XVI And by this doctrine what bloody inhumanity is become the brand or Character of your Church When you decree Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 3. that all that will not thus renounce their senses and give the lie to Gods natural revelations shall be excommunicated and utterly undone in this World even banished from all that they have and from the Land of their Nativity Yea your Inquisition must torture and burn them and your Writ de hereticis comburendis must be issued out against them to fry them to death in flames if they will not renounce the common senses of mankind Reas XVII And it even amazeth me to think what horrid Tyrants you would thus make all Christian Princes When the said Canon determineth that they shall be first Excommunicate and then cast out of their Dominions which shall be given to others and their subjects absolved from their allegiance and fidelity except they will exterminate all these as hereticks from their Dominions who will not give the lye to all mens senses and to Gods natural Revelations The plain English is ☞ He shall not be the Lord of his own Dominions who will have men to be his subjects or such as will not renounce both their humanity and animality or sense For to perceive substances in genere in specie by sense and to believe or trust the Common senses of all the World about things sensible as being the surest way that we have of perception is as necessary to a Man as Ratiocination is Choose then O ye Princes of the Earth whether you will be Papists and whether you will have no men to be your Subjects even none that believe the senses of themselves and all the world Reas XVIII Thus also your Idolatry exceedeth in absurdity the Idolatry of all the Heathens else in the World Even Canibals and the most barbarous Nations upon Earth For if they call men to Worship an Image the Sun the Moon an Ox or an Onion of which the Egyptians are accused they do but say that some spiritual or celestial numen affixeth his operative presence to this Creature But they never make men swear that there is no Image or Sun or Moon or Ox or Onion left but that the whole substance of it is turned into God or somewhat else Your Absurdities tend to make the grossest Idolatry seem comparatively to yours a very fair and tolerable errour Reas XIX By these means you expose Christianity to the scorn of humane nature and all the world You teach Heathens Mahometans and other Infidels to deride Christ as we do Mahomet and to say that a Christian Maketh and Eateth his God and his faith is a Believing that Gods supernatural Revelations are a lie and that God is like the Devil the great Deceiver of the world Wo be to the world because of offences and wo be to him by whom offence cometh Reas XX. Lastly by this means you are the grand pernicious hinderers of the Conversion of the Heathen and Infidel world For you do as it were proclaim to them Never turn Christians till you will believe that Gods Natural Revelations are false and that all mens senses in the world are deceived in judging that there is Bread Wine or sensible substance after the words of Consecration These are the mischievous Consequents of your doctrine But one benefit I confess doth come by occasion of it that it is easier hereby to believe that there are Devils when we see how they can deceive men and to believe the evil of sin when we see how it maketh men mad and to believe that there is a Hell when we see such a Hell already on Earth as Learned Pompous Clergie men that have studied to attain this malignant madness to decree to fry men in the flames and damn them to Hell and
question Whether Christs Body and blood be here And I grant you that sense is no judge of that any more than whether an Angel be here But the question is now only Whether Bread or Wine or sensible substance be here And of this we have no natural way but by sense to judge P. V. If God should say to you Your senses are in this deceived Here is no bread or wine or sensible substance Would you not believe him R. 1. Again I tell you it is a supposition not to be put As if you should say If God should say that part of the Gospel or word of God is false would you not believe him 2. If I know that God telleth me that some disease or false medium c. deceive me or another in particular I will believe him But here it is supposed 1. That I have assurance that it is God that tells me so 2. And that I have no assurance that common sense saith the contrary But if the sense of all the world about a well scituate object of sense agree I will not take that to be Gods word which contradicteth it till I have some evidence which is better and stronger than the agreeing senses of all the world to prove it to be so And what evidence must that be I assure you somewhat greater than the authority of a beastly ignorant murdering Pope and his factious Council P. VI. Cartesius giveth you an instance of deception of sight We think a square Tower of a Steeple to bâ— round till we come neer it And the water seemeth to us to move when it is the boat R. Cartesius and you do seem to be Confederate to put out the eye of nature and tempt the world to Infidelity if not to Atheism 1. Nature tells us that a distanâ— Steeple or other object is not perfectly discernible and therefore Nature forbiddeth us to judge till wâ— come neerer We speak only of objects duly scituate anâ— qualified 2. The failing of the sight there is but Negative It discerneth not the corners but here yoâ— feign it to be positive 3. As the errour is corrigiblâ— by nearer approach so also by the use of other senseâ— If a man feel the Tower that is square he will infallibly perceive it But if you could prove that this squarâ— Tower is no Tower no Stone no Substance at all thougâ— all the world should judge otherwise that see it at thâ— meetest distance and feel it with their hands then you did something to the purpose So as to the moving water or banks 1. Motion is not so evident as substance 2. Though one sense through the weakness of the brain be insufficient the Intellect by the same sense about other objects and by other senses can infallibly discern what that one perceiveth not 3. And if one mans eyes deceive him who is in the boat ten thousand mens eyes that stand on the firm land perceive the truth But in our case it is all the senses of all the world in all ages about the neerest object that agree P. VII Substance is not the proper object of sense but only Accidents We see feel taste smell the accidents but not the substances R. 1. If you can name some notional speculator or Word-maker that hath said so you think you have authority to renounce humanity by it Call it proper or not-proper substance is the certain object of sense as cloathed with its accidents Quantity and the res quanta are not two things but one And he that feeleth or seeth quantity feeleth or seeth the rem quantam He that seeth or feeleth shape or figure seeth or feeleth the thing figured He that smelleth odor smelâ—eth rem odoratam He that seeth Colour seeth the rem coloratam When to feel the superficies you feel â—he substance 2. By this we see how by words you will unman mankind Have you any way of perception of corporal substances but by sense Do you know that there is any Earth or Water or any corporal substance in the world or not If you do tell us how you know it but by the â—erception of sense presenting it to the Intellect You know that you must thus know it or not at all 3. And thus still you would bring men with Scepticism to Infidelity You would teach men that they that saw Christ were not sure that they saw him or any substance at all but only the accidents called Quantity Shape Colour c. They that saw Apostles Miracles Bibles Councils were not sure that they saw any more than accidents c. P. VIII They that saw Angels appearing to them like men or the Holy Ghost descending on Christ in the shape of a Dove thought they saw Men and a Dove So Moses Rod did seem a Serpent But their senses did deceive them R. Their senses were not at all deceived And if by rash judging they would go beyond sense and wilfully deceive themselves it was their fault Their sense saw the shape or likeness of a man and dove The text saith not that the Holy Ghost was a dove but that it descended in the likeness of a Dove and their senses perceived no more And this was true A man consisteth of a soul and a body of flesh and blood Did sense perceive any of this in the Angels either soul flesh or blood or any such thing in the appearance of a dove If I see your picture or statue is my sense deceived if I take it not for a living man It I see it moved is my sense deceived if I take it not for any other than a moving Image Nature doth not bind me to take every simile to be idem a corps for a man an Image for the person It will be foolishness so to take it But if this Angel or Dove had come near to the senses all the senses of all sorts of men and they had seen and felt and tasted and smelt all that are the objects of these senses and yet there had been indeed no visible tactible sensible substance at all this had been a deception of the senses remediless Christ I am sure appealed to sense to prove that he had flesh and blood and was not a meer spirit The same I say of Moses Rod either it was really a Serpent or not If it was then it was no deception to judge it such If not sense was not at all deceived For it perceived nothing but the similitude and motion and those with the substance were certainly there But if all mens senses seeing feeling tasting c. had been deceived and there had been indeed no shape of a Serpent nor any sensible substance at all but Accidents real without any substance this had been indeed a deception of the senses And if God so subvert mans nature he will not bind him to do the things which belong to the nature of man to do But by all this we may perceive that there is no end of Controversies with
seen the Priest and Action and Accidents are seen but no Miracle seen by any So that Aquinas concludeth 3. q. 76. a. 7 Though Christ be existent in this Sacrament per modum substantiae yet neither bodily eyes nor our Intellects can see him but by faith no nor the Intellect of an Angel can see him secundum sua naturalia nor do Devils see him but by faith nor the blessed but in the Divine Essence All these make these Miracles far more miraculous than the raising of Lazarus from the dead WHether all these are Miracles or most or many of them Contradictions and therefore Impossibilities I make no great matter of at this time I think it utterly needless to add any more to what is said in answer to such sayings as Aquinas's 3. q. 75. 76. and other Schoolmen that The senses are not deceived because there are the Accidents and the Intellect is by faith preserved from deception that the remaining accidents are in quantitate dimensiva quasi in subjecto that these Accidents can change an extrinsick body can be corrupted can generate Worms can nourish can be broken c. For all this at least confesseth that its all done by Miracle Though I will say 1. That they could scarce have chosen a more unhappy pro-subject of Accidents than Quantity nor have given more unhappy reasons for it than Aquinas doth q. 77. a. 2. c. 1. Because the sense perceiveth that it is Aliquid quantum that is coloured 2. Because Quantity is the first disposition of matter c. For this includeth matter and Aliquid quantum is a word that giveth away his Cause And no Accident is more the same with its subject than Quantity or moles extensiva 2. And he will be long before he will make or prove mans nature to be such as that his Intellect can judge of substances by Believing as incomplex objects before it have perceived them by sense and imagination When we see taste smell feel hear them the Intellect will suddenly and necessarily have some species or perception of the Thing before it come Logically to dispute from extrinsick media of Testimony What this thing is in a second notion And our question is Whether the Intellect in this first Perception be deceived or not If you discharge the Intellect from perceiving substances presently before it know them by second notions or Argument you will make man quite another thing than every hour and action tells us he is But what will not a man say when he sets himself only to study what to say for the making good of his undertaken Cause But my next work is to prove the Falshood of these pretended Miracles CHAP. V. The Minor proved viz. That these Miracles are false THat these are all but feigned Miracles I thus prove I. Because the holy Scriptures do plainly deny such an ordinariness or commonness of the gift of Miracles 1 Cor. 12.8 9 10 11. To one is given by the spirit the word of Wisdom to another the word of Knowledge by the same spirit to another faith by the same spirit to another the gifts of healing by the same spirit to another the working of miracles c. But all these worketh that one and the self same spirit dividing to every man severally as he will 28 29. And God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers after that miracles then gifts of healing helps Governments diversities of tongues Are all Apostles are all Prophets are all Teachers are all workers of Miracles Here it is most expresly told us that working Miracles is a peculiar gift of some and even in those times not common to all that were Priests But the Papists make it common to every Priest though a common Adulterer Drunkard Murderer or Heretick no one Priest in the world is without it II. Though some few that were workers of iniquity might have some such gifts Matth. 7. Yet that was so rare that Nature it self taught men to judge Miracles to be signs of divine approbation so that Nicodemus thence argueth Joh. 3.2 No man could do these Miracles that thou dost except God be with him And the man Joh. 9.31 God heareth not sinners but if any man be a Worshipper of God and doth his will him he heareth And the people vers 16. How can a man that is a sinner do such Miracles And it was Christs own proof that he was of God and his Gospel true and therefore to Blaspheam his Miracles by ascribing them to the Devil was the unpardonable Blasphemy of the Holy Ghost And to deny Miracles to be a sign of Gods attestation is to subvert all Christianity Act. 2.22 Jesus of Nazareth a man approved of God among you by miracles wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you Joh. 5.36 The same works that I do bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me Joh. 10.25 37 38. The works that I do in my Fathers name they bear witness of me If I do not the works of my Father believe me not But if I do though ye believe not me believe the works that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me and I in him Joh. 14.11 Believe me for the very works sake Joh. 15.24 If I had not done among them the works that no other man did they had not had sin This also was Pauls proof of his Apostleship yea and of the truth of all the Apostles doctrine Heb. 2.3 4. God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and divers Miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own Will Therefore that Doctrine is unlike to be true which tells us that every wicked Priest in the world though a Simonist or an enemy of Christ and Godliness and drown'd in all Vice is such a constant miracle-worker When God hateth all the workers of iniquity Psal 5.5 III. But though this Reason be but probable this following is demonstrative to a believer That doctrine which maketh every Ignorant wicked or Heretical Priest in the world far to excell the Prophets Apostles and Christ himself in the Greatness Number and facility of Miracles is false But such is this doctrine of Transubstantiation I know that Christ telleth his Apostles Greater works than these shall ye do But 1. There are Greater works such as the converting of greater numbers in the world which are not Greater Miracles 2. And what was promised â—o the Apostles as to Miracles was not promised to every Priest in the world I appeal to the Consciences of sober Christians whether it sound not as an arrogant if not blaspheamous speech to say that Christ and his Apostles did fewer and smaller miracles proportionable to their time than every Priest And as to the Minor it is soon proved in its parts 1. As to the Greatness of the Miracles those of Christ were exceeding Great especially his Raising Lazarus and his own
order of nature Thou blindest the providence of God himself as if he had made mens lying and deceitful senses to be the Lords in understanding honouring dispensing and enjoying all his works Is not the whole Condition of man subadministred by these And after We may not call those senses into question lest Christ himself must deliberate of their certainty or must distrust them Lest it may be said that he falsly saw Satan cast down from Heaven or falsly heard the voyce of his Father testifying of him or was deceived when he touched Peters Wives Mother or perceived not a true taste of the Wine which he Consecrated in the memorial of his blood Many such places are in Tertullian 4. Origen is large and plain to the same purpose in Matth. 25. calling it Bread and a Typical and Symbolical Body which profiteth none but the worthy receivers and that according to the proportion of their faith and which no wicked man doth eat c. Many more such places Albertinus vindicateth 5. Cyprians Epistle to Magnus is too large this way to be recited As Even the Sacrifices of the Lord declare the Christian Vnanimity connexed by firm and inseparable love For when the Lord calleth Bread his body or his body bread made up of many united grains c. And when he calleth the Wine his Blood c. So Epist ad Caecil 6. Eusebius Caesar demonstr Evang. l. 1. c. 10. Celebrating daily the memorial of the body and blood of Christ Seeing then we receive the memorial of this Sacrifice to be perfected on the Table by the symbols of his body and most precious blood And l. 8. He delivered to us to use Bread as the symbol of his own body 7. Athanasius's words are recited by Albertinus l. 2. p. 400 401 c. 8. Basil de Spir. Sanct. saith Which of the Saints hath left us in Writing the words of invocation when the Bread of the Eucharist and the Cup of blessing are shewed 9. Ephrem in Biblioth Photii p. 415. Edit August saith The body of Christ which believers receive loseth not his sensible substance and is not separated from the intelligible grace And ad eos qui filii Dei c. Take notice diligently how taking Bread in his hands he blessed it and brake it for a figure of his immaculate body and he blessed the Cup and gave it to his Disciples as a figure of his pretious blood 10. Cyrillus vel Johan Hierosol Catech. Mystag calls the bread indeed Christs body but fully expounds himself de Chrysmate Cat. 3. pag. 235. For as the Bread of the Eucharist after the invocation of the Holy Ghost is no more Common Bread but is the Body of Christ So also this Holy Oyntment is no more meer Oyntment nor if any one had rather so speak common now it is consecrated but it is a Gift or Grace which causeth the presence of Christ and the Holy Ghost that is of his Divinity As the Oyntment is Grace or the Holy Ghost just so the Bread is the body of Christ as he saith after Cat. 4. It is not only what we see Bread and Wine but more 11. Hierom cont Jovinian l. 2. The Lord as a type or figure of his blood offered not water but wine 12. Ambrose de Sacram. l. 4. c. 4. This therefore we assert How that which is Bread can yet be the body of Christ And If Christs speech had so much force that it made that begin to be which was not how much more is it operative that the things that were both Be and be changed into something else And As thou hast drunk the similitude of death so thou drinkest the similitude of pretious blood 13. Theodoret in Dialog Immutab dealeth with an Eutychian Heretick who defended his Error by pleading that the bread in the Eucharist was changed into the body of Christ To whom saith Theodoret The Lord who hath called that meat and bread which is naturally his Body and who again called himself a Vine did honour the visible signs with the appellation of his body and blood not having changed their Nature but added Grace to Nature And in Dialog 2. In confus he saith The divine Mysteries are signs of the true body And again answering the Eutychians pretence of a change he saith By the net which thou hast made art thou taken ☞ For even after the Consecration the Mystical signs change not their nature For they remain in all their first SVBSTANCE figure and form and are Visible and to be Handled as before But they are understood to be the things which they were made and are believed and venerated as made that which they are believed to be Would you have plainer words 14. Gelasius cont Nest Eutych saith Verily the Sacraments of the body and blood of Christ which we take is a Divine thing for which and by which we are made partakers of the divine nature ☞ And yet it ceaseth not to be the Substance and Nature of Bread and Wine And certainly the Image and similitude of the body and blood of Christ are celebrated in the action of the Mysteries What can be plainer 15. Cyril Alexandr in John 4. cap. 14. saith He gave to his believing disciples fragments of Bread saying Take Eat This is my body 16. Facundus lib. 9. cap. 5. pag. 404. as cited by P. Molin de Novitate Papismi We call that the body and blood of Christ which is the Sacrament of his body in the consecrated Bread and Cup. ☞ Not that the Bread is properly his body and the Cup his blood but because they contain the Mysterie of his body and blood But I am so weary of these needless Transcriptions that I will trouble my self and the Reader with no more Albertinus will give him enow more who desireth them And no doubt but with a wet finger they can blot out all these and teach us to deny the sense of words as well as our senses D. But you said also that the Present Church and its Tradition is against Transubstantiation as well as the Antient How prove you that R. Just as I prove that the Protestants are against it By the present Church I mean the far greater part of all the Christians in the world The Greeks with the Muscovites the Armenians the Syrians the Copties the Abassines and the Protestants and all the rest who make up about twice or thrice as many as the Papists That they hold that there is true Bread and Wine after Consecration all impartial Historians testifie both Papists and Protestants and their own several Countreymen and also Travellers who have been among them And their Liturgies even those that are in the Bibliotheca Patrum put out by themselves do testifie for those Countreys where they are used Though as Bishop Vsher hath detected by one words addition they have shamelesly endeavoured to corrupt the Ethiopick Liturgy about the Real presence But I need no more proof of that which
no faithful History doth deny And then I need not prove that Transubstantiation is against the most General or Common Tradition For all these Christians the Greeks Armenians Abassines c. profess to follow the Religion which they have received from their Ancestors as well as the Papists do And if the Papists be to be believed in saying that this is the Religion which they received from their forefathers Why are not the other to be believed in the same case And if the Popish Tradition seem regardable to them Why should not the Tradition of twice or thrice as many Christians be more regardable And if in Councils the Major Vote must carry it Why not in the Judgement and Tradition of the Real body of Christs Church As for their trick of excepting against them as Schismaticks and Hereticks to invalidate their Votes and Judgement we despise it as knowing that so any Usurper that would make himself the sole Judge may say by all the rest of the world But as they judge of others they are justly judged by others themselves CHAP. X. The second part of the Controversie Whether it be Christs very Flesh and Blood into which the Bread and Wine are Transubstantiated R. OUr first Question was Whether there be any Bread and Wine left after Consecration Our second is Whether Christs Real Flesh and Blood be there as that into which the Bread and Wine are changed And herein 1. I do freely grant that the change of Christs Body by Glorification is so great as that it may be called though not a Spirit yet a spiritual body as Paul 1 Cor. 15. saith Ours when Glorified shall be that is A body very like in purity simplicity and activity to a Spirit And the general difference between a spirit and body was not held by many of the Greek Fathers as it is by us And if the second Council of Nice was Infallible no Angel or other Creature is Incorporeal Or as Damasus saith They are Corporeal in respect to God but Incorporeal in respect to gross bodies The perfect knowledge of the difference between Corpus and Spiritus except by the formal Virtues is unknown to mortal men 2. I grant therefore that our senses are no Competent Judges Whether Christs true body be in the Sacrament no more than Whether an Angel be in this room There are bodies which are Invisible 3. I grant that it is unknown to us how far Christs Glorified body may extend Whether the same may be both in Heaven and on earth I am not able nor willing to confute them that say Light is a Body nor them that say It is a spirit nor them that say It is quid medium as a nexus of both I mean Aether or Ignis visible in its Light And it is an incomprehensible wonder if Lumen be a real radiant or Emanant part of the Sun that it should indivisibly fill all the space thence to this earth and how much further little do we know So for the extensions of Christs body let those that understand it dispute for me 4. And I will grant that it is very probable that as in Heaven we shall have both a Soul and Body so the Body is not like to have so near an Intuition and fruition of God as the soul And whether the Glorified Body of Christ will not be there a medium of Gods Communication of Glory to our bodies yea and his glorified soul to our souls as the Sun is now to our eyes I do not well understand only I know that it is his prayer and will that we be with him where he is to behold his Glory and that God and the Lamb will be the Light of the Heavenly Jerusalem 5. And I am fully satisfied that it is not the signs only but the Real Body and Blood of Christ which are given us in the Sacraments both Baptism and the Eucharist But how given us Relatively de jure as a man is Given to a Woman in Marriage or as a house and land are delivered to me to be mine for my use though I touch them not Thus 1. A right to Christ is given us 2. And the fruits or benefits of his Crucified body and shed blood are actually given us that is Pardon and the Spirit merited for us thereby 6. And among the Benefits given us besides the Relative there are some such as we call Real or Physical terminatively and hyperphysical originally ut à Causa which are the spirit of Holiness or the Quickening Illuminating and Sanctifying influence of the spirit of Christ upon our souls And the Sacrament is appointed as a special means of communicating this 7. I have met with some of late who say that Indeed Christs Body and Blood in his humbled state were not really eaten and drunk by the disciples at his last supper For the flesh profiteth not to such a use But that his Glorified Body is spiritual and is extensively communicated and invisibly present under the form of Bread in the Sacrament and that as we have a Body a sensitive life and an Intellectual soul so Christ is the life of all these respectively viz. His Body is made the spiritual nourishment of our Bodies his sensitive soul for which the word Blood is put because it is in the blood in animals is the food or life of our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul of ours And to these uses they assert the Real presence and oral participation of Christs Glorified body To all which I say 1. Whether or how far an invisible spiritual Body is present sense is no judge nor can we know any further than Gods word telleth us 2. That Christ in his Glorified soul and Body is our Intercessour with God through whom we have all things we must not doubt 3. That Christ in his Humane and Divine Nature now in Heaven is that Teacher who hath left us a certain word and that King who hath left us a perfect Law of Life whom we must obey and a promise which we must trust we must not question 4. That the Holy Ghost who is our spiritual Life is given us by from and for Christ our Mediator we must take for certain truth But though in all these respects Faith apprehendeth and liveth upon Christ yet that moreover his Glorified Body in substance either feedeth or by contact purifieth our Bodies and his sensitive soul our sensitive souls and his Intellectual soul our Intellectual souls as if in themselves and not in their effects only they were thus communicated to us I understand not either by any just conception of the thing it self or any proof of it from the word of God But if any can help me to see it I shall not refuse instruction Nor can I see why the soul of Christ should be said to be given in the Wine only and not in the Bread Nor why by this kind of Communication he may not as truly be said to be given us in
what a man may say is certain R. To this I have several things to say 1. Ordination doth not make men wise holy humble and self-denying but sets such men apart for the sacred office who seek it and have tolerable gifts of utterance And it is too ordinary for worldly minded men to make a worldly trade of the Priesthood meerly for ease and wealth and honour In which case do you not think that the Papists who have multitudes of rich benefices prelacies preferments and Church-power and worldly honour are liker to be drawn by worldly interest than such as I that am exceeding glad and thankful if I might but preach for nothing 2. Do you lay your faith and salvation upon plausible discourses and will you be of that mans faith whom you cannot confute Then you must be of every mans faith or indeed of no mans There are none of all these sects so hardly confuted as a Porphyry a Julian or such like Infidels who dispute against Christ and the truth of the Scriptures or such Sadducees as dispute against the Immortality of the soul Alas the tattle of Papists Pelagians Antinomians Separatists Quakers and all such supposing the truth of the souls Immortality and the Scriptures is easily resisted and confuted in comparison of their assaults who deny these our foundations And will you turn Sadducee Atheist or Infidel because you cannot confute their Sophistry I tell you if you knew how much harder it is to deal with one of these than with a Papist or any other Sectary you would shake the head to hear one man dispute for an universal Monarch and another dispute against a form of prayer and another whether it be lawful to Communicate with dissenters c. while so few of them all can defend their foundations even the souls Immortality and the Scriptures nor confute a subtle Infidel or Sadducee 3. What if we all agreed to say that there is no Bread in the Sacrament after Consecration Were it ever the truer for that Will you be deceived as oft as men can but agree to deceive you There is a far greater party Agreed against Jesus Christ even five parts of the World than that which is agreed for him Will you therefore be against Christ too There are more Agreed for Mahomet a gross upstart deceiver than are agreed for Christ And doth that make it certain that they are in the right 4. Will you deny all your senses and the senses of all the World as oft as you cannot answer him that denyeth them Upon these terms what end will there be of any Controversie or what evidence shall ever satisfie man Have Papists any surer and more satisfying evidence for you than sense I pray you tell me Did you ever meet with any of them that doubt of another life or of the Immortality of the soul D. Yes many a one I would we were all more certain than we are R. And what is it that such men would have to put them out of doubt D. They say that our talk of Prophets and supernatural revelation are all uncertainties and if they could see they would believe Could they see such Miracles as they read of Had they seen Lazarus raised or Christ risen from the dead c. Had they seen Angels or Devils or Spirits appearing Had they seen Heaven or Hell they would believe R. And are not you more obstinate than they if you will not believe that there is any Bread and Wine when you see feel smell and taste it and all men that have senses are of the same mind What is left to satisfie you if you give so little credit to the common sense of all the world D. But I oft think that the faith of all the Church is much surer than my sense or my private faith At least it is safest to venture in the common road and to speed as the Church speedeth which Christ died for and is his Spouse R. 1. But do you think that the opinion of the Papal faction who are not the third part of the Universal Church that is the Christian world is the faith of all the Church Why call you Opinion faith and a sect and faction All the Church 2. Indeed if all the Church did set their senses against mine I would rather believe them than my senses For I should think that I were in that point distracted or my senses by some disease perverted which I did not perceive I mean if it were in a case where they had the affirmative As if all England should witness that they saw it Light at Midnight I would think my eyes had some impediment which I knew not of if I saw none But this is not your case The Papists themselves do not set all their senses against yours much less the senses of all mankind They do not say that We and all men except the Protestants do see and feel and taste that There is no Bread and Wine But contrarily You have the senses of all the world and the saith of two or three parts of the Christian world against the Opinion of one Sect which Schismatically call themselves All the Church D. But suppose that they err in this one point they may for all that be in the right in all the rest Who is it that hath no error I must not for this one forsake them R. 1. I will stand to their own judgements in this Whether all their foundation and faith be not uncertain if any one Article of their faith prove false They are all that ever I knew agreed of the affirmative And will give you no thanks for such a defence 2. And if we come to that work I shall prove all the rest of their opinions before mentioned to be also false D. What then if I find but one point false in the Protestants Religion Must I therefore forsake it all as false R. 1. Still remember to distinguish between our Objective and our Subjective faith or if you understand not those words between Gods Revelation and Mans Belief of it or the Divine Rule and Matter of our faith and our faith it self And about our own Belief you must distinguish between a mans Profession of Belief and the Reality of his belief All true Protestants profess to take Gods word alone or his Revelation in Nature and Scripture for the whole Matter of their Divine Belief and Religion But who it is that sincerely believeth little do I know nor how much of this word any singular person understandeth and believeth I can give you no account of If personal faith were that which we dispute of I would be accountable for no mans but mine own In this sense There are as many Faiths and Religions as men For every man hath his Own Faith and Religion And if you know that a man erreth in one point it followeth not that he erreth in another They that believed that the Resurrection was past believed a falshood and yet
know the Sense and the sense but a means to know the Things viz. God Christ Grace Glory c. And as they have the same God Christ Spirit Grace Glory c. to be the real objects of their Religion so have they the same Do-Doctrine and Law in sense which is in the Originals P. Q. 3. And I pray you How shall the unlearned be sure that the Translations are true as to the sence when you have no Divine Infallible Translators R. I also ask you 1. How was all the Greek Church for many hundred years sure of the soundness of the Translation called the Septuagint or that of Aquila Theodot Symmachus c. when it is certain that in many things they were all unsound 2. How was the Latine Church sure of the soundness of their Translation before Hierome amended it And how have you been sure since then when Pope Sixtus and Pope Clement have made so many hundred alterations or differences Had you then Infallible Translators And why then do your Translators as Montanus and others still differ from that Vulgar Latine 3. And how do all your unlearned persons know that you give them not only the true sence of the Scriptures but of all your Councils or Traditions But I will answer you directly We still distinguish the Essentials of our Religion from the Integrals and Accidentals 1. The unlearned may be certain that the Essentials are truly delivered them in sence Because they have them not only in the Scripture but by Vniversal certain Tradition in the constant Vse of Christian Baptism and in the use of the Creed Lords Prayer and Decalogue in all the Church-assemblies And they may easily know that mens tempers Countreys Interests opinions in other points and sidings are so various that it is not a thing possible without a miracle that all these should conspire both in a false Translation and Vniversal assertion and Tradition of all these Essentials For the effects must be contrary to a torrent of Causes The Papists Protestants Arians Greeks Socinians Lutherans Calvinists Anabaptists Separatists c. have so much animosity against each other that undoubtedly if any party of them did falsifie Scripture even in the Essentials which are easily discerned multitudes would quickly detect it and contradict them And this the unlearned may surely and easily discern But as for all other less necessary texts of Scripture neither you nor we learned or unlearned are certain that they are perfectly translated nor are they by any one perfectly understood nor are they sure by reason of the various readings which copie of the original is absolutely faultless 2. But suppose that an unlearned weak Believer were not absolutely certain as he may be that the very essentials of Christianity are truly opened to him he may yet grow up to better understanding and he may be saved with some doubtings of Christianity it self so be it his Faith be more prevalent than those doubtings upon his Heart and Life P. Is it a safe Religion which you your self describe When no man can be sure that he rightly understandeth all the Scriptures and when your believer is uncertain even of Christianity it self Let D. Judge whether this be a sure Religion R. The word of God is absolutely certain in it self but that so much uncertainty may be in believers I will make you to your shame confess your self and recant these insinuations Q. 1. Dare you say that all your Church or any one man even the Pope himself doth understand all the Scripture or can perfectly and infallibly translate each word You dare not say it Else why did he never once pretend to give us either an unerring Commentary or Translation And why have you such great diversity of both Q. 2. How much less dare you say that any of you perfectly understand all the Councils which are the rest of your Religion No nor that you have certainty which are the true Copies of them all else why do Caranza Crab Surius Binnius Nicolinus c. give give us such various Copies And yet you confess the Scriptures to be Gods word and with the Councils to contain your Religion Q. 3. If God have promised salvation to all that truly hold and practise the Essentials the Baptismal Covenant doth the difficulty of other points in Genealogie Chronologie History by matters either make our salvation ever the less certain or any way impeach the word of God What disgrace is it to a man that besides Head and Heart he hath fingers and toes and nails and hair No more is it to the Scripture that as our entire Religion it containeth even Integrals and Accidentals Q. 4. And as to a Doubting Believer I ask Dare you say that all those were Infidels or in a state of damnation who said See the Roman Catech. where this is confest Cap. 1. q. 1. pag. 9. Lord increase our faith or Lord we believe help our unbelief or to whom Christ said Why are ye afraid O ye of little faith or that said Luk. 24. We trusted that this had been he that should have delivered Israel Or if a man should doubt even of the Life to come and yet his Faith be so much more powerful than his doubts as that he resolveth to prefer his hopes of Heaven before all this world and to seek it on the most self-denying terms even to the laying down of life it self are you sure that this man shall be damned But this is the Course of pievish wranglers To maintain their own opinions and put a face of certainty on their own conclusions they stick not to damn almost all the world For it will be no less if all doubting believers must be damned 5. It is a gross delusion to pretend that there is a necessity that All Gods Infallible word must needs be taught us by as Infallible Inspired Prophets or other persons as those that first delivered it Translation is but the first part of exposition And must we have none but Infallible or Prophetical Expositors 6. Is it All the Scriptures or but some part that your Pope or Councils can Infallibly both translate and expound If but some we need not their Infallibility or Inspiration for the most plain and necessary parts It is and can be done without them If it be All how impious and cruel are they that would never do it to this day 7. And why use all your Expositors the common helps of Grammars Lexicons Teachers long studies and yet differ de side even of the sense of many a text of Scripture when all is done if your Pope have the gift of Infallible Translating and expounding all P. Remember that your selves derive your Essentials from Tradition R. Yes and our Integrals to What objective presence to the senses eyes and ears of those that heard Christ and his Apostles and saw their miracles was to the first Converts in those times that partly Tradition is to us or the necessary medium
The words could not come down to us without some to deliver them We have the Bible by Tradition and we have practical Tradition of Baptism and the Creed by it self and that in many languages where we are sure we have all the necessary sence But do you remember that this is Vniversal Tradition and not meer Roman Tradition such as is certain by moral Evidence even the consent of all that are yet of cross opinions and Interests as to matter of fact Historical Evidence and not the pretended certainty of a Pope and his favourites phanatically claiming a spirit of Infallibility But I am not now disputing with you I am only telling you that the Protestant Religion is nothing but Christianity and the Scriptures And all our Confessions are our Religion besides Consent but as our Sermons and Treatises are which vary as they are various expressions of mens various subjective faith while Gods word varyeth not P. If the Bible be your Religion then the Ceremonial Law of Moses is your Religion For that is part of the Bible R. You study what to say against another and never think how it concerneth your selves 1. Is not the Bible at least Part of your Religion You dare not deny it And is the Ceremonial Law of Moses therefore your Religion 2. I told you that as a perfect man hath hair and nails which are but Accidents so the Bible hath more than the Integrals of our Religion 3. The Ceremonies of Moses in that sense as now they are delivered to us in the Bible are parts or appurtenances of our Religion That is the historical narrative of those Abrogated Laws which now bind us not as Laws but tell us as the Prophesies what was heretofore and how Christ was fore-typified and what intimations of Gods will we may gather from the history And the abrogated Laws are no otherwise delivered to us and so we must use them P. If the ten Commandments be your Religion you must keep the Jewish seventh day Sabbath so that neither there can you fix R. The same answer will serve 1. The ten Commandments are no otherwise part of our Religion thâ—n they are of yours 2. They are a Law to us as delivered and expounded by Christ and in Nature and the seventh day is an abrogated part of Moses Law P. If the Creed be your Religion you must take the Article of Christs descent into Hell to be necessary to salvation R. 1. Is the Creed no part of your Religion As you answer so may we 2. I did not tell you that the Creed had no more than the Essentials I told you that all the Essence of Christianity is in the Baptismal Covenant And he that understandeth that understandeth it all And that the Creed the Lords Prayer and the Christian Decalogue are the exposition of it But the Exposition may have somewhat more than the Essentials 3. The Creed was not written first in English nor Latine And Christs descent to Hades is more needful to be believed than his descent to Hell as the word is commonly taken in English But to conclude remember 1. That I profess here to own and plead for no other Religion as we explained the word but Gods Law of Nature and Scripture 2. That I profess to perswade D. to no other And you cannot make me a Religion against my will CHAP. IV. What is the Papists Religion R. I Have plainly told you what my own and the Protestants Religion is viz. Nothing but Christianity contained Integrally in the holy Scriptures And the Essentials being the Baptismal Covenant explained in the Creed Lords prayer and Christian Decalogue are delivered to us both in the said Scriptures and by distinct Tradition which also hath brought down to us the Scripture it self Not a Tradition depending on the pretended Authority of the Roman Pope or party or on any other that shall pretend the like But that Historical Evidence of matter of fact which is surelier given us by all sorts of Christians taking in the Concord of many Hereticks Infidels and Enemies which evidence dependeth not on the credit of supernatural Revelation but on the natural credibility yea and certainty of such universal Circumstantiated Concordant testimony and is necessarily antecedent to the Belief of supernatural Revelations in the particulars as sight and hearing were in the auditors of Christ and the Apostles seeing these two Acts of Knowledge Whatever God saith is True and This God saith must necessarily go before our Belief or Trust that This is True because God saith it And so we run not in a circle and need not a supernatural faith for the founding of our first supernatural faith that is A first before the first Without fraud or obscurity this is our faith and Religion Now do you as honestly and plainly tell me What is Yours which D. must be perswaded to For I confess that I take it to be an unintelligible thing and despair that ever you give any man a certain notice what it is which may be truly called the Religion of your Roman-Catholick-Church P. I shall make you understand it if you are willing But 1. Note that Religion being a larger word than faith includeth also Practice or Manners we must give you a distinct account of each For they have not the same Causes Our Faith is Divine But our Manners or Practice must follow the Laws of the Church as well as the Immediate Laws of God These must not be confounded R. Man hath three faculties Intellective Volitive and Vitally Executive or Active Our Religion subjectively must be in all viz. The Sanctity of all by Holy Life Light and Love And therefore the Rule which is our objective Religion doth extend to all to Intellect Will and Practice And surely for All there is a Rule directly Divine given by Inspiration of the Holy Ghost or Christs own words and subordinate Rules by Christs Ministers which are directly Humane and no otherwise Divine than as God hath in General authorized them thereto Even as the Soveraign hath the only Vniversal Legislative power and Magistrates by Him are authorized to subordinate mandates and acts of Government And so we have a Divine Faith and Revelation and a subordinate Humane faith and Ministerial Revelation or Preaching We have Divine Perswasions and subordinate Perswasions of men We have Divine Laws yea and executions and we have Humane subordinate Laws and executions If you resolve to call the Humane Divine so far as they are indeed Authorized by God I will not quarrel about words But remember 1. That so you must do also on the same reasons by the Laws of Kings and the Commands of Parents who are as much authorized by God to their proper Government 2. And I hope you mean not to Confound these Humane Laws with Gods own Vniversal Laws nor humane faith with Divine faith And be it known to you It is the Divine Revelations and Laws as distinct from the Humane which we are