not clearly Whence it is that St. Austin Tom. 10. Serm. 70. de Tempore stiles Haereticks Infelices Unhappy Who only look on the Sound of words in Scripture which is saith he like a Body without a Soul But it is as clear That the bare Letter of Scripture without a sure Interpreter beget's Errors And therfore an Arian Becaus He Regulates his Belief by the meer Sound of that Text Iohn 14. My Father is greater then I Err's damnably And the like All other condemned Haereticks have done in their respective Errors drawn as they thought from Scripture Ergo it is evident that the Letter of Scripture speak's not Clearly in this one most High Mystery And therfore cannot Regulate Faith without an Interpreter Now further If this Interpreter A fallible Interpreter as useles as no Interpreter in points of Faith be fallible He is as Vseles to Christians for the Regulating of Faith as if he were no Interpreter For He may Deceive them And if we be deceived it much imports not whether the Error proceed from Obscure Scripture misunderstood or misinterpreted by an other An infallible Interpreter therfore is necessary in this Weighty matter that Assures us of what God hath spoken of such and such Particular Mysteries And here we Rest securely and have a most certain Rule which Sectaries want 2. Again I argue If Sole Scripture be a clear Rule of Faith it can Regulate without Glosses yea and without a Preacher too Why therfore do our Protestants charge that one Text above cited This is my body the like we may say of many others with so unnecessary a burden of their Interpretations Are Are Sectaries affraid that Christ spoke too plainly They affraid that Christ spoke too Plainly and therfore Add their Glosses to Obscure his Words None will own such an Impiety Then I say They are Added to Clear an Obscure Passage consequently They They gloss to make Scripture clear must acknowledge an Obscurity in this Scripture before their tampering with the Text and glossing it Well But when They have glossed all they can I ask what is it that Regulates their Faith in this particular Their glosses regulate their Faith not the words of Christ Do Christs Words as he spoke them or as They interpret Regulate here Not the first For 't is most evident that Christs own Words without the Protestant Glosses can never beget in any Understanding that determinate Belief which these men have of the Blessed Sacrament For the words of Christ say plainly This is my Body that is given for you Which pondered to the day of Judgement can never yeild this forced repugnant and far-fetch't Sense This is a Sign or a Figure of my Body Yet such is the Belief of Protestants drawn from this Sentence by their Interpretations Wherfore we must conclude that They Believe not for Christs Sole Words But for their Additional Glosses which is to say in plain English Their Overplus of Glosses Regulates Faith not Gods Express and most significant Word Some will say this Passage now cited must be interpreted as They will have it Becaus Scripture in other places seem's to favor their Interpretation I answer candidly Let them They cannot cite one Text out of Scripture in favour of their Glosses but produce so much as one plain Text out of the whole Bible for the Alienating of this Sentence from its proper Sense without Glosses which are no Scripture and I 'll proclaim them Conquerours Here is plain dealing but Remember well I call for Scripture only 3. I told you just now That as these Glosses are useles if sole Scripture be a clear Rule of Faith so are Preachers also yea and all the large Commentaries which Luther and Calvin have writ on Scripture Why Gods Word speak's clearly without a Preacher If Scripture be Clear ther 's no need of Teachers Away therfore with Preaching and Commentaries 'T is enough to thrust a Bible into mens Hands And bid them read it For there is True Doctrin and plain Doctrin but more is not required to Regulate Faith then The Reason Truth and Clarity Ergo Ministers may hereafter well spare their labor of Preaching and 't is better they did so Then to be in danger of perverting Gods true Word by their fallible Talking 4. To conclude this matter we have already amply proved That it is not the Bare Letter of Scripture which Regulates Faith Buth the exact and true Sense of it Ne putemus saith St. Hierom in cap. 1. ad Galat. v. 11. Let us not think that the Gospel lyes in the Words of Scripture but in their sense Non in superficie sed in medullâ not in the Out-side but in the inward Pith and Marrow of it non in sermonum foliis c. But no Protestant with so much as any colour of Reason can lay a more just claim to the true Sense of Scripture when He and the Church stand at Variance Protestants as uncertain of the true Sense of Scripture as Arians are Then an Arian a Pelagian or a Donatist can do when They draw Scripture to Their Sense All of them are alike guided by meer Guesses and first Read next Think then Iudge and lastly Believe Believe what What Their Private Iudgement Tell 's them and here is the last Rule of their Faith All of them guided by guesses Three parts of Protestant Religion wherof more in the next Chapter In the interim you may Resolve a Protestants Belief into these three broken Shreds or Fragments The first part is that wherin They hold with Catholicks And here they have the true Sense of Scripture interpreted yet no True Faith for want of Submission in other Points The other part is that wherin They agree with Ancient condemned Haereticks And herein They have neither the True sense of Scripture nor true Faith The last part is proper to Themselves as Protestant And here they have not so much as the Letter or a Word of Scripture for them much les any true Sense or Faith grounded on Scripture And 5. Upon this occasion I come to mind Mr. Poole The want of Mr. Pooles fourth Proposition of the Want of his fourth Proposition viz. That Scripture speak's plainly the particular Tenents of Protestant Religion as Protestanism And must Tell him He shall never find in the whole Bible so much as one Article of Protestant Religion as it stands in Opposition to Catholick Doctrin grounded on Scripture And Becaus The man may not perhaps like of too great a burden I 'll only urge him to Prove these three Protestant Assertions 1. That there are two Sacraments Three Protestant Assertions for Mr. Poole to Prove and no more But let him not think to turn me of as he doth the Captain with meer empty and insignificant Words Appendix page 34. Scripture is plain enough in describing the nature of two Sacraments He should have added And 't is plain in
Passage more of Scripture Proving Infallible Teachers is quoted 203 CHAP. X. Objections are Answered 217 THE THIRD DISCOVRS Of Sectaries Vnreasonable Proceeding CHAP. I. Protestants are Vnreasonable whilst They seemingly hold a Catholick Church Distinct from the Roman neither known nor Designable by any 231 CHAP. II. Of a late Writers Doctrin 236 CHAP. III. The Pretended Reformation of Protestants is unreasonable if Faith in Christ Only suffice for Saluation A more Explicit Faith is proved Necessary 244 CHAP. IV. The Ambiguous Discourses of Protestants concerning Fundamentals in Faith are Proved unreasonable 250 CHAP. V. An Answer to one Reply More of this subject 262 CHAP. VI. Some Few Propositions of a late Writer are briefly Examined His Discours of Fundamentals Destroy's Protestant Religion 271 CHAP. VII More of this subject Objections are Ansvvered 291 CHAP. VIII Protestants are unreasonable in the Defense of Their late Manifest and undoubted Schism 315 CHAP. IX Protestants cannot make Good Their Charge Against the Roman Catholick Church concerning causal Schism 323 CHAP. X. The Roman Catholick Church whilst Evidence comes not Against it stands Firm upon its Ancient Possessed Right This long Possession Proves the Church Orthodox 333 CHAP. XI Of a late Writers Exceptions Against our Pleading Possession 339 CHAP. XII Another Objection And whether Protestants can Acquit themselves of Schism 357 CHAP. XIII A second Argument Against this Schism Of Sectaries Cavils concerning Errours Entring the Church insensibly 362 CHAP. XIV A Word to a Few supposed and unproved Assertions Wherby some Endeavour to clear Protestants of Schism 379 CHAP. XV. More of These Authors confused Doctrin is Refuted 387 THE FOVRTH DISCOVRS Of the Churches Evident Credibility Of the Improbability of Protestancy CHAP. I. Christs Church is Proved to be no Other But the Roman Catholick Sectaries are convinced of errour 405 CHAP. II. Protestancy is an unevidenced And a most improbable Religion or rather no Religion but a meer Fancied Opinion 420 CHAP. III. A Word more of Sectaries new Mode of Arguing laid forth by Touching on one Controversy concerning the Doctrin of Purgatory 434 CHAP. IV. A Parallel of Proofs for and Against tâ—e Doctrin of Purgatory A solution to a late Adversaries Objections 452 CHAP. V. An objection proposed and solved in a Discours of another Controversy Which is the Real Presence 477 CHAP. VI. Sectaries without either Proof or Principles wrest Christs Words to an improper sense and vent an Heresy upon meer Fancy 489 CHAP. VII How differently We and Sectaries proceed in this Controversy VVhat they are to Prove 506 CHAP. VIII The Conclusion The Churches Evidence 517 SOME FEW OF THE MORE CHIEF CONTENTS OF THIS TREATISE THE FIRST DISCOVRS Of Infallible Teachers and the Motives of Credibility CHrists Church hath infallible Teachers of true Christian Religion Christs infallible Doctrin requires infallible Teachers A Doctrin that is fallible may be fals Christ sent none to teach any other Doctrin but that which may be resolved into Gods certain Revelation but such a Doctrin can neither be fals nor fallible Sectaries preach no other Doctrin but what is fallible and may be fals The Objective infallibility of Gods Word in Scripture is not ex terminis Evident and no Church as They say Ever yet told them or can tell them infallibly that it is infallible If all Pastors and Doctors may err in their delivery of Christian Doctrin God would as indifferently oblige us to believe a lye as his certain verities If God deprive all Pastors of infallible Assistance Christian Religion now stands on no more firm ground then mans weak mutable and erring opinion Gods infallible Revelation avails nothing in order to Faith unles Christians lay hold on the certainty therof by Faith which cannot be don unles that Oracle which proposeth the Revelation to all be infallible If the Proponent of a Revelation only say doubtfully I think God speaks as I preach but am not certain the Assent given to his Preaching is also doubtful and no Faith Faith surpasseth in its strength and Tendency all moral and Metaphysical certainty Though Moral certainty were sufficient for Faith yet Sectaries have not so much for Protestancy as it is reformed How Sectaries err in their search made after Religion and both weakly and improbably oppugn the Doctrin of the Catholick Roman Church Reflections upon the motives of credibility It is impossible after the establishment of true Faith in the world that God permit a fals Religion to be more clearly evidenced to reason by force of rational Motives then true Religion is manifested A fals Religion cannot equalize Gods true Religion in the evidence of prudent motives inducing to Faith No Religion hath motives founding moral certainty prerequired to Faith but the Roman Catholick Religion only Protestants have nothing like rational motives wherby Protestancy as Protestancy is proved to be so much as probable Where Mr. Stillingfleet Treats of resolving Protestants Faith He waves the Question wholy and speak's no more in behalf of Protestancy then Arianism or another Heresy Arguments drawn from Reason against Protestants upon the consideration of the Churches motives Sectaries cannot for want of prudent motives inducing to Faith convert an infidel to Christian Religion Their Religion Dishonors Christ and makes way to any new coyned Heresy THE SECOND DISCOVRS Of Scripture SCripture is a useles book in the hands of Sectaries if none as they confess Declare infallibly the sense of it in high points of Controversies Arians interpret Scripture as probably as Protestants when they oppose the sense received by the Church Sectaries make Scripture a book that proves all Religions and more significant for Arianism then Protestancy The fallacy of Protestants concerning the Interpretation of Scripture is discovered Grant no infallible Church we have no Assurance of true and interrupted Scripture Scripture might be more easily corrupted then a whole Church cheated into fals Doctrin No man can prudently suppose that God had more care to preserve Scripture uncorrupt then a Church free from errour All Substantials of Faith are not in Scripture A Learned Philosopher by his own reading Scripture cannot judge what it meanes in a hundred Passages without an Interpreter Sectaries now are in the very same case without an infallible Interpreter Sectaries in their Glosses on Scripture do nothing but add and substract from Gods Word When They Oppose the Churches sense of Scripture Sole Scripture without an infallible Interpreter can be no Rule of Faith Protestants have not one word of Scripture for their Religion as it is Protestancy The Reason of private men or of a private spirit cannot interpret Scripture The new mode of Protestants misinterpreting Scripture is amply refuted All our Sectaries endeavour is to turn Scripture off from the Catholick sense by their own fancies and then think the work don It is one thing to say and only to say it that Scriptures alleged by us prove not what we intend and another positively to prove the Doctrin contrary
your Eyes and inables you to see the Rule 4. The Church is the Interpreter but not infallible and Authentick the witness or guardian of this Rule Observe well We have here a number of words but Nothing proved Nothing so much as cleared Say therfore plainly What tradition is it that conveyed to you the books of Scripture Most surely it is the tradition of the Roman Catholick Church for you have no other If therfore you dare trust this Church in a matter of so weighly importance as to hand to you Gods Sacred Word you may as well and with as good Conscience believe what ever other Doctrin it Teaches by Tradition See Disc 2. C. 2. n. 4. 5. You talk secondly of Reason that see 's this Rule of Scripture and you certainly mean the true sense of it or you say nothing Now I would willingly learn how your Reason comes to have the priviledge or preheminence of knowing such Secrets before your elder Brethren the Papists or your more neerer Allies the Quaquers or the old Arians The like doubt I move about the Eye-salve that annoints your Eyes you call it the Spirit of God And I am sure there is no Donatist or Pelagian but will say as much of his contrary Spirit But above all Satisfy me in one doubt and plainly point me out the Church that interpret's Scripture as you do in all those matters of Controversy now between us I tell you Sir There was never any such Church in the world fallible or infallible that favours your glosses and interpretations of Scripture 32. Page 46. You have a Fling at the Captains Arguments against the judgement of Reason who if you relate truely for I have not now his Epistle by me saith first Reason must submit to the judge therfore it is not the judge You Answer It is not the supreme judge but subordinate and tyed to Rule Contra. Every judgement with you is fallible and may easily Swerve from the rule or mistake the supreme judges Sentence if it do so it is erroneous and not to be followed Say therfore who ties your judgement that is fallible and may be fals to any certain Rule This should be Answered 33. He Objects again The judge must be Infallible but reason is fallible Ergo. You Answer The Maior is a pittiful Petitio principij Contra. Your Reply is more pittiful Observe well All judgements you say are fallible and many are not only fallible but fals also Most surely you will not have us to follow any fals judgement and yet we must follow a fallible judgement Vouchsafe to tell us whose fallible judgement we are to trust to in these weighty matters of Controversy And I have all reason to be satisfied in the doubt because it avail's me Nothing to know that I must rely on a fallible judgement which may be fals Vnles you teach me whose fallible judgement it is I am to rely on For example When you interpret a passage of Scripture contrary to the Churches Sense your explication is fallible Answer therfore why will you rather have me to rest on your judgement that is fallible then on the Churches contrary sense though it were falsly Supposed fallible If you say All things considered your explication is more probable you are the very man that pittifully begg's the Question and speak's without any probable Principle 34. Now if wearied with those Interrogatories you say roundly and this must be answered in your Principle that every man is to follow his own judgement in these debated matters The Arian is to follow his private judgement the Socinian his the Quaquer his the Donatist his c. you do not only license all the Hereticks in the world to remain still in their Heresies But moreover Counsel them to believe Falsities for you know or should know that these private judgements are all fals If finally you Answer We must rest on a judgement that is True although it be fallible I know not what you mean for no man amongst you can assure me in these high points of Controversy when a judgement is to be reckoned of as true that is fallible because Truth is most easily separated from an Act that is really Falliâ—â— 35. In a word Sir your whole Mistake lies in this You sound not to the bottome the signification of these words The Iudgement of Reason For Reason in this place cannot be taken for a weak Discours or the private Sentiment of every erring man after He hath humm'd over or paus'd on Scripture the Arian or Socinian will make his Religion good this way but the Iudgement of Reason Goes further and ought to be deeply rational indeed that is It must rest at last upon a solid and satisfactory Principle which throughly pondered work 's powerfully upon every prudent disinteressed Vnderstanding and gently forceth the man that layes prejudice aside to acquiesce and yeild without fear or trouble The Catholick Church of Christ only most evidently proposeth these undoubted satisfactory Principles wheron a rational judgement doth rest securely when the Faith Shee holds is resolved No Sectary ever yet shewed nor shall hereafter show any think like a Satisfactory Principle to ground a rational judgement on when He believes contrary to this Church All he can do is to tell us what He thinks but you shall never learn from him upon any solid Principle extrinsecal to his own bosome thoughts That God speaks as He thinks But I have said so much of this Subiect Disc 1. c. 7. n. 4. 5. and Disc 2. c. 5. n. 8. 9. 10. that it is needles to add More 36. To the 3. Argument If Reason were judge a man might pleas God without Faith I know not whether you propose it fully enough you Answer this would overthrow the Church You are much deceived for the Church teaches that none â—an please God without Faith In your fourth Answer your are â—â—ing up again your Reason to a Law and Rule in things you understand not Sir if you understand not you want cords to tye fast withall and therfore may easily not close with the supreme judges sentence But of this we have said enough already You will find the substance of what followes in your Appendix refuted upon several occasions in the Treatise Had I more time I would say a word to your Glosses upon these two places of Scripture quoted by you In the first though S. Peter saith contrary 2. Pet. 3. 16. that Scripture is difficile to be understood you will have it easy unles it be to the ignorant and ungodly and 't is likely you suppose there are none of these ignorant or ungodly people among you Upon the other Text 2. Tim. 3. 15. 16. you seem to inferr from the Vtility of Scripture a sufficiency in order to Saluation which is as good an Inference as if you said Your head is profitable to make you to live therfore it is sufficient Or the Principles of Philosophy can instruct you
impudent he must say No. All therfore he can reply is That the Ministers of his Church after a perusal of Scripture find these Verities contained there and Propose all to him as things Certainly revealed Therfore he believes them Here we come to the trial of Protestants Faith and mark well How unavoydably They are forced to grant That when a pretended Revelation Sectaries must own an Infallible Proponent is not manifest for them But lyes if at all very darkly in Scripture it must be brought to light and made more clear by some Teacher Some one or other if it have influence into Faith must Apply it and Propose it to a Hearer as Gods certain Word Without this Application made by a certain Teacher no Christian can but most temerariously admit of the Revelation as Divine and Certain 10. Demand therfore in the last place Whether all the Ministers in England are able to propound certainly and infallibly the above mentioned Doctrins darkly at least and indeed not all contained in Scripture as Gods revealed Truths to any The answer must be Negative They cannot for if they propose them infallibly Ministers are infallible Ergo say I none can Believe these Doctrins for Gods certain Revelation Because the Proposal of them absolutely necessary to apply the Revelation is defective weak dubious and uncertain The Faith therfore which followes upon so unsteedy a Teaching cannot but be answerably rowling That is in one word no Faith at all And Protestants have no better 11. Some perhaps may say Though Protestants have no great Certainty of the Doctrins above specified because they are neither expresly in Scripture nor Asserted by any infallible Teacher yet their Faith in Fundamentals universally held by all Christians stand's sure enough and is infallible Such Truths shall never fail and so far the Pastors of the Church may it is likely be held infallible 12. Hereafter we shall treat more largely of Fundamental points and Therfore at present will wave what is not pertinent to answer this Reply And pertinent Why Doctrine of Protesta as Protestants is uncertain it is to say first That not one Doctrin peculiar to Protestants as Protestants because neither expresly found in Scripture nor Asserted by any infallible Teacher can certainly be believed upon Divine Revelation That these Sectaries teach not their own Protestant Tenents infallibly is granted That Scripture doth not in express Terms without intolerable glossing deliver one of them shall be made after a few pages most evident And thus if this last Reply be to any purpose it brings Ruin to that part of Doctrin which is called Protestancy I say secondly There is scarce one Article of Christs Sacred Doctrin so clearly expressed in Scripture which may not would men take the liberty as Sectaries do by wilful Glosses to alienate it from the Churches sense be perverted Arians have taught them this mode of Glossing and they exactly follow it Separate therfore the words Doubful words of Scripture separated from the sense of an Infallible Interpreter ground not Faith of Scripture from the Sense of an infallible Interpreter we can Believe nothing we have no more but a body without a Soul guesses without certainty And upon such uncertainties the whole Faith of Protestants doth and must rely which is deplorable And here ask them when They appeal as They ever doe to Scripture What they mean by Scripture which needs Interpretation even in Points most Fundamental Must we admit of their Interpretation Why so more then of others as learned as They Why not as well on the present Churches Interpretation This is as good to say no more as their fallible Guesses are But of this Subject hereafter I say thirdly Never The Church in all her Doctrine equally infallible any Catholick Church hitherto held it self infallible in a few Fundamental Doctrins and not in others Therfore Protestants are more insolently bold whilst they attempt to make this Distinction then ever any Church yet was What That meer fallible Men shall be my Doctors and ex tripode define So far the Church holds infallible Doctrin But no further T' would be well nigh eight Degrees of madnes in me to believe them Admit once of this A new Haeretick may step out and defend as stoutly yea and upon as solid grounds that Scripture it self it not infallible but only in a few Fundamental Matters yet unknown to the world If you say this sounds too harshly and cannot be granted Parallel I beseech you your own wild Assertion with it The Church is Christ's Schole and se whether that runs much smoother Thus it is Christ hath erected a School which is his Church where Christians are to learn his Sacred Doctrin But when they come to it They find more then the half of its Doctrin doubtful fallible unsound uncertain Alas Aristotle's or Plato's School can cfford us Topicks and uncertainties enough I hope Christs School can learn us better Fourthly Were the Church falsly supposed Fallible in the delivery of some Doctrin lesse Fundamental it would be much safer to believe it then Protestants who may err in all they say And then most when being void of proofs They stand trifling with a Distinction of Fundamentals and not Fundamentals Herein as in all other things they are most fallible and must I think ye credit men that can say nothing certainly 13. Fifthly and I end Admit once of a Church with this half infallibility in fundamentals our Sectaries who so furiously oppugn that whole infallibility which we ascribe to the Roman Church must Answer their own Arguments against us For here we question them as they do us Where or in what Rational Queries made to Protestants Subject is that partial infallibility lodged What Pastors designable are endewed with it How shall we make our Addresses to them in doubts and difficulties if none know where or who they are What kind of infallibility is this By whose assured Testimony can we learn what is de fide funaamentali what not What if these Pastors be devided amongst themselves in their Decisions of fundameetals whose judgement is finally to be stood too c. These and the like Questions most easily answer'd by Catholicks when They give an account of their Belief as I shall shew in the Resolution of Faith press so strongly upon Protestants that not one of them shall ever have a satisfactory Answer Perhaps to Protestants pretence to a private Spirit solve them some will recurre to the private Spirit and say This tell 's them all Truth in these doubts Contra. Ask only here Whether this Spirit makes them or their Pastors infallible or can direct others to find out such infallible Pastors If they reply Those are such as Teach Gods Word purely the Answer is impertinent for we ask whether it Assists any to Teach Gods pure Word infallibly And who they are It may be others will say that Christ never had since the Apostles
well to Distinguish between express Scripture and the superadditions of Mens Glosses fallible Explications Interpretations c. Now if When Sectaries interpret Scripture truely They borrow light from Church Doctrin in this particular Mystery of the Trinity Mr. Poole Interpret's Scripture truely it is not God knows His skill that doth it No. The Reason is Becaus be borrows the Truth from the Churches Interpretation of Scripture and so fights against an Arian with anothers Weapon Where by the way observe a strange proceeding of Protestants who when They dispute A strange proceeding of Protestants out of Scripture against an Arian They 'l have the Churches Interpretation good against him and His naught against them And when they Dispute by Scripture against Catholicks They will have the Churches Interpretation forceles against themselves and Their own wretched Glosses powerfully strong against the Church Were there ever such Doings in the world before these dayes 10. But we have not yet said all concerning Scripture Interpretations of Scripture Inferences out of Scripture c. Wherfore Becaus we are gone so far Pardon a further trouble of giving you a few more Notes on this Subject They will shew you if I mistake not upon what rottering Principles the Grand Cheat of Protestant Religion stand's for want of Infallible Teachers CHAP. II. The Fallacy of Protestants concerning Scripture and the Interpretation of Scripture is discovered 1. WE have almost seen enough how Sectaries either through Malice Ignorance or both make Holy Scripture a Book that proves all Religions Like Wittingtons bells It ring 's out what Fancy will For in Scripture is Arianism if we believe the Arians Here is Protestanism if we believe Protestants Here is Quakerism if we believe Quakers Here is what you will and All Haereticks lay alike claim to Scripture and the sense of it what you will not And it must be so whilst These men have a Bible in their hands and Construe all as they pleas Gloss as they pleas Interpret as they pleas without Limit or Restraint It had been much better Methinks if such Sole-Scripturists had never read Scripture in these debated Points of Religion then after their reading to se it made a Book that only begets Dissentions so grosly wronged and abused it is Yet no Body is in fault Pure Scripture cryes the Arian pure Scripture saith the Protestant nothing but Scripture saith the Puritan And there is no Redress for these Evils All run on in their wilful misunderstanding Scripture not one of them will yeild to another nor which is worst of all and plain Perversnes Seek after a means which is yet offered them to come to a right understanding of it 2. Truely I have often wondred at our Protestants men as they say of a more Sober Temper then your Quakers and Puritans are How it is possible Protestants Plea for Sole Scripture after they know right well with innumerable Holy Fathers this Plea or pleading sole Scripture to be nothing els but an old Trick of all condemned Haereticks That they can lessen themselves so much had they no other motive to retard them as to tread the Footsteps of such unworthy Sectaries and patronize a Doctrin which cannot but breed Dissentions to the Worlds end This it is Sole Scripture is the Rule of Faith Sole Scripture speaks plainly in all things necessary to Their false Doctrin Saluation On these two Hinges chiefly Protestant Religion turns about and will do so until God at his good pleasure judge it time to turn it out of the World Two Cheats they are and great Ones as I shall Demonstrate 3. Mr. Poole to mend the matter having supposed Mr. Pool's three Positions that sole Scripture is the Rule of Faith withall That there is enough said in Scripture to end all Controversies were men humble and Studious c. Seem's in the 7. Chap. of his Nullity page 226. to ground Protestant Religion on these three Positions The first is That the Books of Scripture are and may be proved to be the Word of God 2. That in the Substantials of Faith those Books are uncorrupted 3. That the Sense of Scripture may be sufficiently understood in necessary Points There is no Arian but will most easily admit of these three Propositions How then were they all True can they more establish Protestant Religion then Arianism For a Principle common to two Advers parties cannot considered meerly as a Principle agreed on by both more Advantage the cause of One then the Other If therfore an Arian Assent to these Propositions they ground no more Protestant Religion then they do Arianism Mr. Poole wants a fourth Proposition The Truth is Mr. Poole is highly wanting in a fourth Proposition which if proved would have done him more service then the other Three And it should have been to this Sense Seing Scripture speak's plainly all Doctrin necessary to Saluation Certainly it ought to teach Protestancy plainly I mean the particular Tenents of Protestants as these stand in Opposition to Catholick Doctrin For if these be necessary to Saluation Scripture hath delivered them plainly or if it have not done so We must Conclude They are not necessary to Saluation Thus much premised we will shew you in the ensuing Discours how slippery and fallacious Protestant Doctrin is as it Relates to Scripture and Interpretation of Scripture 4. The first proposition No infallible Church no No Infallible Church no certainty of true Scripture Assurance of True and uncorrupt Scripture To makes my Assertion good against Protestants I will only propose this plain Question From what men of Credit and Integrity had the first Protestants Their Bible It From whom had Protestants their Bible was not drop't down from Heaven into their Pulpits with Assurance of its Purity or Certainty that no Change was made in it contrary to Truth since the Apostles Times Were they Iewes Infidels Turks Arians or Graecian Haeretiks that gave them Scripture Too perfidious to be trusted in a matter of such Consequence Too unfaithsul either to preserve true Scripture by them till Luther quit his Cell or then to put into his hands a Bible Vncorrupt in every Point Were they Catholicks Let our Adversaries shame the Devil and speak Truth 'T was from them They had their Bible together with the Originals But these Papists These very Catholicks if we may credit Catholicks in Protestants Principles cannot be relyed on for Scripture Protestants had not only Corrupted the Writings of the Ancient Fathers But also through Malice or Ignorance Had grosly erred a thousand years together and Changed the Ancient Doctrin of the Primitive Church They had Secretly wrought into mens harts a fals Belief of the Chutches Infallibility of an unbloody Sacrifice of Transubstantiation Invocation of Saints and such like errors Admit of this Supposition who is there amongst Protestants that shall dare to look on his Bible with good Assurance of its If
If the Churches Interpretation were as fallible as the Arians Christians might follow either as they please were as fallible as the Arians Christians might indifferently Adhere to Either yea and changeably now take one then the other as they please A greater Probability can ballance nothing in this or the like particulars as I shall largely prove hereafter In the mean while by what is now said we may learn first Though Scripture in this and other Mysteries hath its Darknes yet by the good Providence of Almighty God we are provided of a Sure Interpreter which is absolutely Necessary For if Every one interpret according to fancy Haeresy is easily Drawn out of Gods Word And if none interpret Faithfully the Scripture still lyes hid in Obscurity which makes it for that part a Useles Book to Christians The necssity of an infallible Interpreter Learn farther That None can ever know exactly by Human Industry or his Sole pondering the Bible let him be another Salomon for Wisdom what God hath Revealed in these difficil Mysteries of our Faith without an Infallible Interpreter To prove my Assertion I 'll give you one Instance 3. Suppose that two or three most learned Heathen Philosopher well versed in Languages and all Human Literature had this Book of Scripture put into their Hands and were perswaded by the extrinsecal An instance of Philosoohers reading the Bible Authority of all Christians that God here speak's his Eternal Verities Withall That if they read the Book and by their Sole reading without Recours to any Interpreter possess the True sense of it They have True Saving Faith Well They read it and with as much Humility as any Protestant can do yet If They ask of none but Their own Iudgement errour followes Ask of none But their own judgement what it means in the more difficil Passages Tell me I beseech you And here I appeal to the moderate Iudgement of every Christian whether Catholick Arian or Protestant What Faith or Religion would these Philosophers produce out of Sole Scripture Solely Read and pondered by them My Thought is 'T is no more but a Thought That the Result of their Reading would end in Coyning a Religion different from all Others now in Christendom I am very confident They would never pitch upon Protestancy no nor Their doubts would be Endles upon any Sect now extant Alas they would Doubt and Stagger at every hard passage in Scripture yea and by the very Instinct of Nature if they own'd Scripture for Gods Book would humbly Supplicate Those who gave them the Book to lay open the Mysteries therin and Assure them of its meaning in a hundred Places yet none can do this good office for them But One only Society of Christians that layes claim to Infallibility and proves it Demonstratively if Faith be in the World 4. Be it how you will thus much I conclude Our Protestants are in the very same Case without an infallible Interpreter as the Philosophers are with Sectaries are in the very same case without an Infallible Interpreter no Interpreter These make Scripture speak what They think it speaks right or wrong And Protestants do the like whilst They give their sentiment on Mysteries above their Reach without an Infallible Teacher Pray you Reflect Had Christ Iesus and his Apostles never Taught any thing by Word of Mouth But only thrown the Book of Scripture amongst Christians Strange Confusions Had Christ and his Apostles given to Christians a Bible without an Interpreter when They left the World and commanded them to make that use of it which every Private Iudgement thought best what a Religion think ye should we have had at this day in Christianity any or none or a thousand different ones as good as none God only knows I do not Yet will say This is out very present Condition if an infallible Interpreter of Scripture be Rejected We may wrangle to the Dissentions would have followed without hope of union Worlds end but agree in nothing Dispute but conclude nothing we may raise Difficulties one against another But allay none And thus the contest must run on without Redres or Remedy All Appellation here to Antiquity to Councils Fathers Appellation to Antiquity remedies nothing being fallible with Protestants and Tradition help 's nothing Becaus they are Fallible And were they otherwise we vary as highly about the Sentiments of Fathers in every debated point of Controversy as we do about Scripture it self 5. We se thirdly How utterly impossible it is for a Protestant to draw from the Objective Verities revealed in Scripture the True Sense and meaning of Gods Word in any controverted point of Religion The Reason is Scripture never speak's plainly and expresly the Protestants Sense in these debated Controversies observe it in All and you 'll find it so What do they therfore to help themselves They first Reject an Infallible Interpreter and next as the Arians do superadd their own Fallible glosses to make Sectaries make Scripture to speak what They would have it say not what God speak's Scripture speak not what it Truly says But what They would have it say And thus they think Scripture cleared and Their Work don Take here one Instance for many Catholicks and Protestants have been at Variance a hundred years and more about these Sacred Words Matt. 26. This is my Body The different Senses drawn from them are Contradictory And therfore cannot be True This is my Body Really saith the Catholick and here is my internal Faith No saith the Protestant This is my Body figuratively or a Sign of my Body And this is my Belief Arians and Protestants vitiate Scripture after the same manner Mark I beseech Just as the Arian saith I and my Father are one and superadds his Gloss of one in Affection so the Protestant here vitiates the Text by his Gloss and adds to Scripture what God never spoke a Trope a Figure a Sign and I know not what And after This Injury don to the Words He Believes not for Gods Express Word But for his own far-fetcht and dear bought Interpretations which are no more Scripture then if he should tell me That An Example That text of St. Matthew cap. 3. verse 17. This is my beloved Son were to be forcibly stript of its Verity and misinterpreted Thus This is only a Sign or Figure of my Beloved Son No more doth Scripture through the whole Gospel warrant in the least an Improperty of speech in the one Text now cited then in the other I little Regard The Protestant dscourses and glosses contrary to this Mystery of Faith let us have plain Scripture much les their Inferences which are all Human and Fallible O but to say that Christ Body is Really Present under the Species of Bread yea and in a thousand places at Once is an Vnintelligible Mystery Why more Unintelligible then a Trinity of Persons in one Essence
or the unchangeable Divine Word seemingly Changed when he took Flesh upon him and became an Infant These are Higher Mysteries and greater Difficulties If Human Reason might be judge and give a final Sentence But I 'll tell you once for all That man shall never be a Proficient in Christs School that will undertake to conquer High Mysteries no to be pried into by our weak discourses as I may say the great Difficulties of Faith by Examining the High Mysteries of it If he goe so to work he is cast into a Labyrinth and can find no Exit All therfore he is to do is to Learn and Examin whether God the Infallible Truth hath Revealed and taught us these Mysteries by any unerring Oracle Next How we are to submit in matters of Faith He is to Captivate his understanding And humbly Submit to him without further search who neither can be Deceived nor will Deceive us But enough of this Digression 6. We se thirdly Though Protestants Anathematize The whole Religion of Protestants is nothing els but addition to Scripture or subtraction from it all that Add to Gods Word or Take from it yet I 'll tell you Their whole Religion as Protestancy is either made up of no Scripture at all or is nothing els but a meer Addition of their own Glosses to Scripture or finally a wilful Subtraction from it To the Words now cited they add a sign a figure and God knows what more Is this Scripture When St. Iames 2. cap. 24. Dogmatically teaches that a man is Justified by Works and not by Faith only our New men tell us the Apostle speak's not of Justification before God but before Men. Is this Scripture When St. Paul Rom. 2. 6. plainly Affirm's That God will render to every one according to his Works Calvin and Beza Assure us He will do so indeed if there were any such But the Mischief is None can do a Good Work before God Is this Scripture No. These and such like Interpretations Our Adversaries do not own for Scripture yet They must own them as Tenents Essential to their Religion Ergo I say Meer Fallible Glosses which are no Scripture make up Protestant Religion as Protestancy And hence Doctrin of the 39 Articles as Protestancy not Scripture it is that their Doctrin delivered in the 39. Articles stand's there with all Clearnes that is you know what they say But when 't is Brought to the Test and is examined by Scripture you may seek long before ye find a word like it as 't is Protestancy 7. You see lastly That the Interpretations which Protestants give to those Texts of Scripture cited by How Sectaries abuse Scripture cited for Catholick Doctrin Catholicks for their Doctrin are meer Human Extra-scriptural and Anti-scriptural Glosses of their own Fancy We cite the Apostle 2. Thess 2. 15. For Tradition beside the Written Word For the Real Presence This is my Body Matt. 26. For Iustification by Good Works that of St. Iames 2. 14. For a Sacrifice to be continued to the Worlds End Malac. 1. 11. For Extream-Vnction Iames the 5. 14. For the Verity and Infallibility of the Church that of St. Paul 1. Timot. 3. 15. And what for Gods sake have we from our New Men to these plain Passages speaking Popery But a Return of meer Mock-fool Glosses Hatch't in their own Heads which have so little Shadow of Scripture in them That with force they drive the very life and sense out of Gods Word And They proceed so unluckily Sectaries make Scripture clear where 't is obscure and obscure where 't is clear That where Scripture is clear They make it obscure and where it is obscure They will seem to make it Clear by superaded glosses What can be more clear for our Catholick Doctrin of the Real Presence then those words of St. Luke 22. v. 19. Hoc est corpus meum quod pro vobis datur This is my body which is given for you Yet with their Glosses they so Torture the Text That every Particle in it suffers Violence In so much that Iacobus Scripture tortured by Sectaries Gordonus observes in his first Tome of Controversies printed anno 1612. Controversia prima de Verbo Dei cap. 26. n. 11. pag. 121. No fewer then two hundred different Glosses have been added by Protestants to Obscure the plain sense of Christs own Words Some as this Author notes abuse and misinterpret the Pronoun Hoc Others the Verbe Est Others Corpus Others meum Others the Relative quod Others the Proposition pro Others the Pronoune Vobis Others finally the Verb Datur Yet after all this perverting and woful mangling of Gods Word we must Believe that our Protestants speak forsooth Scripture and nothing but clear Scripture On the contrary side we have seen more then enough in the Beginning of this Chapter how Vainly They cry up the Clarity of Scripture in Mysteries most difficil not fully expressed in Gods Word What man in his Wits can say That any Scripture through the whole Testament Speak's half so clearly of the Consubstantiality of the Eternal Son with his Eternal Father as the Text now quoted is for the Real Presence Yet those Scriptures must be Clear for that Christian Verity and this Obscure for the Real Presence 8. To conclude this point Methinks it highly imports when we deal with our Adversaries concerning How to proceed with Sectaries when They Explicate Scripture Their Explications of Scripture That we do not so much at least in the first place make it our Work Positively to Disprove them by other Texts and Authorities which our Writers usually do and laudably as to put them to the Proof of their wild Glosses which seem's most Reasonable For Asserenti incumbit probatio When therfore They go about to Obscure Scripture where it is plain with new Interpretations the world never heard of bid them not only Interpret but Prove Their Interpretations For example That the words of our Saviour now cited must be alienated from their genuin Sense and tortured as they are by Protestants Proceed thus with them put them to the Proof and you 'l soon see them at a Nonplus CHAP. IV. Sole Scripture without an infallible Interpreter can be no Rule of Faith Protestants have no Scripture for their Religion as it is Protestancy 1. MY first proposition Draw's Proof enough from the precedent Chapter For if Scripture be Obscure and speak not clearly all Verities revealed in the book it cannot Regulate Faith without an Interpreter But 't is more then evident that it speaks not clearly many Verities Concerning the Highest Mysteries of Religion Therfore it cannot Regulate Faith relating to These Mysteries without an Interpreter I prove the Minor Scripture which solely considered according to the Exterior Letter both may The bare letter of Scripture may and doth easily beget error and Doth as easily beget Error as Truth in the Intellectual Power of man Speak's
describing the number also and given good Scripture for both which cannot be don 2. That Faith only Iustifies 3. That after he hath better pondered the Text of St. Peter 2. 3. 16. He prove by Scripture the Plainess of it in all necessary Points to Salvation A fourth proof concerning the Canon and Certainty of Scripture would choak Mr. Poole But I 'll not give him so undigestible a pill may He pleas to satisfy the three former Demands by Scripture only without Glosses and ungrounded Inferences drawn from what he thinks to be Gods Word But is not 6. Some perhaps may ask why all this time whilst we have Discoursed of Scripture of its Certainty of its Sense and Regulating Faith c. None of Mr. Pooles Arguments against us are taken notice of Hath he none or do I Dissemble them I answer The man hath nothing like an Objection To prove Scripture to be the Word of God He Relyes on the Confession and Testimony of Catholicks This Mr. Poole hath nothing like Arguments we have Refuted above To prove it uncorrupt in the Essentials of Faith He Tell 's us that by looking into the Nature and quality of those Various Lections which are pleaded as Evidences of Corruption we shall quickly find them to be in Matters of les Moment It seem's They are little Becaus Mr. Poole without Proof will have them so I could shew him great ones in the Protestant Bible But let them pas And be pleased to note how poorly he shifts of the Difficulty That Presses The Difficulty is concerning the best Originals which Protestants have hitherto met with none of them I believe ever yet saw the Autograph or Hand-writing of either an Euangelist or Apostle These Originals I say cannot be proved Uncorrupt if that Church which had them in Custody for a thousand years brought in a Deluge of Errors into the Christian World Finally to prove that a Protestant hath a Sufficient Assurance of Understanding the Sense of Scripture in things Necessary to Saluation He allegeth Gods Promise Iohn 7. If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrin whether it be of God But Protestants do Gods will thus much must be added or the Proof stands on one Leg and Papist Do not Gods will Ergo Those have Assurance of the true Sense of Scripture and These have not Here is the doughty Argument and that which follows is as weightles Protestants saith He have the Assurance of Reason Papists have no more and if that will not do They have the Assurance of the Spirit which God promiseth Luk 11. Here is work enough for another Chapter Yet in passing I cannot but reflect on a mistaken quotation Mr. Poole misquotes Sixtus Senensis in Mr. Poole page 230. where he cites Sixtus Senensis And both err's in the Annotation and Doctrin of Sixtus concerning the Clarity of Scripture Sixtus Therfore libre 6. Annotat. 152. not 151. as Mr. Poole Quotes § Quod autem Answering an Objection of St. Chrysostom plainly Afferts that when Scripture is said to be clear 't is not to be referred to the Whole Bible but to a Part of it only wherfore saith He St. Chrysostom divides Scripture into two Classes The One contains the hidden and abstruse Mysteries of Gods deep Wisdom And this part is not clear at all thus much Mr. Poole conceil's Altera sectio The other Section or Part of it compriseth the First and chiefest Principles of all things to be Believed and Chief Precepts of living And so much is clear Observe well The first and Chiefest Principles of things to be Believed infer no Clarity in every Particular revealed Mystery For He that believes this one Principle of Faith That the Church is Holy and the Pillar of Truth Hath a First great Principle and may learn by it all Truth If you please to se how Mr. Poole abuseth Sixtus read him in the page now cited It were most easy to Take him tripping in other Citations But that is not my task at present This only came in by Chance CHAP. V. The Reason of private men and their private Spirit cannot interpret Scripture 1. MR. Poole told us above That Protestants have the Assurance of Reason for the Sense of Scripture Happy They if they were the only Reasonable men in the World But why are not Papists as Reasonable Why should the Pelagians the Arians or Honest Quakers be left out of the list of Rational men Or if These would Monopolize the Assurance of Reason to Themselves for their Sence of Scripture Why are They not to be Credited upon their Parole as well as Protestants For their proof is to say They have it crede quod habes habes and so will an Arian or Quaker say too Admit Were Reason allowed of to sentence the Sense of Scripture we must know whose reason hitt's right therfore which is fals that Reason be allowed of as Judge or an Iustrument to sentence the Sense of Scripture where it speaks obscurely We are nothing Advanced nor one whit the Wiser unles we know whose Reason it is that hitt's right on the Sense Now all of them most evidently do not so unles we impiously say that God hath revealed Contradictions in Scripture Becaus these mens Reason draws contradictory Senses out of Scripture and in All do not Interpret Scripture truely High Points of Faith also Say then good Mr. Poole whose Reason must yeild and to whom Must an Arians submit to yours or yours to an Arian Whose Reason must yeild and to whom whilst we vary about the sense Must mine bend to yours or yours to Mine Or may we all hold on to the day of Doom as Devided in Faith as we are in Iudgements concerning the Sense of Scripture Allow once of these Endles and Eternal jarrs in Religion here on Earth which this one Principle of Following private Reason establisheth and you may seek for another Heaven then Christ hath promised to the Children of Peace Hereafter That is for none at all God forgive these late Tumultuous Spirits the True cause of our wofull Dissentions But let us go on And 2. Pray you tell me when Protestants say They have the Assurance of Reason for the Sense of Scripture in controverted Points of Faith E. G. The Trinity what signifies this word Reason with them Doth it import a Formal Discours much of that nature as Schoolmen use when they establish their Tenents in Divinity Sectaries are to say what this word Reason signifies If so the Principle of this Discours must be admitted of and own'd by the two Advers parties when by Reason only They plead for the True sense of Scripture And the Conclusion of the Discours must If a formal Discours two Advers parties must agree on a Principle be drawn from Premises founded on This received Principle Thus much supposed I might here ask first Upon what known and admitted Principle Do our Protestants ground
a lawful Syllogism wherby They prove That Their Reason hath ever the good luck the singular Priviledge to fall right on the True sense whilst No Princiciple to prove that Protestants reason hitt's right Others as learned as They swerve from it If here They talk of the Vnction teaching Truth of the Spirit c. They will be urged again for a Principle to prove That these Favors singularly belong to Them and not to Others who Dissent from them But we will wave this Argument And only note how in all those Disputes which our Protestants hold either with Catholicks or Sectaries take for an Instance the Arians the True sense of Scripture is so far of from being a The sense of Scripture when Two Sectaries dispute is Ever the thing in Question received Principle by both these Litigious Parties That it is ever the Thing in Question and must be proved by another own'd and admitted Principle if the Discours stand upon solid ground 3. One example will give you more Light Mr. Poole Assaults an Arian a far weaker Adversary then a 'T is proved by an Instance Catholick with a Scriptural Proof for that High Mystery of our Faith the Sacred Trinity and argues thus Scripture saith Iohn 1. c. 5. 7. There are Three that bear record in Heaven the Father Word and Holy Ghost and these three are one But the Sense of this Scripture saith Mr. Poole is That God is one in Essenceâ— and Three Distinct Persons The Father Vnproduced the Son Produced and the Holy Ghost Proceeding from Both. Ergo we must admit a Trinity Observe well The Arian Admit's the first Proposition or the Words of Scripture And here is the only Principle agreed on by these two Disputants But utterly denyes the second Viz. The Sense drawn out of these Words And tell 's The Arian admit's of the words of Scripture but denies Mr. Pooles sense his Adversary that this Sense is the very Thing in question but no received Principle And therfore must be proved not supposed against him Proved I say and by Sole Scripture which yet cannot be done Though we turn to all the Texts in the Bible Most justly therfore may the Arian tell Mr. Poole If his Faith fall upon such a Determinate Sense now given He Believes it either Becaus His private Judgement molds Scripture to that Meaning or Becaus He takes it upon the Authority of a Church which he professedly Disowns and will not Believe 4. In reference to what is here said note first That as the True sense of Scripture is supposed and not proved against an Arian by force of Scripture in this particular Mystery so much more it is ever supposed and not proved when Protestants dispute against Catholicks The reason is Their private Judgement Protestants first frame to themselves a Sense of Scripture and then triumph first makes what sense they please which is no received Principle and afterward They vapor like Conquerours as if sole Scripture did the deed and defeated us Upon the great Assurance I have of This my Assertion I chalenge Mr. Poole or any Protestant They have not one Text of Scripture against the Roman Catholick Faith without the mixture of Their private Iudgements to produce one Text against the Roman Catholick Faith which without the Mixture of Their private Judgements or unadmitted Glosses speak's so much as Probably against it The more plausible place they insist on is That of St. Iohn cap. 6. Vnles you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood c. For communion under both kinds which nevertheles must have twenty Glosses and as many self Iudgements upon it before it can put on a likelyhood of a proof against us 5. Note 2. That whilst the Sense of Scripture lyes under dispute and is not agreed on by the two Parties Why Protestants loose labour when They argue by Scripture at Difference For example a Catholick and Protestant It is but Labour lost in the Protestant to Assault his Adversary with Texts of Scripture For the Catholick Answers Olim possideo prior possideo I have ever believed the sense of Gods Word to be such as you know we Catholicks own And can you my Antagonist What the Catholick answer's perswade your self to drive me out of the Possession of my Ancient Belief by your Sole private Judgement or Those new Glosses you father on Scripture If so A worthy Gentleman who by right of his Ancestors for a thousand years and upward now quietly possesseth his lands May be turn'd out of House and Harbor upon the private Judgement of some New upstart Fellow That Tell 's him He verily thinks the Ancient Writings for his Lands are not wel Understood Therfore he will first do him the favor to explicate them according to his private Opinion though contrary to the Sense hitherto received which done he will drive him out a doors and make him a Beggar This is our very Case 6. Contrarywise when the Sense of Scripture is How we may argue from Scripture agreed on we may Argue as Schoolmen do and draw from it Theological Conclusions which though often Various amongst Divines yet the Principle admitted I mean the Sense of Scripture remain's unquestioned and is maintain'd without Contradiction Without Such an agreed on sense which either Scripture as it often doth Deliver's plainly enough or The common consent of Learned men makes Highly probable or The Church of Christ declares certain 'T is to no more purpose to Dispute out of Scripture then to speak Arabick to an Illiterate Peasant Yet the loose Behavior of our Protestants is such that it lead's them without the guidance of these Lights first to Fancy The Fancy of Sectaries a Sense of their own and then draw strange Conclusions from it So Mr. Poole After he had by his own Interpretation perverted that Text of St. Paul The Church is the Pillar and Ground of Truth might wel say The Church is not proved Infallible Thus much is noted if the word Reason signify a formal Discours 7. Perhaps Protestants may reply For in Truth it Another Acception of the word Reason refuted is the hardest thing in the world where to have them in their Answers That Reason here imports not any Discours at all But an immediate clear Light Transfused into their Mind when they read Scripture like a Beam shot from the Sun wherby their Eyes as perspicuously discern the most Abstruse Sense in it as men do the Sun by its Light or the first known Principles of nature by Their own Indisputable Evidences Is this Reply think you rational that draws not so much as a Dram of Reason after it For if their new Faith hath set new Eyes in their head It hath not surely pluck't out their Neighbours Eyes who yet I hope may see what is discernable by All. None then ever questioned the Suns-shining at Noon-day or Writ Commentaries on the first
natural Principles Yet we se These new Sectaries not only highly at Variance about the Sense of Scripture but also Gods Church which hath Eyes as well as They as highly opposite opposite to them However the Church must be Counted Pur-blind and They only sharp-sighted though the Light they fancy may licence any Haeretick to say what he pleases For as They Set Light set up against Light up their Light so an Arian may set up his against it And swear 't is the Clearer of the two for his sense And who can gainsay him 8. From this Discours it follows that the Assurance of Reason wherof our Protestants talk so much is a most insipid Word For it doe's not signify a Formal Discours for want of a known and received Principle Nor That quicker immediate Light â—f all Fooleries the worst now refuted I 'll go farther and say No Christian by Reason only can dive into the Mysteries of Scripture That no Christian by the force of Reason only when he reads These difficil Mysteries in Scripture can so much as once fasten a prudent certain Iudgement either upon the Thing revealed or the Ratio credendi Not upon the Thing revealed For that Transcends the Capacity of Reason nor upon the Motive why he Believes For by the force of Reason only he cannot know exactly Guess he may and miss that God speak's expresly in such a sense Therfore if upon his own Half-sighted and too daring Conceit He will proceed to a setled Iudgement and say positively what God speak's He tells the Story before he knows it And consequently highly offends against Reason For Reason dictates that we must first Learn Before we undertake to Teach or rashly enter into the deep Secrets of Gods Divine Wisdom without a certain and infallible Doctor 9. Therfore before we come to the Assent of Divine Faith A master an infallible Proponent is necessary who without Ambiguity assures us that God Speak's and in such a determinate Sense This once admitted Reason hath no place at all in the very Elicite Act of Faith or if it enter it spoiles Faith as I shall presently declare 10. I 'll therfore Explicate my self further and The Different Operation of Reason in a Catholick and in a Protestant withall shew how Reason goes to Work in a Protestant And how differently it Proceeds in Catholicks The Protestant hath no more but the bare Letter of a Bible before his eyes And toyl s hard with that one weak Instrument his own Reason to find out Gods Sense Therin He Read's he Humm's He Pausses He Expound's He interpret's and afterward Believes what he thinks is True Marck well He Sectaries know what they think but know not why They belive knows what He Thinks but yet knows not upon any Rational Inducement or solid Motive Extrinsecal to his Thought that God speaks as He Thinks Question him in any Particular and you will find what I say most True For example Why when He reads Those Words This is my Body he believes Christs Sense to be This is a Sign or Figure of my Body Ask him where is the Rational Inducement that lead's him to own this sense If Rational He is able to give an Account of it to others If herein he show himself unacountable He doth not only expose his Belief to the contempt of Vnbelievers but to Those thousands of believing Christians that oppose it Nevertheles 'T is so For he can render no other Reason for this The proof is given new coyned Sense But that after the reading of Scripture pondering the Words examining the Difficulties and conferring places together He is wrought into a Perswasion That God Speak's just as he Thinks and no otherwise where you first se That all the Reason he hath walk's round in the compas The Reason of Sectaries laid forth of his own weak Head without Shewing so much as a Resemblance of any sutable Evidence of it to others who notwithstanding know Reason as well as He. You se secondly That such a man Acts How They proceed more the Part of a Pope then ever any did that Sate in Peters Chair For he positively Defines what Scripture saith without the Extrinsecal Help either of Ancient Tradition or the Continued Sense of the Church Never Pope defined so at Random 11. And upon this Occasion I say more When Of the sentiments of Fathers expounding Scripture the very best of Fathers whether a St. Austin a St. Hierom or who you will differently as it often happens expound and Interpret Scripture by their Private Iudgement grounded upon Vnevidenced Principles or upon meer conjectural Probabilities Their private Sentiments can Advance us no further But to an Opinion only which therfore I may without offence Reject and never bring us to a setled Act of Faith Yet a far more Vnevidenced private Judgement in a Protestant doth all And as the only Light he see 's by serves him both to apprehend that God Speak's and in what Sense he Speaks Upon so great a want of Evidence his whole Faith depends Hence we se thirdly If Faith be a discoursive Act as some of our New men hold That is an Act founded on a Rational objective Inducement which inclines the Mind to Iudge as they do and Believe as They Iudge it No Protestant can say why he Believes as he doth is impossible for any Protestant to Answer the question why he believes that God speak's and in such a Sense by the Strength and Light of his own Iudgement For stead of the Rational Objective Inducement which ought to He only return's you the subjective Light of his own Iudgement for Answer incline him and we inquire after He returns only the Subjective Light of his own Internal Iudgement which being only a fallible Act Clear's nothing without some kind of further Evidence nor Answers the Question why he Believes Unles this be the WHY That becaus he thinks his own Thought true He is pleased to believe as he think's Where you find the reason most unreasonable Becaus it is Vnresolvable into either Rational Motive or any known and received Principle 12. We se 4. Though we Allow to Protestants as much of the private Spirit as their Harts can wish for wherby They are as it were pushed on to Judge The private Spirit supposes but proposeth no new Motive of Faith and Belieue Yet this Spirit being only As They say The Operation of Grace chiefly fortifies the Power that Believes But proposeth no new or further Rational Motive of Belief For it must suppose the total motive Antecedently proposed discernable by more then one only Before it can either push or work to any purpose Protestants say it And this is what some Protestants Assert Viz. That the Operation of the Spirit is more by way of Efficiency ex parte subjecti credentis in order to the begetting Faith then suppletory of the Rational Inducement That objectively
Infallible Teacher to learn us now infallibly what that Written Word speaks in a hundred As great necessity now to learn us what Scripture speak's as what Christ tought controverted Points as then was necessary to declare the Substance of Christs Doctrin which he delivered by Word of mouth I say the substance for without all doubt the Apostles and the 70. said explicitely much more in thir Preaching then meerly what Christ had implicitely and in fewer words commanded them to Preach yet They neither did nor could swerve in any Doctrinal Point Therfore in the publishing his Doctrin They had the Assistance of the Holy Ghost before his Ascension Though it was then more amply confirmed and promised anew not only to the Apostles then living But also to their Successors for ever 6. And this is what our Saviour Dogmatically Gods Spirit with his Church for ever Teaches Iohn 14. 16. of a Comforter the Holy Ghost who shall abide with you for ever which words implying a continual aboad cannot buâ— be understood in an Absolute sense Yes say They He shall be with them for ever But how Mark the gloss in regard of Consolation and Grace A meer Guess Not only for Consolation and Grace The only question is whether it hitt's right or no For who tell 's you Sr That this and no other is the Absolute sense of Christs Words Why may They not as well import the Assistance of Infallibility as that of Consolation and Grace Prove your Gloss and by Scripture This we urge for We Catholicks say without drawing further Proof from either Councils or Fathers which you hold Fallible That Christs following words Iohn 16. 13. When that Spirit of Truth shall come he will teach you all Truth taken in their obvious sense warrants this Infallible Assistance for ever Can your Fallible Spirit assure me of the contrary You say Yes For these last Words are Restrained to the Apostles only Here is another Gloss or Guess as unlucky as the former For who Restrains here Christ or You If you do it you may as well restrain the Consolation of Grace to all the Apostles Successors as Infallible Assistance 7. We prove both the One and the Other Blessing granted to the Church by our Saviours own Words Matt. 28. 20. I am with you always to the end of the world and moreover Affirm that the Consolâ—tion of Grace granted the Church whose duty is to Teach us Truth Benefit's little in order to that Consolation of grace nothing in a whole Church without Infallibility End unles it be accompanied with the further Priviledge of infallibility For what comfort hath Any whether Learned or Illiterate to Hear that the Pastors of Christs Church have mâ—â—h interiour Consolation and Grace if this sorrowful Thought afflict his hart All and every one of thâ—se Pastors notwithstanding the plenty of their Grace may cheat him intâ— damnable Error and teach There is neither God Heaven nor Hell 8. I might further show How utterly inconsistent this supposed and yet Vnexplicated Consolation of Grace The Consolation of Grace and want of Divine Assistance uncompossible in the whole Church is with the Spirit of a whole Church which may Deceive us But the thing need 's no Proof for it is evident That God who hath promised to direct us by his Pastors cannot comfort them so plentifully with Celestial Inspirations and Permit all to delude and cosen us with Pernicious Errors Will he give them grace Think ye to Talk only and not to teach his Verities certainly To live holily for his grace serves for some end and Leave them to a Possibility of Corrupting his Spouse his own Sanctified God Courts not his Church with comfort and permitt's it to betray his Truths Church with fals Doctrin This in a word is to tell God That he court 's the watchmen of his Church with Heavenly Consolation who nevertheles may Betray his Cause and give up his Citty to the Devil when they please For here in They are left to their own wills and Fancies God you know is Truth and He loves Truth Truth is that which he first established in his Church And it Answers to that first Operation of Christian which is Divine Faith the ground of all Sanctity To tell me therfore That He comforts a whole Church by A Paradox of Sectaries Grace and yet leaves it so tottering upon Vncertainties That none can with absolute Assurance say He either teaches or hear's Truth delivered in any Article of Christian Faith is worse then a meer Chimaera And makes our Bountifull Lord not only a very Niggard of his Graces But also gives him a most high Affront The Grace therforâ— of Consolation The comfort of Grace supposeth the favour of Infallibility which he allowes his Church as a Church ever implyes or supposeth that Arcb-favour of Infallible Assistance Rob it of this Priviledge and other Graces avail little 9. And here by the way I must needs propose one question to our Protestants It is whether God Supposing his Promises already made can A question proposed whether the Church can withstand an loose all grace according to their Principles permit that the whole Church Vnassisted by his infallible Spirit loose withstand and reject what ever Grace he gives or hath given it If they say Yes It is Possible Then I Infer God can permit that the Whole Church may turn Traitour and become Impious For a Church which withstands looseth or rejects all Grace is traiterous and impious If they say no it is against his Goodnes to permit such a Universal Impiety They must acknowledge That he cannot but preserve a Church for ever whether consisting of Elect or no we dispute not in his Grace and favour Truth as necessary to the Church as Grace and this infallibly Ergo I say He cannot buth Infallibly also supposing his Promises Preserve it in Truth by the special Assistance of his own Unerring Spirit Truth being as all know as necessary to the Church as Grace is And thus we se in notorious great Sinners who although they have a thousand Incitements of Grace to amend their lives yea better themselves by it in some particulars yet as long as Divine Truth necessary to Christians is wanting Their state is Deplorable To conclude then Here is my Dilemma Either it is possible That the whole Church That is All the Teachers and Hearers in it may abandâ—n all Gods Revealed Verities and neither Teach nor Hear one Word of his Truth or 't is impossible If the first be granted 'T is not only possible that the whole Church may revolt from God and Truth But may loose all Grace likewise Grant this and say next what will become of our Protestants Elect people who Becaus Predestinated to Eternal life cannot but have Grace Observe well A Paradox of Sectaries the Paradox They cannot Loose grace yet 't is possible never to hear a Word of
of these Places now cited May be as Protestants understand The bare Saying of Sectaries stand's for no proof so I say The contradictory Proposition is every whit as good The Sense May be as Catholicks understand Who must Therfore whilst we are Both yet supposed to stand as it were on equal Terms Determine what God hath absolutely Revealed in these Scriptures I say absolutely For the question here is not what a Particular man may Imagin God to have Spoken But what He hath de facto Spoken The Reason hereof is clear Because God Speak's not in so weighty a Matter as this is to Try mens Wits or to Hear Them tell him Lord such may be the Sense of your words Faith relies not on what private men think God hath revealed Though I cannot say what it is Nor can our Faith Rely on what we only Think He may have Spoken But on what He hath actually Revealed And we have means thanks be to God To know this Absolute Sense as I shall declare in the 9. Chapter where the Objection is fully solved 5. In the mean time be pleased to reflect first That Protestants Glosses as iniurious to Gods Word as Those of the Arians when meer Fallible men Peremptorily put upon Scripture a Sense which They cannot so much as probably prove But by their own Erring guesses only to be the true meaning of the Holy Ghost and this in a matter which Highly concerns Saluation They plainly Injure Gods Sacred Word Protestants are these fallible men and do so Ergo they injure Gods Word The first Proposition is clear in the Case of Arians who Becaus They peremptorily give a Sense to those Scriptures which relate to the Real Vnity of Three Persons in one Divine Essence the matter is of High importance and cannot prove it But by the force of Their Erring Guesses only They wrong both God and his Word The second Proposition is as Evident For The Proof Protestants absolutely say The Scriptures now cited include not yea positively exclude a perpetual infallibility allowed the Church This sense and 't is a Point of highest Importance For the clearing of it End 's all Controversies they cannot prove But by their own Erring guesses only And therfore injure Scripture in saying God hath spoken that which cannot be so much as probably proved was Spoken 6. Reflect 2. It is not enough that Sectaries tell us upon their own fallible Parole That our Places of Sectaries come not home to the difficulty Scripture May be interpreted as they please or come not home to prove the Churches Infallibility For Admit thus much Gratis They yet convince nothing Because it is one thing to say and God knows only to say it our alleged Scriptures for example that of St. Paul The Church is the pillar and ground of Truth prove To say we prove not our Doctrin is not to say They prove the contrary not a Church Infallible and a quite other positively to Teach and prove it to be Fallible The most they can infer out of thiâ— Negative Such places prove not were all granted they desire is that They give the slip to so many Texts of Scripture or infringe so much force of our Proofs Alas This only is to pull as it Their weak endeavour is to pull down not to build up the Machin of their new Doctrin were so much of a House down But it doth not therfore follow that They positively give in as good Texts to the contrary Sense or Build up the Structure of their new Doctrin concerning the Churches Fallibility To pull down one Proof is not to destroy all we can say we have more Strings to our Bow then one much les is it to build up an opposite Doctrin The Machin these Sectaries would fain build lyes in this one positive Assertion The whole Church is Fallible This say I Fancy only Erect's For it stands unprop't Fancy doth all with them That is it neither is nor can nor shall ever be positively proved And hence 7. Reflect 3. If Protestants who rely totally on Scripture Proof Positively Assert as They do That the whole Church is Fallible They are obliged both in Conscience and all Law of Disputation to prove what They say For Asserenti incumbit probatio Observe my reason When Luther and Sectaries came amongst us and troubled the world They heard the voice of a whole Ancient Church against them owning the infallible Assistance of Gods Directing Spirit for which we now argue The Church pleaded thus Olim possideo prior possideo This Spirit of infallibility I long since have had and yet upon Scripture proof do Believe Well Now enter these Sectaries They first reject Church Authority and then make Scripture speak as Fancy pleases and first Reject the Authority of this Ancient Church next They fall abord with our Scriptures And becaus they are good at Guessing They tell us Verily These Scriptures seem not to prove a Church Infallible Becaus They are able to interpret all to a contrary Sense To this we have Answered Their seeming is no proof Withall That Catholicks as Many and Learned as They both can and do interpret them otherwise Hitherto therfore their cause is nothing Advanced More then is necessary And it is That whilst They positively establish a new coyned Doctrin of a whole Christian Church fallible contrary to what Antiquity ever owned I say 't is necessary That they bring some Positive proof and make good Their unheard of Assertion 8. And here we may have plain dealing if Sectaries Protestant have no Text of Scripture against an Infallible Church please Turn then to your Bible Gentlemen and shew me any Text like this The whole Church of Christ is not the Pillar and ground of Truth The Holy Ghost will not ever Teach it all Truth God hath placed Pastors and Doctors in his Church But such as may suffer us to be carried away with every wind of fals Doctrin c. Such Expressions we read in our Bible for the contrary Verity Have you any thing like them in yours to prove your opposite Asserted Doctrin I say any like them For I Press not to have from you the same Formal Words But will be content with one plain significant Text and we will stand to Scripture Or if Scripture please you not we will accompany you to Councils and Fathers which so much as Meanly makes the whole Church of Christ Fallible Such a Scripture I tell you once more you cannot produce Ergo you only vent your Fancies you talk and prove not you believe a Doctrin which you cannot show was ever Revealed in Gods Word You may perhaps trifle it out and Tell us as you are wont to do of our errors de facto It is nothing to the purpose For What we desire of Sectaries we enquire not here after your proofles Assertions They are Answered a hundred times over nor ask what
I answer Admit of this most fals Supposition These Doctrins were not Taught Sectaries found Faith on a Negative No Faith at all can be founded on this Negative Before which will never be They Prove their contrary Doctrin Positively Revealed by Almighty God in Scripture For this Principle stands irrefragably Sure No Revelation No Faith Although the Object Assented to be True All the pains Therfore These men take to reduce Their Reformed Gospel to the Model of the Primitive Church is upon several Respects meer labor lost But upon this Account Chiefly it They cannot shew one of Their Negatives Revealed to any Ancient Orthodox Church faulters most That They cannot show one Negative believed by them to be a Revealed Truth to any Christian Society in the world It is pittiful to hear how they fumble in this Discours We Ask how they prove that the Primitive Church held no Unbloody Sacrifice put this for one example it serves for all Some Answer They find no such thing as a Sacrifice registred in those Ancient Writings Mark the Proof They find it not Ergo it is not to be found Catholicks as The Inferences of Sectaries unconcluding clear Sighted as others find that Doctrin expresly Asserted But becaus Protestants are pleased to Deny all They must and upon their Own word be Thought the Men of more Credit Well But Suppose the Doctrin was not Registred in those Ancient Records Is this Consequence good It was not writ Ergo it was not Taught No certainly Vnles They show all Taught Doctrin was then Writ or Registred But let us falsly Suppose that the Doctrin was neither Writ nor Taught Doth it follow that the Contrary of no Sacrifice now believed by Protestants was a Truth Revealed to that Church or taught by it No. Therfore they are here driven again upon the old Negative And thus it is That Church said nothing of an Vnbloody Sacrifice Which is Hideously Vntrue Ergo Protestants can now Believe no Sacrifice which is Hideously fals and as unlucky a Sequele as This That Church said not whether the Moon be a watery Body full of Rocks Ergo Protestants can Believe the contrary with Divine Faith You will Say we Trifle now For that Church was Perfect in Faith and either held a Sacrific 〈…〉 Denyed it I answer in Real Truth it Plainly and undeniably Held a Sacrifice yet must withal Affirm Though we Falsly suppose And this fals Supposition must be vigilantly regarded that it only Negatively abstracted from such Doctrin yet Protestants are far of from Proving it held Positively the Contrary That is no Sacrifice which yet is Necessary to be Proved if They believe no Sacrifice with Divine Faith 11. They may yet Reply They are Able at least to Produce some Ancient Fathers Clearly Enough Asserting no Unbloody Sacrifice Therfore they prove this Negative and so they can do Others I utterly Deny that clearly Enough and say They have not one Ancient Fathe 〈…〉 nor Council nor any Approved Authority No Ancient Father against an Vnbloody Sacrifice that positively Denyes a Sacrifice All unanimously Taught the contrary as Luther himself confesseth Much less have They Any that makes this their Doctrin a Truth Revealed by Almighty God or ever taught by any Vniversal Church Were therfore these supposed Authorities of Sectaries which are none and Reasons also for no Sacrifice more Numerous and Strong then what the World hath Heard of hitherto They cannot in Conscience suppose them Proofs weighty enough to Beat down the contrary Asserted And Vndeniable Doctrin not only of Fathers But of a Whole Church They cannot Suppose Them powerful enough to Build up such a new Negative of Protestant Religion especially whilst They see before their eyes the Torrent of Antiquity against them and our Answers returned to every Trivial Objection they make O But they can Solve all we Object And we must Take their Word Becaus They say so We also tell them We Solve what they Object and yet are not Believed Do you not se here most pittiful Doings and Controversies made Endles by this Proceeding when each Party saith what it pleaseth and Gain 's no Credit from the Other A Judge my good Friends and an Infallible Judge is here Necessary to Decide Matters between us But thus far evident Reason judgeth And Tell 's you Though you could Solve all we say for the Affirmative of a Sacrifice you are to Seek for a Positive Proof of your Vnproved yet Believed Negative There is no Sacrifice And the like I say of your other Negatives CHAP. IX Of the Means left by Almighty God to Interpret Scripture Truely One Passage More of Scripture Proving Infallible Teachers is Quoted 1. WE come now to Solve more fully the Objection Proposed Chap. 7. n. 2. It was to this Sense A Protestant Delivers what he Conceives to be the Meaning of Scripture So the Catholick doth also and can do no more Both of Them therfore are Glossers The difficulty proposed again Concerning the Interpretation of Scripture the only Difficulty is to know who Glosses better Here is the state of the Question 2. To go on Groundedly We may with our Adversaries leave Suppose That God hath not put a Bible into the Hands of Christians to cause Eternal Debates concerning the Doctrin delivered in it And if this be a Truth We may secondly Suppose God desirous of Vnity in Faith gave us not Scripture to cause eternal Debates That his Wise Providence so earnestly desirous of Unity in Faith amongst Christians hath Afforded some Means wherby we may rightly Attain to the True Sense of his Sacred Word For no man can imagin that Gods Intention is That we only Read without Arriving to the Sense of what we Read or which is wors that we fall into Error by our Reading Providence hath afforded means wherby we may understand Scripture This therfore Providence hath Prevented by one Means or other if carelesly we do not reject it We may thirdly Suppose That God regularly speaking Reveal's to no Private man the deep Sense of Scripture when He Reads and perhaps understands it not By private Illustrations new Enthusiasm's or the Ministery of Angels Therfore Private Illustrations no usual means some other way is Appointed by Providence to come to the True Sense of what He Reads The Reason is True Religion requires a True Interpreter of the Book which founds Religion Otherwise God would have only carelesly as it were Thrown Scripture amongst Christians And bid them Guess as well as they can at the Sense of it They having no other means to know his Meaning These Things Premised 3. I say first The Holy Book of Scripture neither doth Scripture cannot interpret its self nor can so Interpret it self as to bring Men Dissgnting in Faith to an Accord or Acquiescency in High Points of Controversy The Assertion is Evident For could the Book clearly interpret its own Meaning Catholicks Arians Protestants
since St. Paul writ These words can so much as probably show it self permanently blessed with an Apostolical Teacher but our Ancient Roman Church only where the Prince of the Apostles St. Peter yet lives in every lawful succeeding Pope No Society of Christians can lay claim to such continued The Roman Catholick Church only shewes through every Age. Prophets as this Church hath had in it Age after Age whether by Prophets we understand with Scripture 1. Cor. 14. 1. Holy Men praying and Propâ—â—cying or such as Foretel Future things our Church hath had abundance of these if undoubted History may gain credit No Prophets laborious Evangelists Society of Christians can shew so many laborious Evangelists as this one Church alone and St. Paul points at 2. Timot. 4. 5. They are Those who have indefatigably through every Age without Cessation Preached and carried Christs Sacred Gospel to Vnconverted and most remote Nations Thus St. Austin sent by St. Gregory Pope Anciently was an Evangelist to our English St. Boniface to the Germans Blessed St. Francis Xavier and many other Evangelical men were so also to the furthest part of the world No Society of Christians But our Ancient Roman Church only can reckon up so long a perpetuated Hierarchy of lawful commissioned Pastors and profound Learned Doctors Pastors so many profound and learned Doctors who labored unto Death in Christs Sacred Vineyard and innumerable shed their Blood in Defense of it These being undeniable Truths 13. I Argue thus This known visible and never interrupted Society of Evangelists Pastors and Doctors This Ecclesia Docens or Teaching Church constituted The Argument by Christ himself was ever and is still Infallible and Becaus Directed by the Holy Ghost Teaches and Interpret's Scripture infallibly or It can err And cheat that ample Flock of Christians committed to its charge into damnable Falsities If the first be granted we have all we wish Viz. An infallible Hierarchy of living Pastors who shall Successively instruct us infallibly to the worlds end If contrarywise this whole Hierarchy can Deceive and lead us into damnable Error These two woful Sequels Undeniably Follow Fearful Sequels from Sectartes fals Doctrin The first That the Holy Ghost Directs not Teach's not that living Hierarchy of Pastors which Christ appointed to Teach us here on Earth For both This and every other Society of Christian Teachers may Beguile us with fals Doctrin and misinterpret Scripture Grant so much and it followes 2. That our Learned St. Paul Mistook himself and Uttered not one word of Truth in the place now cited For if these Pastors and Teachers appointed by Christ to Teach and so specifically here noted can Delude us yea and have de facto erred as Protestant Assert 'T is possible That They neither comply with the Work of their Ministery nor Edify the moral Body of Christ but destroy it nor persever in teaching Truth until we all meet together in a Vnity of Faith that happy day is not yet seen nor finally after all Their Endeavours Afford means to persever stedfast in Christs Sacred Doctrin They find yet a great Part of People called Christians like wilful Children resting on Self-opinion only They see them tossed and turned about with every wind of new Learning Such is the Fault and unlucky fate of Novellists who will be so wantonly Childish as to slight an Oracle Undeceivable Here then is the Conclusion The Apostles Words are True Therfore Sectaries vent a hideous The Conclusion Vntruth whilst they say these now named Evangelists Pastors and Doctors may Deceive and lead us into Errour CHAP. X. Objections are answered 1. PErhaps they will reply We mistake St. Pauls meaning For the Apostles Euangelists Prophets and Doctors c. Wherof he speaks are long since dead an gon They were those who Preached whilst Christ lived on Earth or soon after and Teach us still by the written Word now in our Hands Since those days we have had no Other Euangelists and Pastors continued in any Christian Society that either taught or interpreted Infallibly Roundly spoken But without book and as Falsly as fallibly Let Sectaries prove this gloss contrary to the express words and bring their proof to a received Principle For who see 's not the Obvious Sense of St. Pauls Testimony plainly perverted whilst He points at Teachers Successively abiding in the Church to the Consummation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is to the coagmentation of Saints or until they be joyned together in one Faith and all meet in a Unity of Belief and knowledge of the Son of God The Deceased Apostles now in Heaven will 't is true se this last Day But are not now with us nor Teach until that Consummation be Therfore Others Succeed and teach in their Place so God hath ordered to the End of all things I have Answer'd to what is added of their present Instruction by the Written Word The Bible The written Word insufficient to reconcile differences I said cannot Because it interpret's not if self Reconcile our Differences And no deceased Euangelist appear's now either to Arian or Protestant to instruct them when they Fail or mistake Gods True Sense This very Scripture therfore requires an Interpreter in whom all must Acquiesce or we may run on in endles Dissentions to the day of Judgement But yo will ask Who is in fault Seing no man blames himself nor the Bible He read's Christ Answer 's He who hears not the Church is both the accused and faulty Person And upon this Occasion I answer to a second Objection 2. Our adversaries may say All Appellation from a Lower Tribunal to a Higher is lawful And they do so For they Appeal from the Church which only consists of men to God and his Word the Highest Sectaries by appealign from the Church to Scripture Tribunal imaginable therfore their Procedure is blameles I answer It were most blameles could They know Infallibly what God certainly saith in his Word But this they cannot know in controverted Points But by the Infallible Oracle of his Church To this Tribunal Christ sends us for Satisfaction in all In real Truth appeal not to Scripture but to Fancy only our Difficulties If we reject or forsake this Oracle in real Truth we appeal not to the undoubted Sense of Gods Word But to our own unsteedy Sentiments which are Fancies only and nothing like Gods Word Will you se this clearly Imagin only a new sort of Sectaries who will both Appeal from Church and Scripture to Gods interiour and eternall infallible This instance proves the Assertion knowledge of Truth They Appeal from the Church Becaus it is made up of men from Scripture because They understand it not in a hundred Passages Therfore they will rely on what God knows to be True and guess at it as well as they can Would you not esteem such Men mad and upon this Account That they cannot
recurr to an Invisible Society of such men now as well exploded by later Protestants as Catholicks 7. A fifth Objection flow's from the pen of a Late Mr. Stillingfleet Writer after this manner Cannot you conceive that there should be a Number of men professing Christianity without Infallibility If not saith he I 'll help your Vnderstanding a little Suppose And it 's only a Supposition That all the members of the Roman Church should be destroyed in one Age do not you think that there would be still a number remaining who profess Christianity of the Greek and Protestant Churches sound at least in the Belief of Fundamentals without Infallibility I have answered already No. And given my Reason Becaus a Church A Church separated from Divine Assistance cannot persist stable divorced from the Infallible Assistance of the Holy Ghost is pulled from the Center of Truth which supports it and consequently the Doctrin of it must needs reel and totter now as is supposed to rely on no firmer a Hold then on mans unsteedy fallible Reason or on a Testimony meerly Humane and therfore Uncertain Neither have we without this Assistance more Security Without Infallible Assistance no security of fundamentals of true Belief in Matters called Fundamental then others As is clear in condemned Arians who no sooner left the Church directed by this Spirit of Truth But Errours followed them in points most Fundamental And yet like black Ghosts do and will haunt them without Repentance to the Worlds End 8. Before we end this matter I have one Question to propose It is Whether If all the Ancient Fathers A Question proposed to Sectaries that ever lived Had plainly interpreted Scriptures as the Roman Catholick Church now interpret's them contrary to Protestants They would then Disavow Their own Glosses And submit to the undeniable Authority of so many worthy Fathers Might Reason or Religion set one unlucky Adversary aside called Prejudice make the Answer Sectaries would say Yes And do so were The unanimous consent of Fathers against them Grant thus much And say boldly The Authority of The whole Antecedent The Authority of a whole Church more weighty then that of Fathers and this present Roman Catholick Church is in true prudence of greater Force to withdraw Sectaries from their new invented Glosses contrary to it Then if all the Fathers Together Had plainly interpreted Scripture as the Church interpret's Why Nothing on earth can Parallel this Churches Authority much les make it Inferiour to The Fathers only part of the Church the universal consent of Fathers The Reason is These Fathers were only a part of it particular men and Singly considered Fallible But a whole Church Embraceth a greater number and cannot be misled into Errour Nay I say Though we Impiously suppose Were the Church supposed Fallible the Authority of it is as great as the Fathers That this whole Church might swerve from Truth yet the Testimony of it is as great as that of the Fathers who as Protestants say may all err and swerve more easily This Reason is Reinforced if we reflect on one undeniable Truth which is In all controversies now between us Sectaries can pretend no more But thus much only That the sense of some few Fathers only They never pretended all whilst they interpret Scripture is though often obscure more against the Churches interpretation then for it Here is the most they can say with any Conscience Though we grant not so much when the whole Doctrin of a Father is well examined However Gratis Admit of the Supposition at present And se what follows A clear Testimony Though Fallible hath more weight then another that 's Obscure and Fallible Thus much only The Sense of such and such Fathers is doubtful and Sectaries say Fallible The Churches Sense is clear That is you know what it Teaches and Though falsly supposed fallible is yet far more firm then the other Testimony That 's confessedly both obscure and Fallible 9. This Discours convinceth that Sectaries cannot If Sectaries say the more clear Church Doctrin is the more manifest is its Errour They speak without Principles and suppose what is to be proved impugn the Churches sense given of Scripture by any thing that hath the look of a probable Principle For the Church Defend's it self upon two undeniable Grounds The first Positive And 'T is The Churches own Authority nothing can be greater The other Negative Viz. Never any of known credit neither Fathers generally nor Oecumenical Councils much less Scripture Probably clearly contradicted that sense which the Roman Catholick Church Gives of Scripture And here by the way You may se to what an Exigency our new None of undoubted credit Ever clearly contradicted the Churches sense of Scripture men are Driven for want of Principles They say The Roman Catholick Church is Fallible The Fathers are fallible All condemned Haereticks are fallible They themselves are fallible Thus much supposed Tell me I beseech you by what probable Principle can They so much as seemingly show That either They interpret Scripture better then we or That Any of us all ever yet arrived to the True sense of it in controverted If all are Fallible by what Principle can Sectaries prove their Interpretation to be the best matters Which yet is absolutely necessary For we can have no true Faith without the true sense of Scripture You know if the blind lead the blind There is no safe conduct And if the Fallible man Guides the Fallible both may mistake Their way and err grosly You will have no Answer returned to this Difficulty But Sectaries Fancy and Fancy only Or shew that Any had the true sense of Scripture 10. Some may Reply Protestants have the words of Scripture as clear as the Holy Ghost was pleased to Write them in Fundamentals As also the consent of Fathers at least for those Fundamentals They wave other By-Passages of Scripture and care not much A Reply of Sectaries whether their Interpretations be right or wrong I Answer first To say nothing of many Others They They cannot wave all Difficulties cannot wave one Difficulty concerning the Real presence of Christ in the Sacred Eucharist which is either a Fundamental Doctrin or none is Both Scripture and Fathers are in this particular most expresly against them as is proved Hereafter 11. But let this pass I Answer 2. We have as good Scripture as Sectaries can lay claim to in every Point which they call Fundamental And with it the In Fundamentals we are at least equal and in controverted matter far superiour consent of Fathers also In other controverted matters we own the same Scripture they own And moreover have the sense of it Declared by this long standing Church wherin we infinitly surpass them Speak therfore of matters out of controversy or wherin all Agree we are at least equal with them And for others in controversy
or Commonwealth There is always an Agreement or Settlement in some great Matters before it Proceed to make new Laws yet 'T is not Common-wealths though antecedently setled may make new Laws consequent to say That the Agreement ought to be so Explicit in all Things in all Points in all particular Matters that nothing afterward can be Decreed anew It is Therfore sufficient That these new Laws Arise from some first solid Principles of that Common-wealth Antecedently setled in Being And if this be so They oblige as Much as the former Conventions Did when it was first setled Though they were not at all mentioned at the first Founding of the Common-wealth 20. Answerably Hereunto One may say Christ founded a Church Assisted as is here Supposed by a Spirit of Truth the Holy Ghost and first setled it upon some fewer Principles from which All other after-Definitions might Proceed or be Derived The The Church assisted by the Holy Ghost Derives new Definitions from its first Setlement Church thus Assisted Defines anew upon the former Setlement just as the Commonwealth makes new Laws upon its first Agreement Such Definitions Therfore because they Proceed from an Infallible Oracle call them yet new or old as you pleas Are as certain and of as great necessity to be Believed As those new Laws are Obligatory and of necessity to be Obeyed Here is one Disparity which is not to the Purpose Viz. That the Commonwealths Laws proceed from Human Authority The Churches Definitions from Divine Assistance Those oblige under a temporal The parity holds exactly Punishment These under Eternal But the Parity exactly Hold's thus far Those Laws were implicitly and virtually contained in the first grounded setlement of the Commonwealth These of the Church in the first setlement of Christianity Those may be called New These may be also called so Those become Necessary to be Obeyed These become Necessary New Laws are to be obeyed and new Definitions if any were are to be believed to be Believed Now further As no man Doubt's But That the Church may make new Laws in order to Obedience so none can but most Vnreasonably Doubt of its Power in Setting forth new Definitions It is very True Here may be much of a Quaestio de Nomine Whether They are to be called Old or New Because of their different Respects Relating to the first setled Vpon different respects these Definitions may be called either new or old Foundations of Christian Doctrin from whence They Proceed They may take a Denomination and be called Old Because Radicated in Those old certain Principles But if we consider them as more Ample Express and significant Declarations of Gods Eternal Truths They may without Offence or Clashing in the least with Church-Doctrin be called New Definitions Thus much is Briefly said to show how groundles our Adversaries Grounds are 21. But we will not leave the Difficulty Thus. To Answer therfore with more satisfaction Be pleased to note It is one Thing to own a Church perfectly Founded Two things to be noted and fully Instructed in all things Necessary to Salvation And an Other to suppose that all know explicitly what That Perfect founded Doctrin is which God will have to be believed as Necessary to Salvation This later Requires a clear Proposition made by some Oracle of Truth of the necessary Doctrin As is evident in Scripture it self For though I own all that Scripture saith to be True in the Sense intended by the Holy Ghost yet I must learn by a sure Teacher what it saith in a hundred difficil Passages 22. Now to Question Whether any thing which was not Necssary to Saluation may Afterwards become so Necessary that the not Believing it is Damnable c. I Answer The Question answered Nothing is now Necessary to Saluation After the Churches Definition which was not Necessary Before yea and Believed by the Apostles Themselves The ground of my Assertion is Because the Apostles immediatly Illuminated The Apostles the first and best knowing Masters of Divine Mysteries by Christ our Lord were made Partakers of His Divine Mysteries They had Primitias Spiritus the First Fruits of the Spirit Believed as we believe Taught as we Teach and never Delivered Doctrin contrary to the Church in After-Ages Hence Divines commonly Hold That the Church properly speaking The Church makes no new Articles of Faith but only declares more explicitly what was Anciently of Faith makes no new Articles of Faith But only Declares more Significantly and Expresly what Those well Instructed Masters of the Church Christs own Disciples Both Believed and upon several Occasions Taught others And here one Grand Cheat is to be taken Notice of Sectaries Think that All those Christian Truths which the Apostles Believed Explicitly are now Explicitly enough upon Record in Holy Writ It is an Errour Our Saviour as St. Iohn Testifies All that the Apostles believ'd is not explicitly in Scripture Cap. 21. v. 25. Did many Things which if writen in particular the whole World would not contain Might not then the Apostles also Believe many Things As a Sacrifice of Mass Transubstantiation Purgatory c. yea and Teach those Verities Though they were not so plainly Delivered in Holy Writ yet expresly enough But that Haereticks might Cavil at them 23. Here then is my Resolution which is most Catholick The Resolution Doctrin Christ our Lord Established a Church that is to Tell us Truth to the end of Ages This Oracle which Relies not on Gods written Word only But on the Vnwritten also undoubted Tradition answerable to Necessary Ocsions of new Haereticks rising up Or of Schism made in Christian Societies c. Often Proposeth more The Church useth clearer Terms in her Definitions Explicitly what the Primive Faith was And the Apostles Believed Not that it makes new Articles if we speak rigourously But proposeth the old ones again in more Clear and Significant Terms And how can Sectaries blame this Procedure when They without the Warrant of Gods Word written or unwritten Propose and Declare as They think the Ancient Sense of Scripture it self to their Hearers in a Hundred Passages Sectaries without Gods Word written or unwritten make new Definitions For example Christ said This is my Body They by A new Proposition Define This is a Sign of my Body Will they licence Themselves to Propose what they please out of Gods Word Already writ and Storm at a whole Church if it do so or Further Declare what was not Writ yet ever Believed Though perhaps not by all so explicitly as 'T is after the Churches clearer Definition The Church in this Proceeds upon a certain Principle indubitable Tradition Sectaries Have neither Tradition nor Scripture For what they Propose anew You se therfore whoever Pertinaciously Whoever Denies the Churches Definitions Denies the old believed Articles Denies the Definitions of the Church Denies not only the new Declared But the
That 's not enough Sectaries are to Prove it Beares that Sense here An Instance That the Word EST in our Saviours Proposition hath determinatly that Sense and no Other You know Scripture saith Hic est filius meus dilectus This is my beloved son c. Now no Man can Inferr Becaus EST sometimes is Rendred Signifies That Here it looses its Proper sense And only Avail's as much as if you Said Christ only Signifies or is not otherwise the Son of his Father Then a material Picture Hang'd on a Wall is a Sign or Figure of the Prototypon This cannot be admitted of Vnles I say a Stronger Principle which is Impossible Force us to Approve of such an Heretical sense And thus We Discours in our Present Matter 3. Note 3. All the Principles which can be Thought on to Force Catholicks from the Received Sense of Christs Own Words or to Favour our Adversaries Cause must be Reduced to one of these Heads To No known Principle upholds the Doctrin of Sectaries Plain speaking Scripture To Vniversal Tradition To the Catholick sense of Christs Orthodox Church in former Ages or Finally to the General Consent of Fathers If none of these Principles Vphold Protestants Doctrin it Fall's of it self And wholy Relies on Fancy Thus much supposed 4. Here is my Proposition and an Inference also A Proposition against Sectaries Sectaries cannot by virtue of any one of these now Named Principles VVithdraw Catholicks from the Plain Received Sense of Christs VVords They cannot Prove that EST in our Saviours Affirmation Imports only as much as if you said it Signifies Therfore the Doctrin which Denies the real Presence of Christs Body in the Sacrament is wholy Vnwarrantable and Built on Fancy Only 5. The Proofs of my Assertion are as Vndeniably The Proofs of it are no less clear Then the Proposition it self Evident as the very Assertion it self For it is Manifest No Scripture plainly Teaches I say no More now That the Verb EST in Christs Proposition Beares only this sense it Signifies And it is as Clear no Vniversal Tradition Approves of this new Fancied Sense What then Remains But that our Adversaries take Recours to some Ancient Orthodox Church or To the General Consent of Fathers I say therfore If they A Fair offer made to Sectaries can Name any Vniversal Church Nay any particular Church Reputed Orthodox the whole world Over That Interpreted these Words as They do or Clearly Denyed Christs true Body and Blood To be under the Formes of Bread and Wine after Consecration or Believed that Natural bread only hath the Name of Christs Body Though it be Really no more But a Sign only a Figure only a Resemblance only of his Body If I say Protestants you shall se will never Answer Directly to what is here proposed any one of these things can be proved They 'l Come of Gloriously And Gain Thousands to their Opinion But I know all is in a high Measure Impossible I say a Sign only a Figure only For We Catholicks both speak with the Fathers and Truely Believe The Eucharist to be a Sacrament And consequently a Sign of Invisible Grace Yea and a Figure also a Memorial of Christ Himself and his Sacred Passion But this is not the Controversy between us The sole Question therfore is Whether it be so purely a Sign or Figure that What They are to Answer To. the Thing Signified is not in the Sign And the Verity in the Figure That is Whether Christs Sacred Body and Blood be not Truely and Substantially within the outward Sign and really Present There This VVe Affirm and Sectaries Deny Though never Orthodox Church Denyed it with Them 6. To clear this Point And Add If Possible more Weight to our Assertion We Have an Ample Holy and Learned Catholick Roman Church whose sole Authority set Scripture aside is the Greatest on Earth The sole Authority of our Roman Church is Sufficient to Convince Sectaries of Errour Which confessedly hath believed and taught this Doctrin of the Real Presence for at least a Thousand Years I say Ever since Christianity began And can any one prudently Perswade Himself That so Chois and Learned a Society That yet Speak's in Christs ovvn Language And Literally believes his words as They are in the Gospel Hath for so long a time lived in a Cheat and taught Millions of Soules a most Damnable Errour Admit of this Vast Improbability We have yet a Demonstration No Other Orthodox Society Ever opposed our Catholick Doctrin against Sectaries And 't is No Orthodox Church can be named that ever Opposed Found fault or Blamed the Belief of the Roman Church Concerning this Mystery Therfore the Doctrin of this Learned Society is undoubtedly Certain upon a double Account that Christ Taught it And no Vniversal Church ever Condemned it 7. In the last Place we are to Say a Word of the other The last Principle which is the consent of Fathers Principle Which is the Vnanimous consent not of a small Number but of Many most Ancient Learned and Holy Fathers These can well Declare what Scripture Teaches of This Mystery And what Christs Orthodox Church ever Believed If All Readers Have not the Originals at hand They may see them in the Authors Cited above I shall only Hint at a few For to Transcribe All or Half of them And Quote the Places Exactly Would Needlesly lengthen a Digression which I Intended to make short In passing I 'll only say thus much If Sectaries with all the Skill Fathers express for Catholick Doctrin They have can Interpret These few Testimonies Which I shall briefly Glance at They may with the same Ease Yea And far less labour Explicate the Words of the Council of Trent and make that to speak Protestancy Or to Deny the Real Presence 8. Some Fathers therfore Dogmatically Teach What we take into our mouths is not that which nature These Fathers are Faithfully cited Though to avoid Tediousnes in a short Digression I thought it best not to give the Reader more Trouble then is necessary by quoting Exactly the places made But what the Blessing hath Consecrated And that by Consecration the very Nature of bread is changed Thou hast learned that of bread is made the Body of Christ and the wine and water is put into the Chalice But by the consecration of the Heavenly Word it is made Blood The Bread and Wine of the Eucharist before the Sacred Invocation of the Adored Trinity were simple bread and wine But the Invocation being once don the Bread indeed is made the Flesh of Christ and the VVine his Blood The Bread which our Lord gave to his Disciples being changed not in shape but in Nature by the omnipotency of the Word is made Flesh Christ by his own Will once changed water into wine and is He not worthy to be Believed that He changed Wine into Blood Mark a substantial
Freed us from a Spiritual Death and brought us to a Spiritual Life And do not Sectaries Hold that the very Material Hearing of the Word of God is a fit Means to Beget Faith both Spiritual and Supernatural in the Hearers Soul The Difficulty therfore Proposed comes to nothing but Fancy Finally if we speak of the Disposition requisite to Receive the Effect of this Sacrament you may call it if you please the Mode Way or Manner necessary to a due Receiving What Disposition is necessary All Catholicks Profess that not only Faith at least Habitual but Charity Also per se loquendo Are Prerequired as necessary Dispositions to the Effect therof Because it is Sacramentum Vivorum the Sacrament of Those who now Live by Faith Hope and Charity CHAP. VII How differently VVe and Sectaries proceed in this Controversy VVhat they are to Prove 1. SOme other Slight Objections yet remain Drawn from Fathers Misinterpreted and the weak Reason Other Objections briefly touched on of Sectaries It is not worth the while to Bring all to Light Again They are Solved and Vndeniably Solved by our Catholick Writers A few shall here suffise Some Fathers seem to say That this Sacrament is a Sign a Figure an Image a Type of Christs The Fathers say no where that the Sacrament is a Sign or Figure only of Christ Body Very true But not one say's it is a Sign Only a Figure Only a Memorial Only c. Now know It is one Thing to call it a Sign and an Other a Sign Only Exclusive of Christs Real Presence As it is One Thing to say Faith Justifies And Faith only Justifies excluding Charity Read therfore Those words of St. Austin Lib. contra Adimantum cap. 12. Till your Eyes be Weary Non dubitavit dicere c. Our Lord Doubted not to say This is my Body Cum daret signum Corporis sui When He gave a Sign of his Body All you S. Austin affirm's it not can Force out of Them is this Obvious and Genuine Sense Our Lord When He gave His Disciples the Consecrated Species Accidents or Forms of Bread which were a Sign and Figure of his Body There contained Doubted not to Say That that which He then gave them under those Species was Really His Body If Sectaries can Inforce more out of the Words let them do it without Fancy And prove their Gloss by a Clearer Principle then St. Austins Words are 2. Again When some Fathers Say There is not What the Fathers mean when They say it is not altogether the same Body Planè idem corpus The same Body Altogether in the Eucharist which was Fastned to the Cross But after a Manner the Same To which Sense St. Austin Commenting in Psalmum 98. Introduceth our Saviour speaking thus Non hoc corpus quod videtis manducaturi estis c. You are not to eat this Body you se Grosly He Means as the Capharnaits Understood And to Drink that Blood which my Enemies will Poure Out I have The Fathers endeavour to remove from us all gross Conceptions of this Mystery The two states of a Body Natural and Spiritual change not the substance of the Body We say usually when one is changed by Age or Sicknes he is not the same men Commended to you a Sacrament which Spiritually Understood will Give you Life c. When I say The Fathers Express Themselves by such Terms And Did so As well to Remove from us all Thick and Carnal Conceptions of this sublime Mystery as to Beget in us so far as we can reach to a Right understanding of the Spiritual Manner of Christ Existing in the Sacrament We must Distinguish with the Apostle 1. Cor. 15. Two States of a Body Natural and Spiritual Whose Dotes and Qualities Though Different Change not the Body Substantially Distinguish I say Thus And then Speak boldly with the Fathers It is not Altogether the same Body But after a Manner For so we Speak in a Vsual Language When we se one Notably Altered from Himself by Age or Sicknes And say He is not the Same He was But quite an Other Man Yet the Difference Here is not so Great as between a Glorified Body in Heaven and a Mortal Body on Earth or Betwixt Christ Body Situally Extended with its just Dimensions And not at all Extended The Fathers Therfore By placing all the Variety on the Mode or Manner of Existing Deny not Christs real Being in this Sacrament But as Learnedly as Literally Express the very Mystery The Fathers Learnedly and Literally Express the Mystery as it ought to be Expressed And We Stand to Their plain Words without Violence offered to the Obvious Sense by any Superaddition of Far-fetcht Glosses Yet Say it is Substantially the same Body 3. And here by the way if you will Parallel a little the Procedure of Sectaries with ours And Ours with Theirs As well in this as in Other Controversies You may see How Faintly Fancy plead's against Reason and Heresy Opposeth Truth Observe it What Catholicks stand to the plain obvious sense of their words and Scripture also ever They Allege out of Gods Word for their Errour VVe Stand to the Plain Obvious and Literal Sense of the Text And yet Deny Their Heresy Drawn from it Which therfore must of Necessity be an Additional Gloss of Fancy Foâ— Example Doth Scripture say Do this in Remembrance of me We admit of the Open Sense of the Words without further Commentaries or Glosses Doth it say The Flesh Profit 's Nothing We say so too But must learn by other Principles what Flesh Signifies in that Place Doth it say That Examples Hereof All the Ancient Hebrewes eat of the same Bread Drank of the same water We without Wresting the Text say so too Dot it say that God Inhabits not Temples made by Hands So say We And Give this Reason Because Gods Divinity infinitly Immense Circumscribed in no Particular Place as if he wanted Lodging is Every Where Doth it say that Christ Risen from the Dead was not Therfore in the Sepulchre We Answer the Illation is good in those Circumstances whilst Those virtuous Women Sought the Living Among the Dead Do the No Fathers make the Sacrament a Sign a Figure on 〈…〉 â—luding Christs presence Fathers say that the Holy Sacrament of the Altar is a Sign a Figure a Type of Christ even There Present We Acquiesce and speak also as They Do But withall Add That no Father makes it a Sign a Figure a Memorial Only as if the Reality of his Body were Excluded from the Outward Species of Bread and VVine Thus we Proceed with all Candor 4. Now let us cast a few Thoughts upon our Sectaries Sectaries contrarywise proceed with Catholicks and violently force both Scripture and Fathers Examples Hereof Dealing with us Catholicks And Se how Fancy only Vphold's every Thing they Assert We Allege our Saviours own Words This is my Body which
Testimonies of Fathers are as clear for our Catholick Doctrin as the words of the Council of Trent A Parallel of Proofs for and against the Doctrin of the Real Presence The way of Sectaries is chiefly to loos Themselves in proposing difficulties against us without casting a serious thought on sure Principles that solve them They find the Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament uneasy to sense but reflect not that They believe two or three other Mysteries fully as hard if not more difficile for Example a Trinity the Incarnation and Original sin It is most Evident what Ever Principle whether it be Scripture Church Authority or consent of Fathers that moves to believe these Verities that very Principle is as pressing forceable and urging yea and often more express for the Belief of our Sacrament wherat they boggle What the Sectary is obliged to prove if He except against our grounds in this Controversy We admit of Christs plain Words according to their most obvious sense we find them so understood by a number of the most venerable ancient Fathers as we understand them and moreover have a Learned Church that speak's as both Scripture and Fathers speak Can Sectaries now exact of us that we leave these strong Principles and rely on their word because They will have us do so It is impossible unles They give us in lieu of the se as plain Scripture as plain Testimonies of Fathers and produce the warrant of some other Church more ancient and Orthodox then ours is that once Patronized their Novelty If they say They can explicate our Scripture and ancient Fathers I have Answered above Their explication is worth nothing unles it be grounded on more express Testimonies that favour their Novelty then our contrary authorities are for Catholick Doctrin If again they reply As we must explicate their Authorities brought against us so They can explicate ours alleged against them I Answer if a stop be made here neither they no◠we yet come to the last Principles But here will be the final Decision of all We appeal to the clear Words of Scripture They have Evidently non so express We appeal to the most manifest Testimonies of Fathers delivered i◠this Controversy The Council of Trent speaks not more clearly They Oppos◠a few dark Sentences help't on with their Glosses contrary to the Fathers sense a◠is largely proved Lastly we appeal to the Judgement of our Ancient and fa. extended Church Herein they are forced to yeild for they have no Church comparable to it that Defends their Novelty The Churches Evidence Why God permits Heresy to be in the World A FEW NOTES UPON MR. POOLES APPENDIX AGAINST CAPTAIN EVERARD 1. I Say a few for I must be brief finding very little to stay me in the Appendix which is not directly solved in the foregoing Treatis And therfore wonder not it I often remit the Reader to the former Discourses as occasion requires it being impossible to reply to an Adversary upon this subject of Infallibility without touching on what is sayd already where the Direct Answer is given to His objections I would not indeed have writ thus much against Mr. Poole but only to hinder a little vanity in the man for if no notice had bin taken of his Appendix He might perhaps have thought too well of his work and judged it so learned a piece that none would Dare to meddle with it To gain what time is possible I pass by all His jeers his harsher language and Calumnies cast on Catholick c. Those Personal exceptions also uniustly made against the Converted Captain and some vulgar Difficulties solved a hundred times shall give me no work at present who will only fall and closely upon that which Mr. Poole its likely may think most material and to the purpose And because the best strength He hath lies in the beginning of the Appendix I 'le examin that most and make his errours manifest by sound proofs and Principles Briefly 2. The occasion of Mr. Everards Conversion was a Discours held with a Catholick Gentleman Who Asked me saith the Captain whether I was so certainly infallibly assured of the Truth of the Christian Religion that it was not possible for me or those that taught me Christianity to be mistaken therin and He gave me this reason for his question that otherwise as to me Christianity could be no more then probably true And we could not condemn the Iew or Turk or Pagan since they were as well perswaded of their several wayes as we could be of ours upon a fallible certainty And for ought we knew not having any infallible certainty for our Christianity some of them might be in the right and we in the wrong way sor it is possible you may be mistaken Thus Mr. Poole Appendix page 8. who slight's the Discours as silly weak and ungrounded 3. I say Contrary The Discours is strong rational and most convincing The ground of my Assertion further declared Disc 1. c. 1. 2. is thus A Doctrin which by vertue of all the Principles it hath or can rely on cannot but be fallibly taught by all Teachers now within the bounds of Christianity is by force of its Proposition and merit of the Doctrin precisely considered most certainly fallible and may be fals But such a taught Doctrin which by vertue of all the Principles it hath or can rely on and merit also of the Doctrin or force of its Proposition is fallible and may be fals is not the certain Doctrin of Christ which cannot by the vertue of any Principle it hath or merit of the Doctrin and force of its proposition be either fallible or fals Ergo such a taught Doctrin is not Christs certain Doctrin which neither is nor can be fallible or fals Now further A Doctrin which is not Christs certain Doctrin because remo 〈…〉 from certain Principles can be no other but the Doctrin of mans errable judgement or Fancy And consequently gives as little Assurance to him that teaches it fallibly or those that hear it as that of the Jewes gives to them Observe my reason equally Convincing in both cases Therfore we say the Doctrin of a Jew gives If you say the Doctrin of a Jew is not only fallible but fals also you suppose what is to be proved against him no Assurance to Him that Teaches and those who hear it because it is removed from all infallible Principles and relies only on his errable judgement or Fancy that teaches it but the Fallible Doctrin of these Sectaries now mentioned is also removed from all Infallible Principles for no man amongst them can deliver Doctrin infallibly Therfore it relies only on an errable judgement or fancy that teaches it and by good consequence is none of Christs infallible Doctrin But if it be none of Christs Doctrin it gives no more Assurance to them that Hear it than the Doctrin af a Jew gives to any of his Sect Ergo. Here briefly is my
true Catholick Church which is ever assisted by the Holy Ghost can be tepugnant to any Superiour Rule and therfore touch not Catholicks in the least manner But if you speak of the Decisions of your English Church which because fallible may be repugnant you license your self by your own Principles to disobey it And look you to that You say 3. The judge is Constituted by God in the Church not for the Command of mens Consciences but for the regulation of their Actions and Preservation of peace in the Church which is not Violated by mens inward and unknown Sentiments but by their External demeanour and sensible Effects of them Answ Most pittiful Doctrin What is all the preaching of Sectaries Come to no more but only to teach how the Exteriour Actions of men are to be regulated and peace may be preserved This Truely more be longs to the Iustiâ—ies of Peace in their Several Districts then to Ministers if therfore they goe no deeper into Consciences by their Doctrin they certainly preach not the Word of God for I read Heb. 4. 12. the Word of God is lively and forcible and more persing then any two Edged Sword and reaching unto the Division of the soule and Spirit of the ioynts also and the Marrows c. And these men go no further then only to give instructions concerning the Exteriour Regulation of Actions or preserving of Peace If therfore their Hearers were very Hypocrits Iewes or Arians in hart and only demeaned themselves fairly in the Exteriour like Protestants Ministers are not to medle with them but leave them to their own Consciences without Check or reproof wherof se more Disc 3. C. 7. â— 17. 18. Now if Mr. Poole will find some Mystery in the words he useth Command of mens Consciences let him read S. Paul to Titus 2. 15. Haec loquere Speak these things and rebuke Cum omni Imperio with all Command and Authority And so Pastors should Speak to Consciences Cum Imperio in Gods cause and people should obey them The Apostle gives the reason Hebr. 13. 17. Obey your Prelates your Guides or Commanders for they watch as being to render an account for your Souls And if they must render an account of Souls they may certainly speak like Prelates to their very interiour Consciences 29. Page 41. you say the Scriptures of the old and now Testament are the Infallible rule and ground of Faith Answ They are so Faithfully interpreted Se Disc 2. C. 4. where you have your Errours Discovered and the Objection fully Answered You say again Vniversal Tradition rightly understood is of great use and like a channel wherby Scripture which alone is our rule is conveyed to us Answ the Parenthesis which alone is refuted in the Discours now cited the rest of your Assertion hath no hurt in it But you add a Mysterious piece of Divinity where you distinguish between Rem Tradiâ—am the thing Delivered Traditionem and the Tradition or Delivery of it and say Papists by Tradition understand the first that is res tradita Answ either I understand not you or you which is more likely misconceive the Doctrin of Catholicks For they distinguish between Tradition and the thing Delivered For example The Baptizing of Infants the keeping of Sunday in place of the Sabbath are Objectively Doctrins delivered and the Testimony Consent and Acknowledgment of the whole Universal Church witnessing these Verities are rightly called the formal Tradition therfore you mistake our Doctrin It is true as this word Faith sometimes signifies the matter revealed by Almighty God And most properly the internal Assent we yeild to the Revelation so this word Tradition may also signify either the Doctrin delivered or the formal Delivery of it but this makes not to your purpose You say again Tradition taken for the vehicle or conveyance of the books of Scripture is in some sort necessary to bring the Rule to you yet is no more a part of the Rule then a Basquet is Nourishment wherin bread is brought to feed on Here is your learned instance Believe it Sir if you take the Basket and find Nothing but a stone in it you will have a poore dinner And if you make Tradition minutely like the Basket in some sort necessary you may well have a stone for bread that is no Scripture given you for Scripture Tradition therfore whether part of the Rule or no is absolutely a necessary conveyance and must be Infallible 30. Page 44. you tell us Scripture is the Object only rule and standard of Faith by which all Controversies of Faith are to be decided and judged Answer The Proposition is only your own bare word Scripture alone can be no rule without an Infallible Interpreter as is proved Disc 2. c. 4. And had we no more to say but thus much that Scripture proves nor it self to be Infallible it were enough But grant which you yet Convince not that it is infallibly Gods Word an insuperable difficulty remains to be decided And it is whether you Sectaries know so exactly the sense of Scripture in all controverted matters that your fallible Glosses are to be stood to contrary to the judgement of a learned Ancient Church Hence I say you talk at random when page 48. you tell us There is enough delivered in Scripture by which all Controversies might be ended would men be humble studious and Self denying Lay your hand on your hart and speak your conscience can you judge this to be true Or can you perswade your self that none are to be found within the limits of this Ancient Church as humble as learned and studious as a few Ministers are in England Why vent you such Paradoxes without proof or so much as a probability You say again page 48. after some parergons of conditional and absolute power That if the Church be sufficient to end all Controversies because all must submit to its decrees and Doctrin the Scripture in like manner may be said to be sufficient because all are obliged to submit to the Decrees and Doctrin therof I Answer all are to do so when they know by an infallible Interpreter what the Scriptures Teaches but this in controverted matters is ever the difficulty You say it speak's one thing and we say the contrary therfore Scripture alone which is as silent now as it was Sixteene ages since is a less meet Meanes to end these Contentions Contrariwise the Church proposeth all shee teaches with the greatest clarity and if any doubt occurr is ready able and sufficient to declare it self further Scripture that hitherto never ended any difference between us cannot do so For a further satisfaction read the 5. Ch. of the 3. Discours 31. We return now to your 44. page where you tell us First Tradition is the Vehicle to conveigh the rule of Scripture to us 2. Reason is the instrument or Eye wherby you apprehend and se the Rule 3. The Spirit of God is the Eye-salve that annoints
Religion and but one only certain and infallible Perhaps he will say that though his Proposition be fallible yet it is highly probable against the pretended Infallibility of the Roman Church no other society of Christians laying claim to infallibility Mark by the way what this Adversary drives at It is to tell the world a word of comfort viz. That Christ Iesus hath now no certain and infallible Religion taught or learned in the whole Christian world And to make this most fallible and false Proposition good he back 's it by another of his own as false and fallible viz. It is at least highly probable that the Church of Rome is fallible Pray you on what leggs doth this high supposed probability stand I 'll tell you it stands only on Mr. Pooles weak thoughts and unwarranted word more you have not For never did any ancient Council or universal Tradition or the unanimous consent of Fathers hold it a thing highly probable that either Christian Religion or the Catholik Church of Rome is fallible Doth the Scripture favour any where this wild Assertion No not one syllable is found to that purpose we have texts enough to the contrary some I shall quote on a fitter occasion You will ask what then is it that Mr. Pooles proves against us in the fourth Chapter of his Nullity I answer just nothing His whole strain is thus After much tampering with those convincing places of holy Scripture usually alledged for the Churches Infallibility and spoiling all with his fallible fancies he goes negatively to work and tell 's us Such and such texts turned out of their genuine sense by his glosses come not home nor prove any Church infallible and it is no wonder for as perverted by him they are none of Gods Scripture but his own scribled whimsies Take here one instance for many that text of S. Paul 1. Tim. 3. 15. where the Church is stiled the pillar and ground of Truth seem's plain enough open and significant for the Catholik sense Now comes Mr. Poole with his glosses page 86. and saith perhaps here may be an Ellipsis of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may be writ for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if so Timothy was the pillar not the Church Again The Church here spoken of may be that wherin Timothy was placed not the Roman 3. The term of pillar notes the solidity not the infallibility of the Church 4. It may note the Churches Duty not her practise with a long c. Observe wel Vpon these wretched fallible suppositions Mr. Poole seem's to conclude that those words are unconcluding for the Infallibility of any Christian society Put I ask by what Authority must I suppose his Ellipsis or that the Church spoken of was Timothy's Church not the Vniversal That the term pillar notes not the Infallibility c Doth God speak thus in Scripture or rather doth not Mr. Poole vent these wild Fancies without Scripture or any unquestioned Authority This later is most evident And can he think by such farfetcht glosses either to rob the Apostle of his plain obvious sense or to make me believe that his guesses hit right on Gods true meaning delivered in this text If he reply the meaning may be as he guesses I answer and it may not be as he guesses Who is here to judge between us Who can tell me that Mr. Pools May be is a prop sure enough to build my faith upon He is therfore to show positively by a Propositio quiescens that is by some cogent proof and undoubted Authority that S. Pauls words must be understood as he glosses and consequently is obliged to make good some one of these desperate Propositions Christ Iesus hath now no infallible Religion taught or learned in the Christian world All Christian Societies are fallible That holy and universal Church mentioned in the Creed is fallible c. But to wave such proofs to lay hold on a Text in Scripture and torture it as he pleaseth and after the misusage to tell us the Text proves nothing is only to sport with Gods Word and say that Scripture made no Scripture by whole heaps of fallible glosses is proofles The foundation is good but the superstructure is naught Give me the strongest place in Scripture for any Article of Christian faith I can by pidling at the Text with unevidenced glosses both so pervert and poyson the words that at last they speak haeresy Yet on such unproved conjectures Protestant Religion stands and can never have better footing while Gods unwritten Word is rejected and no infallible Teacher is allowed of that learn's us Truth One word more and I end Had those two Gallants Luther and Calvin when they took upon them to reform the darkned world of Popery thus allarm'd their Hearers My Masters We Preach indeed a new Gospel upon the best conjectures we are able but you must know that all we say is fallible How sick would such a saying have made the strongest stomack amongst them For if fallible if uncertain Doctrin it was none of Christ Iesus Doctrin and therfore stood in need of a more pure refining And how know our Protestants but that yet a new sort of People may start-up and make it their task to reform all the fallible Reformers that have troubled the world since Luthers dayes Had I no other just exception against our Protestants but thus much only That they yet know not where about They are in their reformation and because fallible can never know whether for example the thing they have in hand be yet a meer Embrio of Religion or of a more perfect shape a new layd egg or a hatcht chicken whether they themselves are yet only Novices Proficients or Masters in the trade of Reformation I say were there no more This alone would fright me from ever being Protestant Believe it the Professors of an uncertain and endles reformable Religion shall never come to settlement till they renounce the cheat and Believe as the Apostle teaches ad Gal. 1. 8. Licet nos c. Altough we or Angel from heaven preach otherwise to you then we have preached to you let him be accursed which is fully to say Believe him not And here by the way observe how destructive these words are of an uncertain and fallible teaching in matters of Religion for admit which Mr. Poole grants that all Christian Communities all Councils all Fathers all Tradition c. deliver only Fallible Doctrin that is Doctrin lyable to errour I only may not but am obliged to disbelieve this Truth of S. Paul and believe him or an Angel sent from heaven if either of them preached contrary to this fallible Learning Why Doctrin that is fallible may be false but the preaching of an Angel sent from heaven cannot be false and therfore is more certain then Christian Doctrin that may be false But I am obliged to quit the lesse certain Doctrin for the most certain preaching of an Angel
Truth For all their Ministers are fallible What kind of Elect are these who have Certainty of Grace but no certainty of Truth with it Now if on the other side they hold it impossible That the whole Church may desert Gods Truths They grant what we ask And must say it hath the infallible Assistance we plead for The Reason hereof I have amply delivered in the former Discours Chap. 3. Becaus al the Human Science Wit or Learning in Nature alone can no more Secure a Church God preserves his Church aâ— Sound in Truth as Sanctified by Grace from Error Then give it Grace God therfore doth and will ever graciously prevent it with both these Blessings And as Infallibly keep it Sound in Truth as Holy and Sanctified CHAP. VII More of this Subject 1. BY what is said in this short Digression you se how pittifully our new men mangle the Text now Cited I am with you Always to the End of the World Hear their Gloss Yes say They. This Promise was made to the Apostles and their Successors But in a different degree For it was of continual and infallible Assistance to the Apostles but to their Successors of continual and fitting assistance but not infallible The like is repeated afterward Protestants trivial Distinction of Fitting and infallible Assistance when They ask What we say to this Marry Sr I say it 's nothing to the Purpose For you neither declare what this fitting continual assistance granted these Successors as distinct from the other allowed the Apostles is nor can you declare these different Degrees And though you did so contrary to the They still run on in Generals Churches sense you only vent your own feeble and fallible Sentiments without Proof which I neither ought nor can in Prudence Believe To be plain Therfore be pleased to Answer Hath God Revealed to you what this fitting and continual Assistance granted the Apostles Successors is No. Doth any Ancient Council or Unanimous consent of Fathers Mince These Words and Dogmatize here as you do or only mention a Presence of the Spirit of consolation and Grace excluding infallible Assistance No. All is contrary as I could demonstrate were it here my task to prove Truth against you but this is done by others as 't is to force you to prove what your Fancy only vents against it And mark how Fancy goe's to work Christ saith I am with you always to the end of the World That is saith your Fancy He is present by his Spirit by a fitting Assistance But not by an Assistance Infallible This gloss Not by infallible Assistance is your own For neither Gods Word nor Vniversal Church nor General Council nor the Consent of Fathers nor Antiquity ever uttered any Thing like it Grant therfore it be Vnreasonable as you say to put your Party to prove a Negative Viz. That any of the Fathers denyed this place to extend to infallibility I am sure it is most Reasonable to force you to a Proof of your own Affirmative For you doctrinally Teach That Christ in this place Allows no certain Infallibility to his Church This because positively asserted is positively to be made good by a more strenuous Proof then Fancy only You say again Those of your Party only delivered what they Conceived to be the Meaning of this and other Places of Fathers which do no more then prove the Perpetuity of the Church What They conceived weak fallible Men Pray Sectaries Conceipts instead of Proofs what am I the better for their Conceipts Must I change my Ancient Faith for the Rowling and never agreeing Fancies of a few Ministers Why may not an Arian or Pelagian if sole conceiving can do it as well gain me to his party as a Protestant to His who Thinks that the Church is Fallible To that of the Fathers I Answer Their indubitable owning a Church Perpetual Evidently could we say no more supposeth a Church constantly True and Holy And the Constant Truth of it implyes infallible Assistance as is already proved 2. Protestants may yet reply They deliver what An Objection they conceive to be the Sense of Christs Words I am with you always c. Catholicks can do no more and Mark well As the words do not explicitly exclude Infallible Assistance from the Church always so neither do They explicitly include it For Christ saith not explicitly I will be always with you to the End of the World by my Infallible Assistance This then the case stands They Restrain Christs Promise and we see to Extend it too far They we say come to short of the Sense by cutting of Infallible Assistance We Catholicks They say go beyond the Bounds and add more to the Text than Christ Spoke Both of us therfore are Glossers and why is not Their Gloss as Orthodox as Ours Here is a better Objection then any hitherto proposed The Solution of it Ends all Controversies And the Solution might easily end all Controversies would Sectaries pleas to wave a few Self-conceipts and prudently Acquiesce to Reason whilst Truth plead's againsts their Errors 3. First then though I press not much this Point Sectaries have no Reason to prefer their Interpretations 't is evident That we Catholicks are the Elder Brothers as Numerous at least as They and to speak modestly as Learned Why therfore when both They and We interpret Scripture and stand as it were equally ballanced becaus 't is yet supposed uncertain who guesseth better why is not I say Our Interpretation could we prove no more as good as Theirs contrary to us If They prefer Their Gloss before Ours something of Weight beside meer Fancy must turn the Scales and Ballance more for them then us We alwayes ask for this greater Poyse in controverted To these of Catholicks matters and can get no answer 4. Secondly I must necessarily here Note an unworthy An unworthy proceeding of Sectaries proceeding of Sectaries with us when we Produce Scripture Fathers or Councils for Catholick Doctrin Their humor and 't is a a strange one run's on thus First They begin with their Glosses and labor to pervert that Sense which the Catholick owns And if after much Trifling they can Disguise this Sense or Twine it of â—â—om the Catholick Meaning They hold the Work done and cry Victory Mark in our present matter Their Frigid way of Arguing and it is alike in all other Controversies That Text say They The Holy Ghost will teach you all Truth may be Restrained to the Apostles only That other The Church is the Pillar and ground of Faith may have the Sense They allow of and no more This Promise of our Saviour I will be with you always c. May exclude Infallibility And when They bring the Close of a Point debated to their own Self-seeming it may be They think all safe Wheras 't is most evident that nothing is yet so much as probably concluded For as They say The Sense
old Believed Articles And consequently is lyable to Damnation 24. You se moreover It is not only suitable to Reason But necessary also for the very Preservation of Christian Religion That the Church to whom the Mysteries Necessary For Christian Religion of our Faith were committed Though it makes no new Articles nor Supposeth any other Foundation then what was laid by Christ and his Apostles May yet as That the Church declare more explicitly Necessity requires Declare more Explicitly the Primitive Doctrin of Christianity For by what better Means can we possibly arrive to the Knowledge of Primitive Doctrine those Necessary Truths which the Apostles either Believed or Taught Then by their Heirs and Successors The Successors of the Apostles Teach in the place of Those deceased Masters I mean The vigilant Watchmen who were and Still are substituted in the Place of those First Infallible Deceased Masters They Blessed Men ran up and down the World from Country to Country from House to House Testifying the Faith of our Lord Iesus Christ yet neither committed all the Truths Delivered by them to Holy Writ nor supposed The Apostles writ not all They taught the Ignorant and Vulearned fit Instruments to Teach as They had Taught The Legacies Therfore of our Christian Truths were left in surer Hands I mean Chiefly in the Custody of the Successors of those first great Masters Whence it is That the Deposited Doctrin commended to Timothy Apostle commend's to Timothy more then once the Keeping of a Depositum of mighty Value which the Fathers and none more expresly then Vincentius Lirinensis call the Common Catholick Doctrin Or to speak Talentum Catholicum saith Vinc. Lir. in this worthy Authors words upon the Text 1. Tim. 6. 20. lib. contr prof Hae. Novit Biblioth Patrum Tom. 4. cap. 27. Talentum Catholicum Fidei The Catholick Talent of our Faith Aurum accepistis Add's Vincentius aurum redde Thou O Bishop Pastor and Doctor hast received Gold render as pure Gold again c. What things thou hath learned so Teach Adorn and Illustrate and mark Here a further Declaration of the Deposited A further Declaration of Deposited Doctrin allowed of Doctrin Allowed of ut cum dicas Novè non dicas Nova That when Thou proposest Things anew Thou Teach not new Things but the old Doctrin And hence it also is That the Church of Christ is stiled by most Ancient Fathers Depositorium Dives a Rich Treasury The Church called by most Ancient Fathers Depositorium Dives wherin the Depositum of Apostolical Doctrin is Kept And not only once Kept and then lost But as a Depositum ought to be it s Handed down from Age to Age from Church to Church Successively continued to the Worlds End If therfore you look for the Apostolical Depositum Leap not I Beseech you over the Heads of all those Christians who have been betwixt Us and the first 3. or The Apostolical Depositum is in the Churches hands 4. Ages As if it were to be found There and no where els But Demand of this present Church now in Being 'T is She that Knows better And Inform's us more exactly of Apostolical Doctrin Then all the lost Writings of the The present Church best inform's us of Apostolical Doctrin Ancient Church could have done or those that are hitherto preserv'd can do Because they are all lyable to endles Disputes and Consequently can absolutely Decide no controversy Now if any one Boggles at this Assertion as if we could not have sufficient Certitude of The most Ancient writings are lyable to Dispute what the Ancient Church Delivered by the Testimony or Tradition of the Present Church But further Requir's Express Records to be Produced of all that was ever Taught Let him correct his Errour and know That what is Carved in Brass or Writ in Velume cannot be more securely Kept then Apostolical Doctrin Deposited in the Hands and writ in the Apostolical Doctrin better preserved in the hands of Christs Pastors thenif't had been carved in Brass Harts of Christs faithful Pastors is now Preserved For what 's in Brass or Partchment Time may wear out and blemish But that which God hath committed to his Church and Chief Pastors therof who are to Teach Christians Age after Age shall never Perish never Pass or be put out of Remembrance And this Doctrin the Church Deliver's more Explicitly in her Definitions chiefly when she Declares Truth against Haereticks CHAP. VII More of this Subject Objections are Answered 1. TO go on with our Discours I would willingly Know when the Apostle Exhort's the Galatians cap. 1. vers 8. 9. Not to Believe an Angel Preaching contrary to what He had Preached and They had formerly Received As also the Thessalonians 2. c. 2. 14. to Hold the Traditions learned by Word or Epistle Whether All that the Apostles Orally taught was neither writ nor can be supposed lost we can Imagin that all the Apostles Orally Delivered was Either Expresly Registred in Scripture or the whole Substance of that Divine Doctrin of equal Certitude with Gods written Word is now Totally lost Neither is Probable The Essentials therfore of that Doctrin laid up sure in the rich Treasury of the The Essentials of it remain in the Churches Treasury Church still Remain with Christs own Faithfull Pastors And this is the Depositum mentioned in Scripture wherby the Church Assisted by the Holy Ghost Regulates Her self when She Defines Therfore great Divines Assert That the Church never Teaches or will Teach any new Verity that was unknown to the Apostles The Doctrin of Divines Se Greg. de Valentia De Fide Disp 1. Quaest 1. Puncto 6. § Illud vero And § Hinc quoque Suarez Disp 2. De Fide Sect. 6. n. 18. Tanner Disp 1. de Fide Quaest 1. Dub. 7. n. 211. 2. St. Paul Methinks confirm's this Doctrin Roman 12. 6. According to the Rule of Faith Wherupon our What is meant by the Analogy of Faith Sectaries Because the Greek reads 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Endlesly talk of the Analogy of Faith Let us bring Words to Sense and Sense to Principles What is This Analogy This Measure or Proportion of Faith Is that which every Mans private Fancy fall's upon to be Faith the Measure and Analogy of it God forbid If so Faith would be as Various as Fancy is Changeable in Haereticks We must therfore find out a better Analogy And if you say it is Scripture I Answer Before the writing of Scripture A perfect Rule of Faith before Scripture was writ There was a true and perfect Rule of Faith Otherwise These words of St. Paul Presupposing the Rule He mentions before he writ This Epistle are insignificant Again When He Tell 's the Thessalonians Epist 1. c. 1. of Their being a Pattern to all that Believed in Macedonia and Achaia Of the Word of our Lord sounded out by them Scripture
inconsequent Proceeding of Protestants who must Trust our Church for the Handing down to them Gods written Word Sectaries ill Consequences whilst most Vnreasonably They Reject Her Authority when she Declares what the unwritten Word is I say most Vnreasonable For if it can Deceive in this later it may as well have deceived Christians in the first and given them fals Scripture Wherof se more in the second Discours 6. 'T is true There is Another way of Defining Another way called by Divines Asseveration called by some Divines Asseveratio or The Asserting of a Truth not so Explicitly at least Believed before as when the Church Defines against open Haereticks what was Antecedently of Faith And Herein the Church Proceeds not so much upon a Previous Known Act of Faith as upon the General Owned Principles of Catholick Belief wherunto Theological Discourses drawn from sound Divinity And other Principles partly Evident and partly in a high Measure Morally Certain have Access And are most Prudently Ioined Not That the Definition in it self Relies on those lower Principles But on Gods Gracious Assistance ever with his Church in the Delivery of Truth However Providence will have this way followed as a Vsual and Necessary Condition Because men of Reason in so weighty Matters are not as Sectaries do to Define at random but industriously to use Reason And Proceed on rational Principles But This belongs more to Divinity then to Controversy For I think the Church never yet Defined any thing against Haereticks that was not Antecedently a known and owned Truth of Faith Though not so fully expressed as it often is by the Churches clearer Proposition Thus we say The Real Doctrin of Transubstantiation The Real Doctrin of Transubstantiaton as old as that of the Trinity c. is as old as the Doctrin of The Trinity or the Consubstantiality of the Son with His Eternal Father Though the Words Expressing these Mysteries more significantly and clearly are of a later Date 7. Now to the Objections And one Hinted at above is The Church was solidly Founded in the An Objection Apostles time in all Things necessary to Salvation Therfore These Post-nate Definitions of it are to no Purpose To confirm This Our young Antagonist Ask's Whether the Apostolical Declarations of the Ancient Primitive Of Apostolical Declarations lost Faith were lost in the intermediate Ages or no If not lost Shew them saith He And There is no Need of new Definitions If they were lost in their Passage down the Church now wants them And therfore can Define nothing Were the Play worth the candle I might here Demand of Protestants whether Their Declared Sense This is a Sign of my Body Added Is retorted to Christs Words This is my Body which Sense They suppose to be Apostolical was lost in the intermediate Ages or no If not lost shew us that Apostolical Declaration and 'T is enough But this is impossible If 't was lost or rather never in Being How dare Sectaries make such a Declaration on their own Heads without Producing the Apostles Warrant I Answer The Answer The Church was solidly founded as 'T is now That which is sufficient in one Age Serves not always briefly to the Objection The Church then was solidly Founded just as 'T is now the Doctrin is one and the Same And every Article of it was ever and is now still either explicitly or implicitly Believed Yet These new Declarations are Necessary Because the Proposition of a Doctrin sufficient in one Time or Age Serves not for all Times and Ages when New Difficulties occurr And Haeresies rise up against it The Church therfore ever vigilant and Desirous to quiet all speak's Again more clearly the old Received Verities Causlesly too often Bogled at by Sectaries I say more clearly For 't is one thing to Assert Such a Verity is not at all contained in Scripture or in the Ancient Deposited Different Circumstances require clearer and more ample Declarations Doctrin of the Church And another To say it is so clearly There That in order to us and different Circumstances it needs not at all a further Declaration Sectaries continually Declare Their Sense of Scripture For They have no other Deposited Apostolical Doctrin to Talk of And why may not the Church Authorized by Christ with Better Reason do so too To what is Added to Help on the Objection I have answered Deposited Doctrin following the Church through all Ages is securely preserved The Deposited Doctrin Orally Delivered without writing is not lost But still remain's in the Churches Treasury 'T is as it were Handed down from Age to Age and Inseparably accompanies the Church through all Ages Yea and is kept there Though not in Chists or Coffers as securely as if 't Had been engraven in Brass or Marble And Sectaries must say thus much Sectaries must grant This. if They own Scripture for Gods Word For are not They now as well Assured upon the Churches Testimony or Vnwritten Tradition That St. Iohns Gospel was Indited by the Holy Ghost As if the Church produced a Hand-writing to Evidence that Verity Yes most Assuredly Whoever therfore Dare call into Their urging for a hand writing of Apostolical Doctrin is proved frivolous Question the Churches Authority Asserting a Doctrin Though it Produce no Manual Writing For it May as easily Doubt if it show you One Whether that very Exhibited Evidence be Authentical or no. Let us only Imagin that the Apostle that writ the last Part of the New Testament had exactly set down the whole Canon of Scripture which the Church now Receives Let us Suppose again That very copy to be left in the Hands of some Pious Christians Living in those Days No hand-vvriting distinct from Scripture is comparable to the Churches ovvn Authority and so long Preserved Vntil After Haereticks excluded from the Canon such and such Books of Holy Scripture as Luther lately Did St. Iames Epistle Both they and Luther might more Rationally have doubted of that very written Instrument then any can now Doubt of a whole Churches Authority owning the Canon of Scripture to be as it is No Charter Therfore no written Instrument Though once truly made when the Author is gon can Parallel the Churches Testimony in what it Asserts The The Reason Reason is Because a Manuscript only Tell 's you what it Contains but not Whose it is and though it did so Men might yet question the Forgery of it unles an Authority beyond Exception extrinsecal to the writing take away all Fear of Cozenage and make it Vndoubted Tradition surer then any Manuscript This Reason proves Tradition Necessary in the Church as well for the owning of Scripture as other Verities 8. I have said thus much to show How neer to a Piece of Non-sense our Adversaries Draw when To Cancel the later Definitions of the Church They urge us to produce the old Apostolical Declarations whereby
Fallible men may speak more boldly and Say Our Church is Fallible and hath brought in both this new mentioned and many other Innovations Therfore I deeply Charge their Consciences The Consciences of Sectaries are pressâ—d to prove what They teach of Errours in the Church as They will Answer it at the day of Iudgement not to Trifle in a most serious matter But without Ambiguity plainly to touch the Difficulty And to make known to the whole World what that owned Principle is wheron this Their Proposition stand's The whole Church is Fallible and hath introduced This Novelty of Christs Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament I speak Not by Empty words but certain Principles boldly And dare say It is a Flat Heresy And therfore Sectaries have nothing like a Principle Morally certain wherby the strength of the contrary Verity mantained by Scripture Church and Fathers can be meanly Quarrelled with much les solidly Reproved unles the too simple talk of a Few Novellists be able to Evert and Overturn what God hath Revealed And a whole ample Church Defends upon Revelation 10. Perhaps it will be said first The Fathers that Defend the Real presence were fallible and might Err. what Sectaries may plead but 'T is more then highly improbable I answer Our Protestants who Deny it are Fallible also and may Err more By what undoubted Principle Therfore can They Convince that Their fallible rejecting the Fathers Hath weight enough to make Null the Testimony of so many Blessed Saints against Their Doctrin We call here for Principles and are not content with Empty words They may Reply 2. They can Explicate both Scripture and Fathers contrary to the Churches Sense And so ridd themselves of that Burden I answer This Riddance is none Unles when they have explicated They prove by a more sure Principle Then the Express Words of these Fathers are That Their Glosses hit right and that the Fathers were Deceived which shall never be so much as Probably Convinced If They lastly talk of Citing Fathers for their Heresy I answer They have not one As will be amply Proved hereafter In the mean while let them know it will be the safest Cours to talk no more of Changes ad Novelties introduced into our Church without proof and Principles to uphold Their ill Supposed and wors Proved Calumnies But enough of this Digression We return now to other Objections 11. Some again Tell us The corruptions of our Church came in in time of greatest ignorance when little notice was Still Empty Talk without proofs or Principles taken and few Records were Preserved of them Here is more Talk without Principles For where Read They of so great Ignorance in the Church that Disinabled all Writers to Register such vast Changes Or where find they Records of those lost and Vnpreserved Records This is only Proofles talk if They have Records let them be produced if they have none let them Sectaries Guesses rejected Hereafter Wave such blind Guesses whilst Proofs are Expected It would anger our Protestants if I should tell them without Proof or unquestioned Records that the Beard of Their Religion is Insensibly Grown gray since their new Faith came in Or that Tares were cast into Their Church whilst They Slept c. Yet They it seems Are licensed to run on with such poor Guesses And no body must Check Them 12. Next they Argue We cannot show when the Were these Things unkown it follows not that other of greater monent are unknown also Necessity of Communicating Infants and the Rebaptizing of Hereticks or That Doctrin of Souls not seing God before the Day of Iudgement First entred the Church Yet These were Errours And their Beginning is unknown Here I answer briefly The Communicating Infants was only Tolerated for a time But never was held a necessary Doctrin of the Church Much less were those Two other These Examples touch not the Difficulty Points condemned by the Church ever Owned as Her Doctrin Such Examples therfore no Church-Doctrin are to no Purpose in this place 13. Lastly they Tell us Scotus thought Transubstantiation to be of no elder Date then the Council of Lateran And Bishop Fisher saith the Doctrin of Purgatory was not much heard of in the Primitive Church I would willingly se in Scotus his own works the Distin and Quest Where He Asserts what these men Say Some Protestants cite him in 4. Distin 11. q. 3. where He only saith in different Editions that Transubstantiation was more explicitly Defined in the Lateran Council which is far from making it no older a Doctrin Then that Councils Definition is But Admit Scotus said so and Bishop Fisher unquoted wors then they pretend The Church of Christ Teaches no such Thing Yet from this Oracle of Truth we must Learn and not from particular Doctors who may err what Church Doctrin is And for this Reason I told you above of much foul Play in Protestants Who Becaus they want Antiquity take no little Pains to run up and down our Authors and if by chance a Word be found less warily spoken They trifle with it and presently make that Popish Doctrin It is an Errour Catholick Doctrin is not one Mans singular Opinion Catholick Doctrin is no Mans singular Opinion But the Vniversal received Doctrin of the Church And thus much our Adversaries must assert for Themselves Otherwise when one of great Renown amongst them Tell 's Protestants Plainly It is but labour in vain to talk of union with One Another Vnles They ioyn again to that moral Body from which they once Separated that is to those who are in union with the Sea Apostolick The whole English Church must here Subscribe and say it is Protestant Doctrin Will they Do so The Voice therfore of One is not the voice of All nor one mans Opinion more mens Opinion Much less the Sentiment of a whole Church 14. It is but time lost to follow these Men whilst Blind Guesses no Proof of Novelties brought into the Church They Blindly run on Guessing at the Rise and Origin of our Supposed Errours and Tell us All our Corruptions came not in on a sudden They were first practised freely and then urged as Necessary Persons of great esteem first held them and Others soon followed their Example If one would take the Pains and trace it He might find the Head of these Corruptions at last c. Pittiful slight Talk unworthy a Scholler And vented at random against the Primitive Church would even Blemish that as much as any Other yea And Protestancy more I wave such stuff Because nothing like a proof follows it 15. My last Proposition is Though Protestants should convince Though Errours were falsly supposed to have entred the Church yet Protestants cannot Prove that They have set Faith right again on its old Foundations which is impossible That the Roman Catholick Church hath Swerved from the Primitive Doctrin yet They cannot
Doctrin of the Donatists confining the Church to one place Vnchurch Them Believe it your The Donatists were Schismatichs for making the Church too strait and so are Protestants for making it to wide Particular Doctrin in making it too Large will Vnchurch you also I call both these Doctrins Particular and Heretical For as never men before the Donatists made the Catholick Church so strait as They did so never Christians before these later Protestants made it so large as to hold in it all the Heretckis in the World I say expresly This Doctrin of the Donatists was only their particular Errour and not Then Vniversal or Common to all Christians For Their very Denying the Church to be Spread the whole world over made that Doctrin not Vnuniversal or not Held by All. And thus much Protestants must Say For whilst They or any other Sectaries Maintain Tenents particular to themselves for example two Sacraments only A Doctrin In the Principles of Protestants the Arians and Nestorians were not Hereticks so limitated cannot be called Vniversal Out of what is hitherto Said we must conclude If no Doctrin can make a man an Heretick but the Denyal of That which the whole Christian World Own 's The Arians and Nestorians were not Hereticks 8. These Novellists go on Trifling in a most serious Matter And first Tell us Though a man Differ's A frivolous Instance Every one knows what is essential to a Man But Protestants know not how much Doctrin is Essential to Christian Faith and how much is meerly Accidental from all other in Accidents for Example in Feature yet he leaves not of to be Essentially a man Therfore though Protestants Differ from all other Christians in Doctrin Accidental or wherin these Dissenting Societies Disagree from one another Yet as long as They stick to the Common owned Faith of all Christians so long they are Safe and Members of the Church Catholick A miserable Put of It Seem's a very Vniversal Doctrin suffiseth Protestants to be good Catholicks All we Desire is That they will exactly say How much Precisely of this Doctrin will Serve the turn as both Necessary and Sufficient to make us all Catholicks Or whether the Arians Nestorians or Donatists Had enough of it to be good Catholicks If Yes They were both Good Catholicks and Hereticks at once Catholicks upon the Arians and Protestants Symbolize Account of Common Christian Doctrin owned by them and Hereticks for their particular Erroneous Tenents And it 's more then probable that Protestants are like Them Secundum quid Catholicks Because of Their Common Doctrin But Simpliciter Hereticks by Reason of Their late introduced Novelties 9. They tell us Again The Communion of the Church Catholick is not to be measured by the particular Opinions either of All or any particular Church But by such things which are the proper Foundations of the Catholick Church For there can be no Separation from the true Catholick Church but in such things wherin it is Catholick And it is not Catholick in any thing But in what Properly relates to its Being and Constitution Let the World Iudge whether this be not meer Confused Talk For the only Difficulty Sectaries wave that only Difficulty which requires Explication in this Matter is to know of these new Doctors How much Precise Doctrin is Necessary and Sufficient to be believed How much of it Constitut's The Being and Foundation of the Catholick Church And what is Accidental or Vnnecessary You se They wave This And content Themselves with telling us of no man knows what Being of no man knows what Foundation of a Church without Descending to Particulars or Proving what these Essentials are Or Finally who Those Christians were that were Right in the Essentials of Faith before Luther or had the Being of a Church amongst them They Proceed here as if Protestants inioyn us to learn that Doctrin which is Essential to a Church and allow us neither Master nor Rules to learn it by a Master should tell a young Beginner with Grammer You must learn your Rules well and understand them perfectly But you shall have neither Book nor Precepts from any wherby to Learn them I Profess before Almighty God and I think Thousands not only Catholicks But others are of my opinion I am yet as wholy Ignorant of what These Newer Protestants will make the Essentials of Faith the Necessary and sufficient Foundations and Being of a Church as ever Boy was of Grammer Rules when he first went to School I may perhaps Guess better at their Doctrin And my Thought is They Hold All the Hereticks in the The world would Cry Shame if they Explicated their sense world whether Arians or Others to be good Catholick Christians Yet dare not Publish so much in Writing And this is the true Reason why they Schulk in Generalities And hide Themselves under these universal Vnexplicated Terms of the Essentials of Faith of the Being of a Church the Foundations of it c. Well I will say it once more If the Doctrin common to all Christians be the Essential Necessary No Hereticks ever were if Doctrin Common to all be sufficient to Saluation and Sufficient Doctrin of the Church truely Catholick it Follows evidently That no Heretick was ever yet Vnchurched by His particular Heresy But 10. Woe be to Catholicks what ever becomes of Others They must be Vnchurched For These men Assert and very wisely as they Think Although nothing Separates a Church properly from the Catholick But what is contrary to the Being of it yet a Church And this is the Roman may Separate Her self from the Communion of the Catholick Society By taking upon Her to make such things Necessary Conditions of Communion which never were the Conditions of Communion of the Catholick Church Observe first A Supposition for a Proof of strange imposed Conditions Observe 2. A Supposition Meer Suppositions pass for Proofs with Sectaries for a Proof of no man knows what Catholick Church Wider and larger then the Roman But above all 11. Observe 3. Their unlearned Discours The Roman Church say They Draws the Bounds of Catholick Communion within Her self and so Divides from the true Catholick Church I Ask From what true Catholick Church did They cannot name the Orthodox Church from which the Roman Church Separated she Divide Her self Speak out And name that Church Design it Plainly which was Actually Orthodox and in Being when Luther Apostated and something is said to the Purpose If you fail to Shew us that Imagined Church from which you Suppose the Roman Separated All you Assert is a meer Calumny We say and can Justify it There was no such True Church in the whole World to Separate from Vnles Arians Nestorians Eutychians Graecians c. constituted that great Imagined moral Body But These as is Evident once Catholicks Separated from the Roman Church not She from them Therfore this supposed Separation is only an
are obliged to Answer directly without Ambages I or No. Let them say Plainly These Proofs are Good or show them to be Fallacious and if they Hold them Fallacies Let this be Evidenced by Contrary clear Proofs grounded on Received Principles Thus We Proceed Proofs and Principles Parallelled 22. For Example we say This is an Vndoubted Principle we are here forced Again to Parallel Proof with Proof and Principle with Principle that the Apostolical Church Evidenced by Miracles great Sanctity of life Efficacy of Doctrin Admirable Conversions c. Proved it self by these very Marks and Signs to be no Counterfeit But a True Orthodox Church And Here is an Other sure Principle Laid by it The Roman Catholick Church And no other Society of Christians Hath Age after Age Evidenced it Self by the very like Signs of undoubted Miracles of Admirable Conversions of Efficacy in Doctrin of Dispossessing Devils c. This whole learned Society Own 's these Wonders They have been and yet are Manifest to mens eyes and senses The Ancient Miracles and Conversions Proofs for Miracles and Conversions wrought by the Roman Catholick Church Stand upon certain Record Authors of unquestionable Fidelity Recount the later Not only Friends but Enemies also Allow them so much credit That they justly Deem the Man neer a Degree of Madnes That shall Offer to Deny All That are on Record Therfore The Church which Hath Ever Manifested And yet Doth Manifest These Wonders Proves its Doctrin in that Manner As the Apostles and Primitive Church Proved Theirs Observe now well If Sectaries go about to Infringe the Validity of this One Proof or vvill What Sectaries are obliged to â—o if they Deny These Proofs yet Deny these Miracles and Conversions vvrought by our Church They are obliged to Ground that Denial on a Proof as Strong if not Stronger as is This Cloud of Witnesses produced by Catholicks For the Contrary Affirmative And this is not only Improbable But vvholy Impossible It is therfore meer Talk at Random to Tell us As They are wont Many Miracles have been Fained Senses may be Deceived Papists are too Credulous Historians sometimes Recount Things upon too slight Credit All are weightles Words unproved Guesses Toughts of Fancy and Fancy only As Vnproved Guesses no Proof wide from Proofs and Principles as Truth is from Heresy Disc 1. c. 9. 23. Again it is an Evident Truth That the Roman Catholick Sectaries without proof censure the Roman Catholick Church never censured by any Vniversal Church Church hath Don God Great Service And never was Censured by any Vniversal Church Say Therfore upon what Owned Principle can Protestants Deny this Good service Don for God Vpon what undoubted Proof Dare they so freely Censure and condemn it I 'll tell you their own Saying Doth All. They have no Better Proof 24. 3. It is a most Evident Truth That all those Wise and Learned Doctors That Taught Christians Popery for a Thousand years and more Were neither Fools nor mad men nor Two other most certain Truths Vniversally blinded with Errour If this be not Evident thus Much certainly is The wise Providence of God never suffered those whole Millions of Christians Instructed by these Teachers to be cheated so long and Abused with Fooleries Now my harty Wish is That our Adversaries will Once plainly Tell us by what Proof or Received Principle they are An Vnanswerable Difficulty proposed to Sectaries able to convince That all These Learned Doctors no less wise then They were Besotted so long or that God for so vast a time Owed so much ill will to Innumerable poor Christians as not only to Se them cheated and Misled But They are to prove not by Talk but sure Principles First That all the Learned Doctors of the Roman Catholick Church were besotted with Fooleries for ten Ages Secondly That God permitted Innumerable Christians to be cheated for so long a time Thirdly That Protestants have Exactly setled Christianity Right on its Ancient Foundations more utterly to withdraw his Providence And suffer them to Grown under so lasting a Misery of Falshood And this which is ever to be Noted whilst There was no Other Christian Society in the world to afford them true Instruction in the Pure Christian Faith May it please Sectaries candidly To clear this one Difficulty upon a Rational Principle They will much Oblige me This Don Let Them also Vouchsafe to Add a Word more for my Satisfaction It is If They Digest These Harsh Propositions All those Doctors were Fooled God Deserted his Church for so long a time That They next come to a Solid Principle and Prove That Protestants among so many other Sectaries were the Only Elect people appointed by Providence to Mend what They conceived Amiss in an old Decayed Church And They must Shevv this Don vvithout mixture of Errour in their Reformation Yea and vvithout Danger of Marring more Then they vvent about to Mend. They tell us of their setling Christianity Right Again on its Ancient Foundations Here is place to make that Talk good let us have a Strenuous Proof for it If they say they do it by Scripture not one clear Text can be quoted without Twenty Glosses and Fancies added to it And yet all will not Do. If again they will need 's shake Hands with us And say We and They are all One and right in Fundamentals It is an unproved Assertion But might it Pass No Assurance can be given That they have setled all straight in Non-fundamentals Se Disc 3. c. 10. n. 2. and C. 9. n. 3. 2. 25. 4. Amongst the many other Evidences of our A fourth Evidence of Catholick Religion drawn from Gods special Providence our Roman Catholick Religion This is none of the least That God by special Providence hath Preserved it both in Being and Honor for 16. whole Ages This Church hath Stood so long Invincible and Glorious in the heat of all Persecutions It Resisted the Violence of Iewes and Heathen Princes It Encountred known Hereticks and Defeated Them No Counsel or Wit of Man nor Power of Devils have been hitherto Able to Dissolve it whilst Whole Kingdoms and Common-wealths lost their Ancient Glory And were Subverted Whence I Argue as the Learned Gamaliel once did Act. 5. 39. If this Counsel and work be of men it will be Dissolved But if it be of God you Sectaries who so vigorously Oppose it cannot Dissolve it Now here is A Convincing Argument my Dilemma Either this Church Subsisted for so vast a time by meer cheats and Humane Policy or was and is Protected by Gods special Providence If the first be granted It would have Perished long Ago and come to nothing And if God by Special Providence Preserved it in Being It is Vndubitably the Orthodox Church of Christ And cannot be Argued of Disloyalty To confirm this Truth I ask Whether the Reasons now Alleged Whatever Argument Proves Christian Religion in General
retorted can you Assert that he rather makes it a thought of his own fancy then an Article of Faith All you say is He declares it not to be of Divine Revelation And I Answer He Declares it not to be a thought of His own fancy If then you suppose it to be his Fancy because He declares it not to be of Divine Revelation I may as lawfully suppose it to be of Divine Revelation The Mistake because He declares it not to be his own fancy In a word your Principle is a Mistake For the Fathers in their Learned Volumes often speak of matters of Faith yet ever say not expresly it is so and they often also touch on Opinative Doctrin yet Cry not always out This is opinion only No but suppose both known by other Principles without their express Declaration You cite St. Austin in the next page Asserting in Several places That all things necessary to be believed are clearly revealed in Scripture I doubt much of that word clearly and of the several places too but this is not St. Austin saith expresly there are many things very difficil to be understood in Scripture de Fide oper c. 15. The doubt it of St. Austins Assertion not of Scripture it self A better Rule A second Objection what I aym at My Question is whether St. Austin declares himself plainly in those several places that His Assertion is of Divine Revelation If He do not according to your Rule it is a Thought of his Fancy only and therfore makes nothing for your purpose Well after All here is a better Rule When the Fathers Deliver a Doctrin Conformable to the Belief of the Vniversal Church you may rightly suppose it to be of Divine Revelation though They Expresly declare not so much in their writings 13. You say 2. That cannot be looked on as an Article of Faith to such persons who express Their Doubts Concerning the Truth of it But upon our enquiry into the Fathers we shall find say you the first Person who seemed to Assert that any Faithful souls passed through a fire of Purgation before the Day of Iudgement was St. Austin But He Delivers his Iudgement with so much fear and hesitancy that any one may se He was far from making it an Article of Faith To prove this hesitancy you quote two Places de Fide operibus c. 16. St. Austin was not the first that held Purgatory And Enchir. c. 69. I Answer first You have not made a Diligent enquiry into the Fathers if you think St. Austin was the first that held a fire of Purgation before the day of Iudgement The contrary is manifest by the Authorities cited above I say 2. This Learned He delivers no doubtful Doctrin of Purgatory Father Delivers no doubtful Judgement of Purgatory but plainly Asserts it I say 3. Your two Places prove not that He doubts of it And to make this clear you know the whole Drift of St. Austin both in this 16. Chapter and the precedent was only to deliver his opinion concerning the sense of the Apostles dark St. Austins Drift Explicated words 1. Cor. 3. And not to Define whether there be a Purgatory or no. This therfore being his main intent He first reject's the Opinion of others and Inclines much to the Affirmative Viz. That the place Proves Purgatory but not certainly Hereupon follows what you cite Sive ergo in hac vita tantum homines His words ista patiuntur c. Whether therfore men suffer these things in this life or such Judgements follow them after this life non abhorret quantum arbitror à ratione veritatis iste Intellectus hujus sententiae That is in plain English Such an understanding of this passage is no way He thinks such a punishment is proved by the Text. as I conceive contrary to the true meaning of S. Pauls words which is to say I think a punishment is proved by this Scripture either now or hereafter yet am not certain And therfore those next words follow Verumt amen etiamsi est alius qui mihi non occurrit Yet there may perhaps be another sense of them which now occurr's not to me To doubt of Purgatory and to doubt whether such a Scripture proves it are different c. Now Sir be pleased to reflect It is one thing to doubt of a Purgatory in it self and another to Doubt whether it can be well proved out of this place of Scripture St. Austins Quantum arbitror or hesitancy as is manifest by the words Iste Intellectus hujus Sententiae And Etiamsi sit alius c. makes only His Proof Doubtful without giving the least hint of any doubt relating to the Doctrin of Purgatory it self It often fall's out in Philosophy and Divinity that a Doctrin is certain yet some Arguments wherby it is proved are excepted against as proofles or less valid 14. To solve the other place Enchir c. 69. Note first A Principle of St. Austin to be noted a Principle of St. Austin who as we read Tom. 10. serm 41. de Sanctis thought that some lesser sins as too much love of the world and such like are so usually purged by Tribulation in this world Vt in futuro ille ignis Purgatorius aut non inveniat aut certè parum inveniat quod exurat That in the next life the fire of Purgatory will find either Nothing or very little to punish But saith the Saint Si nec in tribulatione c. If in our Tribulation we neither give God thanks nor redeem our sins by Good works Ipsi tamdiu in illo igne Purgatorio moras habebimus We shall stay in Purgatory till those lesser sins be consumed like Hay and stubble And by the way note here also what Judgement St. Austin had of Purgatory The Connexion of St. Austins words In the second place consider well the Connexion of St. Austins words in the precedent chap. 68. Quia urit eum rerum dolor c. Because the Grief he hath for the things he loved torments him And what follows cap. 69. Tale aliquid etiam fieri post hanc vitam incredibile non est It is not incredible that such alike punishment be after this life What is not incredible Thus much Solves the Difficulty That as some are punished in this life by a present Grief for their too much affection to worldly commodities so it is not incredible that some also suffer a torment in the future purging flames upon that account Et utrum ita sit quaeri potest And we may enquire saith He whether such a particular punishment be found in Purgatory Viz. That by how much more or less men loved these transitory Goods of the world Tanto tardius citiusque saluari So much sooner or later they come to Heaven Which last words plainly give us St. Austins meaning and prove that He doubted not of Purgatory for He supposeth
St. Austin only doubted of one particular punishment it here but only calls such a particular pain into Question as is expiatory of lesser faults because as I told you He held These lesser transgressions usually taken away by sufferances endured in this life Conclude therfore unles this Inference be Good St. Austin doubted whether some faults were punished in Purgatory The Testimony shewed forceles against us Ergo He thought none were Expiated there which is not probable The alleged Testimony is of no force against us yet proves that you read not St. Austin too well Now if you say my Gloss upon this Authority is not certain I answer No more will yours be when you have Interpreted all you can Therfore neither of us yet come to a certain Principle And consequently you must produce a far clearer Authority before you Ask again whether any man in his wits can think that St. Austin spake this of a matter of Faith Supposing all sure for your Interpretation which to me And I think to others also that know Latin and sense will not appear probable It is not my Task to quote A parallel of clear and doubtful passages here at large those most clear Testimonies of St. Austin for our Catholick Verity yet I 'll give you one And wish you to parallel that with all your dubious places lib. 2. de Genesi contra Manichaeos cap 20. fine Those books are of undoubted Authority Qui fortè agrum suum non coluerit c. He that Cultivates not his Sectaries ever suppose meer dubious Testimonies to have more force then most clear ones and the judgement of a whole Church Field but suffers it to be overgrown with thorns hath a Curs on him in all He doth in this life Et post hanc vitam habebit vel ignem Purgatiâ—nis vel poenaâ— aeternam And after this life shall either have a Purgatory or suffer pain for ever Thus the Doctor And every man in his wits it 's your own phrase cannot but think he spake of a matter of Faith when his Doctrin agrees with the Belief of a whole Church See more lib. 21. de Civit. c. 16. Where He speaks of a Purging torment after Death as also in Psal 37. But enough of this point 15. You say 3. Where Any of the Fathers build any Doctrin upon the sense of doubtful places of Scripture we have no further reason to believe that Doctrin then we have to Two Propositions more unproved believe that it is the meaning of those places So that in this case the enquiry is taken off from the judgement of the Fathers and fixed upon the sense of Scriptures which They and we both rely on And you give this reason For since the Fathers pretend to no greater Evidence of the Truth of the Doctrin then such places do afford it is the greatest reason that the argument to perswade us be not the testimony of the Father but the Evidence of the place it self Answ If here be not a piece of most Confused Doctrin confused Learning I never read any Observe well your own propositions as they lye in order First the Fathers are supposed to build a Doctrin upon the sense of doubtful Scripture and then you say you have no further reason to believe that Doctrin then you have to believe that it is the meaning of those places Very Good But I ask by what light can you better come to the true meaning of a doubtful place of Scripture then the Fathers Did If the meaning was How Sectaries may wrong both Scripture and Fathers doubtful to them it is as doubtful to you And if that sense which you draw out of a doubtful place be contrary to the Fathers you wrong both Them and the Text Them because you Oppose their judgement upon a meer uncertainty The Text becaus you will make it speak your sense which it doth not certainly for it is doubtful to you Perhaps you 'l say When the sense is doubtful Neither you nor the Fathers can tell what to make of it and Therfore without further enquiry it will be best to let it alone and remain in its obscurity May this Doctrin pass you need not to believe a great part of Scripture for it is very obscure They cannot contradict the Fathers explicating a doubtful place 2. You are bound in Conscience never to contradict the Fathers interpreting a doubtful passage For and it is very good reason if you will have the Fathers silent in such a case you are to hold your Peace and to say nothing against them Your second Proposition In this case the enquiry is taken off from the judgement of the Fathers and fixed upon the sense of Scripture which they and we both rely on Seems not to be too full of sense For most assuredly when the Fathers explicate a dubious passage Their judgement tend's to declare the hidden sense of it Why therfore will No sure fixing on a doubtful sense you take their judgement off from such aâ—sense and put yours in room of it Or to what purpose do you talk here of Fixing upon the sense when a place is dubious and neither Church nor Fathers must be believed What is your Fixing good for when you suppose the thing you Fix on to be doubtful and your felves Fallible If you say you must come to a certainty of the sense by Tradition or some other way know that the Church and Fathers had better reason to be acquainted with such lights then any Sectary can have In a word A doubtful place remaining still doubtful or dubioufly explicated can never beget a certain belief in you or any Yet we say when the Church of Christ and Fathers also agree in an Explication When the Church and Fathers interpret all doubt ceaseth the doubt ceaseth and the delivered sense is most certain In your reason For since They c. you leap from the sense of a Doubtful passage to the Evidence of the place it self which seems not pertinent For what hath Evidence to do here when your Discours is only of a doubtful sense When a place is evident we se that as well as you And have with it the sentiment of a whole Church and Consent of Fathers also 16. You say 4. After some Talk of two Reverend Primates which I much heed not That St. Ambrose and others prayed for the Blessed in Heaven Ergo Orizons Old Objections renewed to no purpose for the Dead prove not a Purgatory I wonder you weary mens Eares again with such old worn-out Objections You or your Brethren have been told many and many a time that no Father no Church The Church prayes not for the Saints in Heaven to be released from temporal pain or to have sins remitted Greek or Latin ever prayed that the Saints in Heaven may be freed from any temporal pain or for the Remission of sins yet not only the Fathers
add on your own head that none of the Fathers hit upon a State of Purgation till S. Austins time I have answered and proved it to be a flat Calumny Again wheras you say the Apparitions and Visions of souls departed are only pretended and not real Contrary to received History Apparitions of souls too slightly rejected we expect a stronger proof for the Assertion then your Word is which is worthles and most unmeet to make all null that has been writ of these Apparitions 19. In the last place you come to examin the Testimonies of Some Fathers made to speak as you would have them But Bellarmin before you were born Bellarmin Leo Alatius and Leo Alatius more lately have Answered and proved all you say to be Proofles I 'll here only take Notice of your less can did proceeding where S. Cyprian Ad Antonianum de Cornelio Novatiano is quoted for Purgatory Aliud est ad veniam c. Aliud missum in carcerem c. It is one thing to stay for pardon and another to S. Cyprianâ— words come presently to Glory It is one thing to be cast into prison and not to come out thence till you have paid the last farthing c. The Words you know are the same with those of Scripture wherby Catholicks following the Interpretation of Fathers endeavour to prove Purgatory Now you Tell us S. Cyprian speak's here of the Severities of Pennance which the lapsed Persons underwent in order to Pardon and no doubt as is easily gathered by the Context His Epistle treat's mainly on that subject But that occasionally He spake not of Purgatory or That this matter was wholy unthought of in this place is more then either you or any can make probable You say Rigaltius and Gabriel Albaspinaeus Rigalt and Albasp deny not the obvious sense of S. Cyprians words understand the Passage of Pennances suffered in this life Be it so Neither of them excludes the other sense which the words bear and most properly The intent of these Authors was to Declare that wherof St. Cyprian Chiefly Discourses and not to medle whith every point of Doctrin occasionally touched on Be it how you will your Argument barely Negative Rigaltius and Albaspinaeus apply not this place to Purgatory Ergo they thought it proved not Purgatory is forceles whilst others Positively judge the contrary And here I must complain a little Sir why Do you who pretend to Dissemble nothing that makes for our Advantage slipt over so silently Iacobus Pamelius his notes upon these words Aliud missum Proofs Dissembled c. where He saith Mirè facit hic locus ad Confirmandam Ecclesiae Traditionem de Purgatorio c. The place of S. Cyprian makes Marvellously well for Purgatory And so the most Reverend Bishop Martinus Peresius Ayala before me observed very rightly Thus Pamelius whose Positive and Express Authority quite Outweighs your bare Negative And argues you of some little Dissimulation But 20. I must end and tell you a great Truth What ever you can Allege in this matter is either purely Negative or worth Nothing We have the Authority of a Learned Church for our Doctrin You have Proofs Compared none for yours We have the express Testimonies of Innumerable Ancient Fathers you have not one that expresly Denies Purgatory Admit which is untrue St. Austin to have been the first that asserted our Doctrin you have none so Ancient and learned as He that positively Contradicts it No nor one less learned What then have you for your Novelty bare Conjectures uncertain Authorities unproved interpretations of certain ones aginst you which are ever more obscure and weaker then the Text is which you Interpret In a word you have Fancy and Though you take it ill I must speak truth it is the sole foundation of your whole Religion And because I say so much I shall endeavour to prove it further which will be best don by examining One other Controversy CHAP. V. An Objection Proposed and Solved in A Discours of Another Controversy 1. SOme Perhaps may Think We Slight our Adversaries too much And Tell them too often of Fancy of their Vnreasonablenes and Grounding nothing on certain Principles For who can doubt but that in most Controversies now on Foot They sâ—em to say Some thing Which Tend's as wel to the Establishment of their Own as To the weakning of our Catholick Doctrin Therfore we do ill in Treating them so Uncivilly As if all They said were Fancy Weightles and insignificant To answer this Difficulty home it If Sectaries think Their cause rationally Defended would be Necessary To run over All the Disputed Controversies between us And to shew their weak Ground in every particular matter of Difference But this is not Suitable now nor can be Complyed with when you se a Treatise Grown to long Already 2. Yet to satisfy the Reader I will briefly Touch The Decision of one Difficulty will show Their errour on one Controversy more it may serve as an Instance for Many which hath been matter of Contention these last Hundred Years In a word It is That too long Debated Question concerning the Real Presence of Christ our Lord in the holy Eucharist And to Gain what time we can it will be best to Wave a Needles Stating of the Question For all know what Catholicks Believe of this Mystery and Sectaries Do not what Those Affirm and These Deny 3. Now in Handling this Matter We might Proceed Two wayes in handling this Question of the Blessed Sacrament two Different Wayes And first not only Bring to Light again the large Testimonies of Scripture Councils and Fathers in Behalf of our Catholick Verity But also draw Arguments at length from their clear Expressions for a greater Evidence of Truth But This would be Actum agere to Do what Hath been often Don by Others and very compleatly The other way is Shorter which Supposeth these Authorities We follow the Shorter way Faithfully Quoted by our Catholick Writers You Have them largely in Bellarmin Through every Age since Christ lib. 2. de Euchar. cap. 1. usque ad 29. Exclusive And if the Reader know not Latin He may find most of them in that Excellent English book called A Disputation of the Church by E. S. F. Printed at Doway 1640. Chiefly in His 5. Book c. 6. Sectaries Acknowledge these Authorities wherat I shall briefly Sectaries cannot doubt of the Authorities here supposed hint Herafter So far Therfore There can be no Difficulty The only Strife will be How They 'l come off in their Answers And Whether They are able to Satisfy Two or Three Arguments Which I shall Propose upon most grounded Suppositions If I be not much Deceived We shall se how Fancy all along or something wors Vphold's Their new Opinion You must here Expect plain Language For Truth is never better seen Then when plain Words set it forth 4. To proceed
clearly We may first Suppose Two necessary Suppositions That as God hath Certainly Revealed the Truth of this Mystery of the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Scripture so He hath also Taught us What we are Truely to Believe concerning it We Suppose 2. That his real Intention was and is That we stand to his Word and Believe Him as he Speak's Vnles we can Learn by some clear and Vndoubted Principle That he spak Reservedly or That his words bear another Sense then what they plainly Signify Vpon these Suppositions I Argue When God Reveals a Truth in Holy A clear Argument Proposed against Sectaries Scripture which concerns the General Belief of all And really Intends to Teach Christians what They are to Believe of that Revealed Truth He cannot Deliver more significantly clearly and expresly that Doctrin which He would not have Christians to Believe Then He Doth the Doctrin which He Would have them to Believe For if He did so whilst We cannot Learn by any known Principle That He speak's otherwise then He Thinks He would not only Equivocate and Deal reservedly with us in a Weighty matter of Faith And this as Ill beseem's his Goodnes as to Speak an Vntruth God in a weighty Matter of Faith cannot deliver more clearly that Doctrin which He would not have Christians to Believe Then he Doth the other which He would have them to believe If God cannot make a fals Religion more credible to Reason by outward Motives Then his true Religion is He cannot deliver an errour not to be Believed in more plain and significant words then he useth when he speaks a Truth to be believed by All. But more if we Rely on Scripture only He would Induce the whole world to Believe a Falsity Now I Subsume But it is most Evident if Sectaries Say right That God in speaking of this Mystery Delivers that Doctrin more clearly And significantly Which He would not have Christians to Believe Then He doth the other which He would Have them to Believe And there is no Imaginable Principle wherby we can learn that he Spake otherwise then He Thought or his plain Words Signify Therfore he speak's not only Equivocally and Reservedly in a weighty matter of Faith which is Alwayes to be Reflected on But He Induceth also the whole Christian World if Scripture guide us to Believe a Falsity by His too plain Speaking 5. Before I prove the Minor And give you this Clearer Language of Almighty God For what He will not Have us to Believe c. Be pleased to call to mind one Truth Explicated more largely Disc 1. cap. 8. For it is the Ground of my Present Discours Vpon that Principle therfore I say now Again As God cannot if True Faith be in the world make a Fals Religion more Prudently Credible to Reason by the force of rational Motives Then His True Religion is Evidenced and made Credible For if he did so He would oblige Reason to Embrace a Falsity and Desert Truth So also when He Delivers a Doctrin Concerning Christian Faith And in the most serious Circumstances imaginable He cannot Deliver an Errour in more Emphatical and Plainer words Then He speak's a Truth which yet You Shall se is Don if Sectaries be Believed The Parity Holds Exactly For As those more Perswasive Motives Antecedent to Belief wherby we are as it were summoned The parity hold's exactly to settle our Faith right Would If They Countenanced a Fals Religion Prudently Induce Rational men to embrace that and Leave the Discountenanced true Religion so This very clearer Language of God Wheron our Faith immediately Relies Would Also if it be more Express and Significant For Errour then Truth Force All to Embrace the Errour and Abandon Truth Becaus the Errour is most significantly Expressed in Holy Writ And the Truth not at All And This is Don when there is no excogitable Grounded Principle to Fancy or the bare words of Sectaries cannot work out of a Christians Hart the open sense of Christs words How Christ speak's and what Catholicks Believe Draw us of the supposed Errour if we be Beguiled or to work this supposed Falsity out of our Harts But the meer Fancy And the bare Word of a few Sectaries who say we are Deceived 6. Now to prove the Minor And Demonstrate that God delivers more Fully and significantly the Doctrin Which He would not have Christian◠to Believe then he doth the other Ponder these two things First what Eternal Truth Speak's in this Matter And we Catholicks Believe 2. What Sectaries say He speak's And They Believe These are Christs words This is my Body This is my Body Which is Given for you This is my Blood of the new Testament that shall be Shed for many Take heed say Sectaries Read warily These words Sectaries must say That Christs vvords taken in their plain literal sense are fals Taken in Their Plain literal and most Obvious sense are Fals and Therfore Express not the Doctrin we are to Believe Again Christ Speak's Thus. This is the Chalice of the new Testament in my blood which Chalice 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is or shall be Shed for you Vnles you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood you shall not have life in you My flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed No such Matter say Sectaries This is not the Doctrin we are to Believe For these words Vnderstood in Their Plain Obvious sense are Fals. That Chalice Shed For us vvas not his blood But vvine of the grape We eat not the flesh of the Son of man nor drink his Blood But only eat Bakers Bread and Drink Natural wine Sectaries make the contrary Proposition to Christs words True His flesh is not really meat nor His blood Drink Observe I pray you Sectaries so Abhor The plain and Proper Sense of Christs own Words that they make the contradictory Proposition to Him Absolutely True in Every Particular And his Fals Therfore they must at least confess that he Speak's too clearly and expresly that Doctrin which They say we ought not to Believe Otherwise Why do They not Admit of his Words in Their open and most candid Signification 7. Shall we next Consider what Sectaries Believe of this Mystery and withall Learn whether Christ Delivers as plainly Their Doctrin in Scripture As ours Sectaries Faith of this Mystery Hear Their Profession of Faith We Believe Say They That that which Christ gave to his Disciples vvas Natural Bread Deputed to a Holy Vse And no More We Believe it to be a Sign Only a Figure Only a Seal a Token a Type Only of Christs Body That is We Believe it to be His Body by Resemblance Symbolically Tropically Metonymically and Significantly Which is to Say it Hath the Scripture no vvhere call's that vvhich Christ gave his Disciples Natural Bread or a Sign only of his Body name of Christs Body But Really is no such
Thing And is This your Belief Yes Out with your Bible Therfore And Shew me as Many clear Texts of Holy Writ where That which Christ gave to His Disciples in his last Supper is called Natural Bread a Sign Only a Figure Token or Type only of his Body For This is the Doctrin you say we ought to Believe As I have now Quoted for the Contrary where it is called Christ Body and Blood Though you Suppose This to be the Doctrin We must not Believe Believe it These expressions This is my Body which is given for you This The words of our Saviour are plain and most Significant is the Chalice in my Blood which shall be shed for you are most Open And Significant Language Answer Me with Other Texts as Significant For your Faith or to this Sense This is not my Body But a Sign Only of my Body which is given For you Speak Plainly was it a Sign or a Figure Only of Christ That He blessed Lord Sacrificed on the Cross Was it a Sign or Figure only of Him That Judas Betrayed or that Suffered For our sins No. It was his Iudas betrayed not a sign of Christ Body but Christ himself very real Body and this Body Truth that cannot Err saith He gave to his Disciples Once more I have right to Demand Give me Text for Text or Cast your Scriptures in a Pair of Scales for a Trope Figure and Sign Only and Lay mine now Quoted By Them for the Reality of Christs Body Present And Let that Side of the Ballance Fall where you find most Weight of Gods Word You will soon Perceive Nothing in Scripture of signes and figures only How Light your Heresy is Compared with Truth And that without further Dispute it Flyes up to Fancy For There is not in the whole Bible so much as one Syllable of these Signes Only of these Figures of these Metonymies or any such Language 8. We se Moreover If Sectaries Speak Truth The Conclusion Fall's on Them with a greater Weight then They Imagined For it Followes That Christ our Lord Hath not only Spoken more Significantly and Expresly the Doctrin He would not have to be Believed Then the other which They say is to be Believed But also That He obligeth us to Believe a Sectaries would have us to believe a Docttin contrary to express Scripture Doctrin And by force of Scripture Which Clear Scripture is so far from Expressing That it Expresly Teaches the Contrary to what They Say All Ought to Believe I might yet Propose this Argument in other Terms and Perhaps with greater Force after this Manner If Christ Delivered that Doctrin more Plainly The Argument is proposed in other Terms which Sectaries Suppose to be Fals and Less clearly Yea not at All The contrary Doctrin which They Suppose to be True They who ground All Their Belief on Scripture must either Interpret the plainer Scripture by the more Obscure yes and I say by no Scripture at All And this is pure Fancy Or will be forced not so much to Misinterpret as plainly to Deny the Obvious and Open Sense of Christs own Words And This is wors then Fancy And here by If by a supposed impossibility Catholicks were deceived in Their Faith the way you may gather 3. If Catholicks who Believe the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist Be Deceived in their Faith They may without Blame Impute the Errour to no other cause But to the plain Speaking of our Saviour and most Justly say Si error est quem credimus à te decepti sumus If we are Deceived 'T is you Blessed Lord who have don it You Tell They might justly blame Christs plain words us This is my Body which is given for you This is my Blood shed for many c. You never uttered the least syllable in your Scripture of a Sign Only of a Trope Figure or symbol Only Say therfore most imparrial Judge Wherin are we guilty whilst We Expresly Believe what you To say that Christ beguil's us or that we are beguiled by him is Blasphemy Expresly Teach And Reject a Novelty which None But Hereticks Brought into the World To Affirm that Christ intended to Beguile us by his too Plain Speaking of this Mystery is open Blasphemy And to Say we are beguiled by him is no Less An Impiety The Answer if Sectaries pretend we do not anderstand Christs words 9. All that Sectaries can Pretend for Their Cause Against this Discours is That we yet Arrive not to the True meaning of Christs sacred Words And Therfore They are ready to Teach us Very Good We are content to learn what is Truth But Before they Begin Their Teaching it will be best for Them To Reflect that we have here a Proposition This is my Body c. And because Christ Delivered It 'T is most True Therfore we have a Subject also This school terms are necessary in the present occasion we have a copula EST IS And a Predicate or Attribute My Body Now If our Adversaries will Vouchsafe to Teach Let Them first Please to Give us Plainly the Total Object of Christs Proposition And Say what that The total Object of Christs Proposition it to be declared Predicate was which He then Connected with the Subject HOC or THIS Did He say natural Bread remaining bread was his Body No 'T is most Fals. Did he say by an Identical Enunciation His Body was his Body No. Did He Say that what He pointed at was By the Energy of his Words made Really his Body No it is too plain Popery and Christ Say they never Spoke it How then shall we Learn what he truely Asserted or find a Subject Copula Sectaries can find no Truth in the proposition unles they first abuse his sacred words and Predicate in this Proposition They Answer And here is their best Instruction it is Impossible to find either Truth or these three Things in it Unles They first Abuse the Words And Say Hoc est Here Sitts Christs Body or That this Bread Per commumunicationem Idiomatum is Christs Body or That this Bread was made a natural Body by the Omnipotent Word of Christ or Finally Say To Omit other Glosses And This sense best Pleaseth Modern Sectaries That the Word Est Imports not Is or any Identity between Hoc and Corpus But Renders an other Sense and only Availes as much As if you sayd Significat This Signifies Christs Body Read therfore the Gospel thus This is my Body id est This Natural bread Signifies or is a Sign a Figure of my Body And we are Right We have the Genuine Sense of his Proposition Thus they Teach us 10. Here you shall se a Powerful work of Fancy A work of Fancy And a mighty injury don to Christ. And the Greatest Wrong Don I think to Christ that ever entred into a Christians Hart. To lay open This sin of Sectaries I
will not Insist much on their High Contempt of These sacred Words Which in a vulgar and Obvious Sense are as Fals as if I should now say Holding a Paper in my Hands This is my Body But This I must urge to their Confusion And wish All to takâ— Notice of it If the Interpretation now made of the Proposition be true Doctrin it Evidently Followes That Christ spoke so contrary to his Sectaries must say that Christ beguiled the whole Orthodox Christian world by the most Serious words he ever spok mind That He Hath beguiled the whole Orthodox Christian World By the most serious Words He ever uttered in this Mortal Life I 'll show you how Christ say Sectaries Before He spake those words This is my Body c. Had only this internal Act or Judgement in his mind That which I will now give to my Disciples Shall be nothing but Bread only or a bare Sign and Figure of my Body for Sectaries Suppose He never intended to make bread his Body yet hear how They make Christ to speak As it were contrary to his Thought I will Saith Eternal Truth Though I know That that shall be Bread only which I am to give my Disciples Mark the injury They make Christ to say That was his Body which really was not Three Things Evident in the Principles of Sectaries The first that Christ spoke improperly The second that in the Moment He spak He Foresaw a universal pretended Errour would follow in all Orthodox Churches The Third that this universal pretended Errour would proceed from no other Cause but from his improper speaking All Churches Orthodox believed the Real presence So Unluckily Express my self by Outward Words as to Miscal the Sign by the name of the Thing Signified and Avouch that to be my Body which Really shall not be my Body But is here all No. Christ intended more in these mens Opinion and Sayd in Effect thus much Though I now Foresee That an universal Errour will Follow Through all the reputed Orthodox Churches of Christendom upon my Dark and Improper Language yet I will speak as I do Obscurely And Beguile Them I know all will be Beguiled Because all will Mistake my Meaning And Believe That to be my Body which Really is not Thus I foresee They will err And the very Emphasis of my words will Cause this now pretended Vniversal Errour among Them Therfore They cannot But leave off to be Orthodox For a Church Erring in so Weighty a Matter Or That Adores a Piece of bread for God is Absolutely Vnorthodox and Hideously Fals. Sectaries you se grant that Christ spak thus Darkly And that by Doing so He hath Drawn all the Reputed true Churches on earth into This Persuasion is a most Evident Truth For there was never Any Church Acknowledged True in the world But such as litterally Vnderstood his Proposition in its Plain and obvious Sense And consequently All Churches Believed the Real Presence of his sacred Body in the holy Eucharist Though Sectaries say all Erred in that Belief I Say All for so Lanfrancus Speaks in his last book against Berengarius Omnes qui Christianos se esse dici laetantur All who are Glad of the Reality and Name of Christians Glory in this That they Receive in the Sacrament the True Flesh and Blood of Christ which was born of the Virgin Ask of all whether Graecians Armenians or of what other Nation soever Vno ore hanc fidem se testantur babere All of Them with Vnanimous consent openly Witnes That they have this Faith Now if our Adversaries Slight so Worthy an Author let them produce but one as Ancient and learned as Lanfrancus was That saith as much for the owning of Their novelty of a Trope Sign Figure only c. And I will be Satisfied 11. And Here we come to the last Triall of our Sectaries Cause Which is to shew you the High Improbability of their new Fancied Opinion And therfore we are in the next Place to Drive Them of All possible Ground to stand on And Demonstrate That The last Trial of our Sectaries cause which is to lay Forth the improbability of their new Opinion They have not so much as a likelyhood of any undoubted Principle wherby we may Learn That Christ our Lord Spake improperly in the Passages now Quoted or That his Words have any other Sense then what they Expresly Signify Which is our Catholick Doctrin CHAP. VI. Sectaries without either Proofs or Principles VVrest Christs VVords to an Improper Sense And vent an Heresy upon meer Fancy 1. NOte first when Christ our Lord said This is my body c. And used the like or more significant Expressions Registred by the other Evangelists He did not only Institute the Noblest of Sacraments But made also his VVill and Testament He Published a Law The Nature of a noble Sacrament Christs own will a Dogmatical Verity gave a Command Hoc facite Do this At least all Acknowledge That He Delivered a Dogmatical Verity Concerning our Christian Faith And did This in such grave Circumstances And to such Persons His own Dear Disciples That the Time Place and Persons to whom He Spak Required no Dark But most Plain and Proper Language As therfore no Man makes his last And other grave circumstances require plain and proper Language VVill Publisheth a Law Layes an Express Command on any or Delivers a Truth which All are to Learn Vnder Tropes Figures Metonymies or such Obscurities Thefe have place in the Dark Speaking of Prophets and serve well to set forth an Oration But contrarywise in obvious Vulgar and Intelligible VVords So much Less can it be Supposed when Christ our Lord spak of these Serious Matters That He Delivered his Mind in Obscure Metaphors Tropes or any such Expressions Vnles as I noted above We certainly Knew by more Christ could not speak so obscurely of this Mystery without clearing all in other passages of Holy writ plain Scripture Then our Saviours words are now cited That Though He beguile us Here with Tropes and Metaphors Yet in other Passages of Holy Writ He clear's all These dark Expressions by a contrary language And Speak's more Significantly for these Signes of Sectaries Then He doth for our Catholick Doctrin Vnles I say such Texts be at Hand Nothing can Force us from that Express Sense which the Gospel most Significantly Deliver's concerning this Mystery 2. Note 2. Sectaries Advance their Cause nothing at all when They tell us that the word EST sometimes Though the particle Est in some Propositions may be Interpreted it Signifies Imports as much as if We said Signifies As when you se a Picture of Caesar on a wall and Say This is Caesar The seed is Signifies the Word of God c. Could this be proved it is not enough More is required for They are Obliged to Show And by an Vndeniable Principle if my Faith Rely on their Gloss
might yet Go on And to clear all Answer now to a few Fals Supposed Grounds of Sectaries But the Learned Bellarmin Hath done the work to our Hands and Contributed more then Enough to Their Not one word of Scripture in the whole Bible for Sectaries utter Overthrow Truly is very pittiful to Se How after all their Braggs of Scripture Scripture is Here so Scarce with them That they cannot Find a Word through the whole Bible so much as remotely Favourable for this Heresy Observe wel what Straits They are put to 12. First the Particle EST in our Saviours Proposition must either Sound as much as Significat How they Trifle in a most weighty matter Signisies or Sectaries are undon And who Tell 's Them so but Fancy O It often Hath that sense I answer no such matter For EST ever retains its own simple and pâ—â—per Signification in every true Proposition and doth no more but joyn's the Predicate with the Subject what ever it be The reason is If any Trope or Metaphor lie hidden in the Copula EST it may certainly be Resolved into an other Word They Err in their Interpretations of Christs Words or Diction of a more Simple Clear and Open Signification Then EST by its own force Expresseth But this is Impossible For no Word can be clearer then the Clearest more Open then what is most openly significant This Copula is Always so and therfore cannot No Trope or Figure found in the verb Substantive though often in the Attribute or subject be Resolved into any clearer Diction And hence it is That when your Rhetoricians Treat of Figurative Speeches or Locutions They never Place the Trope or Figure on the Verb Substantive But either on the Attribute or Subject 'T is true the Predicate or Subject in many Propositions known Aliunde or by other clear Grounds to be Metaphors must be Explicated by clearer Terms whilst yet the Copula EST Holds its most Simple and Proper Signification Take one Instance Semen An Instance est verbum Dei The seed is the word of God The Word Seed as it is a Sign made by Institution essentially to Signify so in this place it is a Trop or Metaphor also For certainly Christ said not That material Seed cast into the Earth is really his Word if Therfore it be here both a Sign and Metaphor you must ultimatly Resolve the Proposition into a clearer Sense Thus. The very Essence of a Sign is to Signify This Word How Figurative Propositions are to be Resolved Seed is a Sign Ad placitum Metaphorically Representing the Word of God Therfore as well as a Metaphor can Do it Signifies this Divine Word where you se EST keeps its proper Signification And Therfore The whole Proposition finally Resolved Renders this Sense This Metaphor Seed is a Sign signifying Gods Word Now if you say We Grant at last That the Copula May here be Expounded Significat I Answer most True Yet without any Trope in EST For in such Enunciations Praedicatur Signum de Signo as Bellarmin notes The Sign is Predicated on the Sign As in this Proposition Amare Est diligere That is Amare is a synonimal Sign or signifies the same as Diligere And therfore is Explicated by Significat Because Sectaries explicate Christs proposition without placing the Trope on the verb Substantive the essence of a Sign is to signify But it is not so in other Propositions where that which is predicated is neither formally a Sign Only nor any Metaphor at all 13. You shall se what I say now Evidenced in our Sectaries Opinion For whilst they Explicate Christs Proposition This is my Body the Copula EST Retain's purely its own proper Signification without any Trope I prove it When we find a Trope in a Proposition it must lie There or in that Part of it into whose place when the whole Proposition is Resolved We put an other more plain and Significant Word to explicate the Trope clearly by this Resolving of a whole Proposition into its Parcels we easily judge where the Trope is Now Observe Our Sectaries resolve Christs Proposition Thus. This is my Body Hoc est signum corporis mei This is a Sign of my Body Mark well The words Subrogated to Explicate the The words subrogated to explicate the Trope with Sectaries be long to the Attribute Trope are these Two Signum Corporis But these two Words which belong to the Attribute or Predicate are not as is most evident Substituted in the place of the Copula EST Therfore the Trope lies not in the Copula which Keep 's still it s proper Significaiton But according to this Resolution in the word Corpus or Body Now How Fals it is That any Trope lyes in the word Body And consequently no where in the whole Proposition is Evidently Convinced by our Saviours true Assertion This is my Body which shall be given for you Believe it No sign of his Body was given for us But his Real Body Be it how you will Thus much is Clear That the Verb Substantive even here Retain's its Simple Proper and most Common signification 14. You may se more of this subject in Bellarmin lib. 1. de Euchar. c. 10. § secundo and cap. 11. per totum Where He Learnedly Explicates other Propositions Alleged by Sectaries as Petra erat Christus Agnus est Pascha c. All I 'le now say And 'T is what I noted Above Although it were granted that the Copula EST sometimes sound 's as much as significat Yet unles this sense Hold in All other Locutions of Scripture which is absolutely Fals our Adversaries are far enough from Proving their Intent Becaus they cannor Convince by any probable Principle That EST in this place Sectaries are far from proving their intent were all granted they pretend to A second Objection Hath that Determinate meaning which They would give it Therfore Fancy or something Worst must Help them to Mantain this Improbable Gloss 15. They Object 2. Those Words of Scripture Do this in Remembrance of me And then Discours We Commemorate no Body nor Celebrate any Ones Memory unles He be Absent But Christ As we Teach is Always Present in the Holy Eucharist Therfore we cannot make a Commemoration of Him as of One Absent If is one thing to say Do this Action you se me Do in Remembrrance of me And another to say the Sacrament is only a Remembrance of Christ The Apostle 1. Corrinth 11. Answer 's the Difficulty For After He Had sayd Do this in Remembrance of me He add's Quotiescumque enim c. As often as you Eat this Bread and drink this Chalice You shall shew the Death of our Lord until He Come But the Death of our Saviour is long since Pas't and not Present Therfore we may wel Commemorate his Death and Passion as Priests do in every Masse they say In Rigour therfore
These Words Precisely force not on us any Memory of his sacred Body or Blood Present But only Mind us of his Action of Sacrificing in his last Supper However to Satisfy our Adverfaries be pleased A Disguised Prince may be Remembred though present with his Nobles only to put this supposition That a Prince were with his Nobles in a Disguised weed And Would not appear to their Senses but Disguised Might they not well Although they knew otherwise He were their Conceiled Prince and Present not Only Reverence and Adore him But also make a Commemoration of Him Most certainly yes This is our Case As therfore that which we call a Sign requires not A Sign requires not the absence of the thing signified the Absence of the thing signified For the Ark of the Covenant was a Sign of God Present and the Dove Descending on Christ was a Sign of the Holy Ghost Present So likewise a Remembrance or Commemoration Implyes no Necessity of his Absence that is Remembred Finally We may Remember our Lord and Saviour as He is in Heaven absent whilst He Feed's and feast's us here on Earth with his precious Body and Blood on the Altar The Objection therfore is Forceles every way 16. They Object 3. This Sacrament is called Bread Answ But never Bakers Bread after the The Sacrament is not called Bakers bread Words of Consecration Fancy only say's so and no Proof Again 'T is called Bread becaus it 's made of Bread as Man is called Dust because made of Dust Such Objections are Trivial 17. They Object 4. The Breaking of Bread strongly Calvin saith Breaking of Bread is Sacrificing argues 'T is plain Bread Though Deputed to a Holy Vse Answ The Breaking here is Sacrificing as Calvin Himself confesseth The Argument though it Proves just nothing is seemingly more for Luthers Opinion of Bread and Flesh together then for our Sectaries 18. They Object 5. Christ is called a Vine a Rock and a Doore Answ What then Put a Minor Proposition to these Words and Se How weak a Conclusion A weak Inference of Sectaries Followes Is it any Consequence that because figurative Speeches are in Scripture sometimes Therfore all we Read there must be Tropes and Metaphors We know and the whole world knowes also by other Principles that These are Tropes And we evidently know by as assured Principles that Mr BODY GIVEN FOR YOU MY BLOOD SHED FOR MANY Are no figurative Locutions 19. They Object 6. The Cup is called the Fruit The legal and Sacramental Cup Distinguished of the Vine therfore it is not Blood Answ 1. It may be called Heavenly Wine as Christ called himself Heavenly Bread c. But the true Solution is There were two Cupps on the Table that night before our Saviour suffered the Legal and the Eucharistical or Sacramental Cup That 's called the Fruit of the Vine This not 20. They Object 7. Some places of Scripture The words which I have spoken to you are Spirit and Life The flesh Profiteth nothing All did eat the same Spiritual Food and all drank the same Spiritual Drink Answ Nothing But meer Fancy or something Wors can Draw these Texts to the sense of Sectaries The open and plain Meaning of Christs words without Violence offered to them easily Gathered By the whole Context is The sense of Christs own words is clear by the whole context of the Gospel Thus. I have spoken to you of Divine and Spiritual Matters conducing to Eternal Happines But your Thoughts are still on Earth As if I were to cut off certain Pieces of my Body and give them you to Eat so S. Austin explicates this Place it is not so saith our Saviour I spak of that more Hidden Mystery of the Sacrament If Sectaries can prove the contrary let the◠them do by a sure Principle which Being Believed and Spiritually Vnderstood will Quicken you and Give you Eternal life The Flesh therfore That is a Carnal Vnderstanding of my words Profit 's Nothing c. This is the Genuin and candid sense of Christs Expression For it were a Blasphemy to say that his sacred Body Profit 's none I Answer To The other Passage of S. Paul It s an Errour to judge That the Jewes Received no less the Substance The Apostles words misonderstood by Sectaries and Benefits of Christs Graces in Their Figures Then We do in our Sacraments The Apostle Intimates no such Thing But only Saith They all the Hebrewes among Themselves good and bad Eat the same Meat and Drank of the same Rock which was a Figure of Christ Now Pray you Tell me Do all Calvinists Good and Bad when They Receive Christ by the Mouth of their Faith Equally participate of his Graces Or were There any such Ample Promises Annexed to the Eating of Manna in the Desert and Drinking the Wather Issuing out of that Rock as are now made to the Sacraments of the New Law No. They were Egena elementa Barren Elements for so Scripture speak's You 'l Ask Why Then doth the Apostle call the Manna and Water Spiritual Food Why the Apostle call's Manna Spiritual Food and Drink I Answer They are called so not Becaus they Produced Grace as our Sacraments Do But becaus They had a Spiritual Signification And were caused by a Special supernatural Providence contrary to the Ordinary Cours of nature 21. They Object 8. Such ought to be the Way of Receiving this Food of the blessed Sacrament as is An Objection concerning the way and manner of Receiving showed null Answerable to the Quality of the Food and End for which we take it But both the Food it self to wit Divine Grace and the Final end of it which is a Union of the soul with Christ are purely Spiritual Therfore the Way or Mode of Receiving it must be Proportionably Spiritual But no Mode or Way of Taking it can be more Fit or Spiritual then Faith Therfore we are to Receive it by Faith Only as the meetest Instrument Answ The Objection no less improper in Speech then simply Fallacious Distinguisheth not rightly Between the Immediate Cause of Grace the effect of Sectaries distinguish not rightly between the cause of Grace the effect it self and the Disposition necessary to receiving Grace and the Disposition necessary to Receive this Effect Fruitfully The immediate cause of grace is Christs sacred Body under the Forms of Bread and Wine Now to say That his Body is the Way or Manner of Receiving our Spiritual Nutriment is an Impropriety in Speech And to say Again That this Body ought to be Ejusdem planè rationis of the self same Nature with the Spiritual Food it Causeth or That a Corporal thing cannot be Ordained to Produce a Spiritual Effect is most untrue For the water in Baptism A material thing can cause Spiritual Grace produceth grace in the Baptized yet is Corporeal the Corporeal visible Effusion of Christs sacred Blood in his Passion
is Given for you They Answer No. It was not his Body but a Sign Only of His Body Given for us Observe well This Interpretation of a Sign Only is a Gloss of Fancy For neither the Word Sign is in Scripture Nor a Sign Only is any Ancient Father We Cite Again that Unanswerable Text of St. Luke This is the Chalice the new Testament in my Blood which Chalice is shed for you And mark the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Relates to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the same Case and not to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Different Case What Answer our Sectaries Marry Beza Tell 's us St. Luke Here either spak a Solacism or a Marginal Note Cre'pt by chance into the Text Here is His best Solution And who Tell 's Mr. Beza so But his own Fancy We Produce moreover Those Testimonies of Ancient Fathers Briefly Hinted at Above And say no Wit of Man can solve Them Chiefly That Authority of St. Cyril Of VVine changed into Blood as water was Once changed into VVine They Answer The Change was only Moral of Wine Deputed to a Holy Use which is Against the very Nature of the Instance And consequently a Strong Thought of Fancy We say No Universal Tradition No Ancient Church ever Opposed the Doctrin of the Roman Catholick Church concerning this Mystery Herein our Ad 〈…〉 rsaries are Silenced And cannot Design the Orthodox Church that opposed our Doctrin as both We and the whole world beside now oppose their Novelty Parallel therfore the Proceedings of Sectaries Against us A Parallel between their Proceeding and ours Sectaries mangle and pervert most clear Authorities with ours Against them And you will find them to stand upon Quicksand without Principles The very Straits They are put to Demonstrat this Evidently whilst as you have seen They Mangle Pervert Misconstrue and Gloss Every clear Authority cited against Them And We on the other side candidly Admit both of Scripture and Fathers Quoted by Them without Any other Gloss but what the very Text and Context of the Testimonies Allow of 5. And Hence it is that you Always have our Adversaries Sectaries bold in asserting but weak at their Proofs bold in Asserting But Cold Vnmanly and Weak at their Proofs Besides what is now said the true Reason is No Proof can touch much less Vainquish a Verity that Stands firm upon undeniable Principles Plain Scripture the Vnanimous Consent of Fathers undeniable What our Catholick Proofs are Tradition the Authority of a Holy and Vniversal Church and this Negative No Church ever blamed our Doctrin are Strong Supports for the Faith we Profess And can our Sectaries who are as Scriptureles as Fatherles as Fatherles as Churchles and Finally Destitute of All other Principles Think to Dant us with a few Gleancings Gathered Sectaries cannot deny Them now out of This now out of that Ancient Writter when They Evidently se with their Eyes the whole Torrent of Antiquity contrary to Them Can they Perswade Themselves that Because one Theodoret For example Of Theodorets Authority Saith the Mystical Signs after the Sanctification Recede not from Their Nature but Remain in their first Substance Figure and Form are Seen and Touched as Before which words are literally True if we Speak as We Admit of his Words this Author Doth of the visible Accidents of Bread and Wine Can we I say Think that this one Authority Though it were a Hundred times more Difficil Hath Weight enough to turn the Scales Force Enough to Drive us from the Faith which Scripture Church and Fathers most manifestly Deliver It is impossible The obscurer places of Scripture and Fathers are to be Interpreted by the clearer All know when Divines Explicate Scripture or Fathers They Interpret the obscurer Passage by the Clearer And never make the Darker Place to give Light to the more Evident Observe Now. Theodoret saith the Mystical Signs Recede not from their Nature But Remain as before I say so too The only Difficulty is what he Meanes by the Word Signs and Sectaries Glosses without Proof Theodoret cannot be supposed to contradict other most Learned Fathers He is to be Explicated were he obscure by the sense of other Fathers Nature Sectaries Tell us The Sense is Bread and wine Recede not from Their True Substance First This is their Gloss without Proof For the Visible Signs of bread and wine are not the Invisible Substance of Bread and Wine 2. Theodoret in all law of Arguing when His plain Words Force not on us this sense of Sectaries ought to be Catholickly Interpreted And Had we no other Reason but this That it cannot be Reason To make so Learned a Father Though once he stray'd a little to Clash with all Antiquity it were Enough At most His Words are Doubtful And upon that Account capable of Explication is it not Therfore more Just to Explicate Them by the Clear and Vndeniable Doctrin of a Whole Church And other Fathers then to Draw these Fathers from their Open and Manifest Sense to His if it be supposed Obscure as in Truth well Pondered it is not Let Reason Judge Here. 6. By what is said Already We may well pitty the desperate Condition of Sectaries who Pertinaciously Defend an Heresy without so much as a colour of Sectaries want Principles Scripture Church or the General Consent of Fathers For these Principles and none can Parallel them Most evidently Fail our Adversaries Urge them Again and Again to speak more Pertinently to their Cause then is Don hitherto You get nothing but the Old Story told over again And it will never be Better for I se too Plainly Their Humor It is God knows Sectaries Tristing and wherin it Appear's To spend or rather to Mispend their whole Life and Labour in Trifles They Think to Cavil at the Proofs of our Doctrin Establisheth Theirs As if it were sufficient to make their Novelty good Because they can Talk against our Ancient Faith Just as if One to Prove Himself an Honest Man might do it Pithily by calling his Neighbour a Knave 7. I must yet Add one Significant Word more And 'T is very Necessary to lay forth our Adversaries Weaknes as well in This as in All other Controversies Observe Solid Proofs for a Doctrin stand firm and unshaken against all Opponents it VVhen Proofs of a Doctrin Stand on solid Grounds and Principles the Objections Against it are like Fathers cast Against the Wind forceles And return upon the Opponents to their Confusion wherof I think you Have Already seen Enough in this Present Controversy But contrarywise When the Proofs are Meagre Barren and Void of Strength They are ever so with Sectaries The Very Opposite Principles for Truth Dash All Discountenance All and Evidently Shew those Arguments to be Feeble And Truely would our Did Sectaries Proceed Candidly They would se Themselves Convinced Adversaries once Deal Ingeniously Candor would
Force them to Acknowledge what I say to be most True when they can allâ—ge nothing probably for their Novelty against our Plain Scripture Against the Ancient Doctrin of a Vniversal Learned Church And the Authority of so many Fathers now Cited 8. We might yet entertain you with One or Two Difficult â— drawn from the weak Reason of Sectaries solved Difficulties more Drawn from Reason Wherat our Adversaries Measuring Gods Power by their own Wit or Fancy Stumble not a Little One is A Body cannot be in two Places at Once Just so the Peasant Thinks the sun cannot be bigger then a Broad Sieve Because never learning Mathematiks He Measures All by his silly Imagination And so the Sectary Doth Here Because He is no Scholler in Christs School But ad Rem Who Tell 's Him that a Body cannot be in two Places at once Hath God Revealed this in Scripture Nitâ—her Faith nor Philosophy against th being of a Body in two places No But Philosophy Teaches it What Philosophy Aristotles No For the Received Doctrin of his School is That a Body to say nothing of a Soule That is in two places Head and Feet at Once Individually Considered by it Self is no more Actually It s own Local Presence or Place Then the Organ of the Eye is of it Self its own Actual Vision Or Fire A Body is not by it self it s own local presence An other Argument of Sectaries ungrounded by it self Actually Heat This is common Philosophy if That of Sectaries be Better let them Vouchsafe to Learn us Otherwise Not by Saying it is Better But by some Clear and Vndeniable Principle 9. An other Argument is Drawn from the Great Indignities wherunto Christs Sacred Body is lyable if it be in the Holy Sacrament As That a Mouse or Wors Creature may Eat it Vp c. Here we may Justly Exclame with St. Austin upon another Occasion lib. 22. de Civit. c. 11. Ecce qualibus argumentis Omnipotentiae Dei humana contradicit infirmitas c. Se with what Slight Arguments Mans weak Wit Opposeth Gods Omnipotency Speak therfore Truth Is it not a greater The pretended Indignities of Sectaries shewed â—rivolous Indignity that Christ Permitt's a Sinner to Receive him with a filthy conscience Then That He lics in the Stomach of a Rat or Mouse Say yet Had a worm Suk't his Precious Blood when it was shed on the Ground in his Passion or a Spider bit his Sacred flesh in the Crib of Bethlem Would that Indignity think ye Have Forced men from a Belief of his Real true Body These are childish Arguments not worth the Answering And here you have almost an End of a Digression which I Think cannot be well Answered 10. I Exceed not in saying It cannot be Answered Some points Briefly touched on wherunto Sectaries are desired to Answer And therfore Tell our Adversaries if it shall please them to Reply They are first to Prove and by certain Principle that Christs Sacred Words now Alleged for our Catholick Verity are Misunderstood by us And ought to have Their Determinate sense of a Sign Figure Metonymy and no Other What we here Require is most Reasonable For if my Faith fall upon Their sense They are obliged to Prove it Revealed by Almighty God Otherwise Vpon sound Principles Contrary to all Reason They 'l Vrge me to Believe what an infinit Verity never Spak 2. They are to Prove And by a clear Principle also That in such an Age after Christ There was an Orthodox Church that Believed their Doctrin of a Sign Figure Metonymy Only c. And Publikly Opposed ours of Christs Real Presence in the Eucharist To do this More is required then to cite a few broken Sentences of Fathers half Abused and wholy Maimed Sentences of Fathers Proofles weighed out of Their Circumstances All which put together Come not neer to a Probable much less to a Certain Principle That 's able to Evert the undeniable clear Catholick Doctrin of other Fathers And the Authority of our whole learned Church with Them 3. They are not only to Interpret the Fathers now Alleged For Fancy without Proof may pervert the clearest Words God ever Spak But when Their Interpretation When Sectaries Interpret the Fathers They are obliged to prove their Interpretation is made They must Shew it grounded upon a contrary Received Principle as Strong as the Express Words of those Fathers are 4. They are to Show That Christ our Lord when He uttered those sacred words to His Disciples This is my Body And then foresaw the universal supposed Errour of Believing his Real Presence in the Eucharist would follow in all Orthodox Churches And from no other Cause but His own Express and significant Speaking They are I say Obliged to Prove And by an undeniable Principle that He shut up in the clearest Proposition He ever uttered that Dark sense which They draw from it And that He did so to Deceive the World Sectaries grant Christians to have been universally Deceived What Sectaries Grant in their Belief of the Real Presence And that the supposed Errour Arose from Christs plain words is Evident For the whole Catholick Church that Believes this Mystery doth so Because Truth it self said plainly vvithout Reserve This is my Body Finally That Christ our Lord would speak as He did is Manifest by the Gospel And that He then foresaw the Supposed Vniversal Errour would be also Believed by force of His words in the greatest part of Christendom is most Vndubitable Because of the perfect Knowledge He had of Future Things 5. May it please Sectaries to Proceed candidly They are to cast a serious Reflection on pass't Ages and Ponder well who those were that Patronized Their Doctrin and Opposed ours They are to compare and justly to Ballance their Obscure Scripture vvith our clear Texts The vveak Testimonies of Their misconstrued Fathers with our contrary now Quoted Authorities Their Novelty with our Ancient Believed Faith The sentiment of their little late Congregation concerning this Mystery with the Judgement and Belief of our long standing Roman Church c. And if when All is Don They can come to a sound Principle Wherby it may Appear to every Rational man That their Scripture Fathers and Church Authority Outweigh as it were Ours Or have more force to establish their Novelty then what is now Alleged to make our Catholick Doctrin most stably sure We will begin to Think They may more laudably write Controversies Hereafter But if contrarywise you find Them Gravelled at every Difficulty now Proposed and hear nothing distinctly Replyed to upon undoubted Principles or Further confuted then a loos wandring Discours will carry on a Weak Cause I 'll once more crave Their Pardon and Plainly Say Our Arguments and Reasons cannot be Ansvvered CHAP. VIII The Conclusion The Churches Evidence 1. WE have seen Enough in the Precedent Discourses That True Religion is not as Sectaries make Protestancy
over Christianity Innumerable Learned Religious Though Various in Matters meerly Opinative Yet so Highly Tender of the Churches Vnity That They would rather Dy then Break or Blemish it All these well Agreeing Harts in one Faith Evidence That This Church is Made up of Members who Glory in Vnion amongst Themselves and Testify it By a due Submission to one Supream Head set over this Blessed Society VOS AVTEM TAM TURBULENTI And what can You late Troublesome People Who Yeild Submission to None But to your own Fancies You Who within the Compass of one Narrow Kingdom are so turbulently Divided in Faith so Horridly Rent and Torn a Pieces with Schism What can You I say Allege For Your Breach of Vnion or Rationally Pretend Against this long Standing and Ancient Agreeing Body of Catholicks 4. Finally You So NEW MEN Behold And it may lay Sorrow at your Harts Innumerable of your own long since Deceased Ancestors Professed Children of this Mother Church Their Monuments Even in Antiquity against Novelty England Sad Spectacles 'T is true But Visible Enough to Your Eyes Plead Strongly for the Ancient Faith which You now Vnfortunately Reject You Se The Very Churches built by Those your Fore-fathers Though in part Defaced Are not yet so much Spoiled But That still a memory is preserved of Catholick Religion in the very Altars half Pulled Down In the Crosses And other Remembrances of their Ancient Renowned Piety You Se withall Whole Volumes writ in Defense of our Catholick Doctrin the very Velume and Characters wherof much elder then your Faith lament your late Change And tell many a sad Story of your new risen Gospel VOS ERGO TAM NOVI And How Dare you so late Masters without Confusion and Torment of Conscience reflect on These Ancestors Look on These Monuments Read these Writings And after all Speak as you do Irreverently of an Ancient Faith meerly to Countenance a Novelty Wherof the World never Heard before you Preach't it Say once Plainly 'T is High time to Speak what Have you for This Protestancy Any Prudent Motives That make it Credible Not One. Have you Scripture Not a Word Do Ancient Councils or the Vnanimous Consent Nothing can defend Protestancy but Fancy of Fathers Favour it No. All Band against it And leave both you and the Novelty professed by you To no better a Ground then what Vphold's all Heresy which is Fancy or some Thing wors then Fancy Therfore Nemini dubium est quin nihil dignum auctoritate praeferatis 5. Some Perhaps will say If Protestancy be thus Highly Improbable And the Roman Catholick Religion so Manifestly Credible As is now Declared From Why Sectaries stay so long in Heresy whilst the Church is so manifest to all Whence is it That Sectaries Stay so long in Heresy And Embrace not a Faith which is without Dispute undoubtedly Clear to All To Answer the Question it would be enough to Propose an Other And 'T is not to Ask Why All Embrace not Protestancy That hath Nothing to induce men to it But Why after It is Answered first by an Instance of Christ and his Apostles not converting all A further Reason is Given All those most Signal Manifest Miracles and Conversions wrought by Christ our Lord and His Apostles the whole world Both Jewes and Gentils came not Then in Vpon such Evident Motives Why Did they not Forthwith Profess Christianity Most Certainly the Attraction was Forceable They wanted no Inducements But Education And a contrary custom of Living Hindred much and Sense too strong with the Most of men Perhaps More For as Sense and Sensual Pleasures Ever Make Vertue Insipid to the will So They often Dull the Eye of Reason also in Order to Truth And Either VVithdraw the Attention from a Serious Contrary on Educati sâ—nâ—iberty se and sensual pleasure Hinder Consideration of what most Concern's our Good or which is VVors totally averts the mind from it VVe Se this misery Dayly For the More that men are Lulled a Sleep in sense and worldly Delights The Less they Listen to what God speak's Though He Call's lowd on Them And Vseth a Language as He doth by His Church most Clear Audible and Significant 6. Add hereunto an Other Verity Delivered by One That could not but Speak Truth 1. Cor. 15. 19. Oportet Heresies must be Haereses esse There must be Heresies and the Reason Followes in the Text. That Those who are Approved may be made Manifest Among you Manifest How I 'll Tell you It is Heresy that hath brought Thousands The Reason of Martyrs and this in the open View of the world to Their Gibbets and Torments without it Much Good followes the permission of Heresy They Had not Dyed for Christ nor Manifested so clearly their Renowned Constancy It is Heresy that hath Evidenced the suffering Patience of Innumerable Confessors who Though shut up in Prisons and Dungeons for their Faith Have yet Their Memory Living and it will Remain upon Record to future Ages It is Heresy That both Proves and Shewes you where True Faith much more precious then Gold tryed by the Fire is Found unto Shewed in particular Praise and Glory It is Heresy That Brings to Light Gods pure Revealed Verities never more spread abroad nor better Known then when Novellists endeavon to Suppress Them It is Heresy that hath set Forth so many learned Volums of Ancient Fathers Sent Innumerable Missioners Up and Down the World And yet Gives you Plenty of painfull Preachers in the Church who Cease not to Speak in Gods Cause It omne os obstruatur that the Mouths of Sectaries being Stopped All may love Truth and Yeild a Due Submission to Christ and His Church You se Therfore How Heresy Though it Poysons Him That Feed's on 't Yet it causeth More Good Among Christians Then our Vulgar And more then is Vulgarly conceived Thoughts easily reach to Seâ— Tertullian lib de Praesc c. 1. And S. Austin de Verd Relig. c. 8. 7. Grow not Therfore Angry with God 'T is Tertullians advise for Permitting Sin and Heresy An God That permitt's sin and Heresy knowes best for what use they serve Infinite Wisdom Knowes best for what Use they Serve You Remember When Those Servants in the Gospel Matth. 13. 26. Saw Cockle Appearing among the Wheat They readily Offred their Service to Pluck it Vp But the wise Housholder Said No. Sinite utraque crescere usque ad messem Suffer Both to Grow until the Harvest And in the time of Harvest I will say to the Reapers Gather up first the Cockle c. They Pressed not further but Remained well Satisfied with Christs Answer Christs Answer Least whilst you Gather up the Tares you Root up also the wheat with Them Now if you Vnderstand not the Deep Sense of these sacred Words Exclaim with the Apostle Rom. 11. 33. O Altitudo O Depth of the Riches of The Apostles pious
not so Evidently Credible when He saith He would not believe the Gospel unles the Authority of the Church moved him to believe it The Infallibility of it therfore must by proved by some good Principles extrinsick to Scripture but the Sectary hath not one sound Principle Distinct from the Tradition and Authority of the Church wherby this Infallibility is proved Therfore Scripture in order to Him is not so Infallible as the Church is to the Catholick If any Deny my principle and make the Scriptures Infallibility Discernable by its own light by the Majesty of the style purity of its Doctrin or efficacy it works in the minds of those who read it c. I think there are evident Demonstrations against the Paradox For as I noted Disc 1. C. 2. 12. n. 4. Two things are to be considered in Scripture first the exteriour Syntax or Connexion of the words and so much precisely is not the Scriptures total Infallibility which sayes more besides that exteriour language and necessarily implies A Divine Act a Volition or Decree of God wherby the Hagiographers that writ the words were infallibly assisted and determined to record truth and nothing but Truth Now this Divine Volition or Decree becaus it is essential to God and therfore no other but God Himself can be no Object of our senses when we hear or read Scripture Consequently it is to be Discovered by a Discours grounded on Principles distinct from the outward letter of Scripture wherby we may come to a sure Evidence of its Infallibility not at all yet within the reach of our senses And this no Sectary can do as I shall presently make Evident 17. I say Therfore if the Motives now alleged for the Churches Infallibility as Conversions Miracles Vniversality c. induce not immediatly to believe that Church they demonstrate to be Infallible much less can the exteriour words or sintax of Scripture be a fit Medium to Convince any of its Infallibility And to prove this besides what is often noted in the Treatise Chiefly Disc 1. C. 8. n. 7. Ill here only Propose two Questions The first Whether if St. Iohn who was infallibly Assisted had not recorded that short sentence in His Gospel The Word is made flesh but some other not infallibly Assisted by the Spirit of God had written the very same Verity as it were by Chance My Question I say is whether the Sectary that now reads this sentence in S. Iohn Gospel can more Discover an Infallibility in it by force of the outward words then if they had been Casually written by one without Infallible Assistance I think He will not dare to say yes or if He Do I 'll urge Him to prove it by Principles when the outward words are the Very same in both Cases and in like manner clear to all that read them My second Demand may yet perhaps better evidence what I ayme at and is thus Suppose that our Sectaries should put the book of Eclesiastes which they hold Canonical into the hands of twelve learned Gentile Philosophers and with it the book of Wisdome or Eclesiasticus also not held Canonical by them Suppose again They desire these learned and disinterressed men seriously to read these three books and after the reading Sincerely to tell them which of them hath Gods Spirit in it or contains his infallible Verities For this may be easily gathered by the very natural evidence of what they read by the Majesty of the style Efficacy of speaking which appears Clearly enough in the outward letter Thus much don seperate these Philosophers by four and four into three Companies put them into three different cells much after that manner as some say the sevently Interpreters were separated Let them with all sincerity read examin and peruse these Books and if when the work is ended they unanimously accord that a greater Divinity a stronger infallibility appear's in the song of Salomon then in the other two books we will say something is proved and hold it as strange a Miracle as that which S. Austin recounts of the 70. Interpreters Now if Any tell us this light of Scripture though sufficient in it self is not evident to every one that looks on it because the blindnes or perversnes of mens minds may keep them from the Discovery of it The Reply hath no place here for we suppose first these Philosophers to be disinterressed learned upright and sincere as well in their reading as in the judgement they give of it And secondly we will suppose that all those are not blind whom Sectaries make blind nor only those quick sighted I mean themselves whom they will have so 18. To these Questions I add one more it may pass for an Argument Ad hominem against Sectaries who hold all the Definitions of our Church even when they are true to be yet fallible I Ask whether these Quick sighted men are able to Discern the Fallibility of these Definitions by force of the outward words therof only as they Discover the infallibility of Scripture by the Majesty of the style and outward Sintax And mack where the force of the Difficulty lies As Infallibility necessarily implyes Divine Assistance in order to the Truths Delivered in holy Scripture so the supposed Fallibility of the Churches Definitions implyes a want of that Assistance in order to those Definitions I Ask therfore whether as the first is Discernable and visible enough to their Eyes by the very context of the outward letter They will consequently grant that the other also is as clearly visible and Discernable by the very words of the Definition If They Answer yes First they need not hereafter to impugn the Churches Definitions by any other Medium but this that they are without further proof by themselves evidently fallible So much is said by them and it proof enough 2. They may as well say They know when a man tell 's a lye and this by force of his very speaking as that they know the supposed Fallibility of the Churches Definitions by her speaking For if their eyes can Discern the want of Divine Assistance in the one case which really is not wanting they may more easily Discern the want of Truth in the other which really is wanting And if this be not a Paradox there was never any in the world Now contrarywise if they cannot Discover the Churches supposed Fallibility in her Definitions meerly by her Exteriour words because that is a thing invisible I would gladly learn how They come to know the Infallibility of Scripture by the words Therof for that is as much if not more invisible and as far removed from our eyes and senses 19. Some who pittifully suppose Scriptures to be proved Divine and Infallible by the very light which is in them Object first When we see the sun and the vast extent of the light it has we may well infer it comes from that luminous body And may we not say These proportionably inferr from the