followeth Queries of R. B. on these definitions with Mr. Iohnsons Answer and my Reply Mr. J. The Catholick Church of Christ. THE Catholick Church of Christ is all those visible Assemblies Congregations or Communities of Christians who live in unity of true faith and external communion one with another and in dependance of their lawful Pastors R. B. Of the Church Qu. 1. Whether you exclude not all those converted among Infidels that never had external Communion with nor were members of any particular visible Church of which you mâ—ke the Catholick to be constituted Mr. J. Answ. It is sufficient that such be subject to the supream Pastor and in voto quantum in se est resolved to be of that particular Church actually which shall or may be assigned for them by that Pastor to be included in my definition R. B. Reply Q 1. Repl. ad 1 m 1. You see then that your Definitions signifie nothing no man can know your meaning by them First you make the Catholick Church to consist only of visible Assemblies and after you allow such to be members of the Church that are of no visible Assemblies 2. You now mention subjection to the supream Pastor as sufficient which in your description or definition you did not 3. If to be only in voto resolved to be of a particular Church will serve then inexistence is not necessary To be only in voto of the Catholick Church proves no man a member of the Catholick Church but proves the contrary because it is Terminus diminuens Seeing then by your own confession inexistence in a particular Church is not of necessity to inexistence in the Catholike Church why do you not only mention it in your definition but confine the Church to such will you say you meant in voto who then can understand you when you say they must be of visible Assemblies and mean they need not be of any but only to wish desire or purpose it 4. But yet you say nothing to my case in its latitude Many a one may be converted to Christ by a solitary Preacher or by two or three that neâ—er tell him that there is any supream Pastor in the world How then can he be subject to that supposed Pastor that never heard of him The English and Dutch convert many Indians to the faith of Christ that never hear of a supream Pastor 5. If it be necessary that a particular Church must be assigned for such members by the supream Pastor then they are yet little the better that never have any such assignation from him as few have R. B. Qu. 2. What is that faith in unity whereof all members of the Catholike Church do live is it the belief of all that God hath revealed to be believed or of part and what part Mr. J. Answ. Of all either explicitly or implicitly R. B. Reply Reply Ad 2m. Your second answer further proves that your definitions signifie just nothing They must live in unity of the faith that is either with faith or without it with a belief of what Goâ— hath revealed to be believed or without it For to believe any point implicitly in your ordinary sense is not to believe it but only to believe one of the Premises whence the conclusion must be inferred But why do you not tell me what you mean by an Implicite faith Faith is called Implicite in several senses 1. When several truths are actually understood and believed in confuso or in gross in some one proposition which containeth the substance of them all but not with accurate distinct conceptions nor such as are ripe for any fit expression This indistinct immature imperfect kind of apprehension may be called Implicite and the distinct and more digested conceptions Explicite 2. When a general proposition is believed as the matter of our faith but the particulars are not understood or not believed As to believe that omne animal vivit not knowing whether you are Animal or Cadaver Or to believe that all that is in the Scripture is the Word of God and true but not to know what is in the Scripture 3. When it is only the formal object of faith that is believed without understanding the material object The first sort of these I confess is Actual Belief though indistinct But I suppose you mean not this 1. Because it is not the ordinary sense of your party 2. Because else you damn either all the world or most of your own professed-party at least as no members of the Church for few or none have an Actual understanding and belief of all that ever God revealed to them because all men or most at least have been sinfully negligent in searching after and receiving truth and so are sinfully ignorant No man knoweth all that God hath revealed or that he ought to know 3. Because by this rule it is impossible for you or any man to know who is indeed a member of your Church for you cannot know mens confused knowledge or know that it extendeth to all revealed For if you speak of all revealed in general or in Scripture you still damn all or most in your own sense for none as I said understand it all to a word But if you speak of all which that particular man hath had sufficient means to know it is then impossible for you to make a judgement of any mans faith by this For you can never discern all the means internal or external that ever he had much less can you discern whether his faith be commensurate to the truth so far revealed So that by this course you make your Church invisible I pray tell me how you can avoid it 2. The second sort of Implicite Belief is no Belief of the particulars at all An Animal may live and yet it followeth not that you are alive or an animal If this were your meaning then either you mean that it is enough if all be believed Implicitly besides that general proposition or you mean that some must be believed explicitly that is actually and some Implicitly that is not at all If the former be your sense then Infidels or Heathens may be of your Church For a man may believe in general that the Bible is the Word of God and true and yet not know a word that 's in it and so not know that Christ is the Messias or that ever there was such a person But if somewhat must be explicitely that is Actually believed the Question that you should have answered was What is it For till that be known no man can know a Member of your Church by your description 3. If you take Implicite in the third sense then Implicite faith is either Divine or Humane Divine when the Divine Veracity is the formal Object Humane when mans Veracity is the formal Object Which may be Conjunct where the Testimonies are so conjunct as that we are sure it is God that speaks by man who is therefore credible because God infallibly
Protestants are chief Members is clearly proved And the Papists exceptions against it confuted LONDON Printed in the year 1660. Qu. Whether the Church of which the Protestants are Members have been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth Aff. THe terms explained 1. The Church sometime signifieth a particular Congregation actually met or associated for such personal meeting for Communion in Gods worship 2. Sometime it signifieth an Association of Churches and that either of sewer or of more as they have opportunity of Communion or correspondency by their Pastors and also the Assemblies of the Pastors of the particular Churches so associated Scripture useth it in the first sense and Later custome whether Scripture also I omit in the later 3. Both Scripture and Custome have used the word to signifie the Church Universal of which all particular Churches are Members This is the Church that we speak of in the Question Defin. The Universal Church of which the Protestants profess themselves Members is The Kingdome of Iesus Christ or The whole company of Believers or true Christians upon earth subjected to Iesus Christ their Head The constitutive parts or the Relate and Correlate are as in every Politick Body the Pars Imperans and Pars subdita which is Christ and Christians The form consisteth in the mutuall Relation The End is the common good of the Church and the glory of the Head and the accomplishment of the will of God 2. The Protestants Defin. Protestants are Christians protesting against or disowning Popery The word Protestant expresseth not the essence of our Religion And therefore it must not denominate the Universal Church of which we are Members we are not to call it A Protestant Universal Church Nor doth it signifie an inseparable proper accident For when the Catholick Church had no Popery there was none to protest against and therefore there could be no Protestants And Ethiopia India and other Nations that never had Popery or those Nations that never heard of it have no occasion to protest against it Nor doth it signifie any Positive part directly of our Religion but only the Negation or Rejection of Popery Even as when a man is called Homo purgatus sanatus liberatus à leprâ peste tabe c. a man purged healed freed from the leprosie plague consumption c. it is no positive part nor inseparable proper accident much less any essential part of the man that is signified by the word Healed Purged c. Nor is it necessary in order to the proving him a man or a healthfull man to prove that he was ever a purged or healed man We undertake not therefore to prove that there have been alwayes Protestants that is men Protesting against Popery Nor have we any need in order to the proof of our Thesis to prove that the Catholick Church hath all been free from Popery in all ages or in any age since the Apostles no more then that it hath been free from Pride Ambition or Contention But yet we shall do it ex abundanti The Religion then of a Protestant is Christianity and he knoweth and owneth no other Which is called the Protestant Religion as cleansed from Popery Members that is true integral parts Of which are By Profession We profess our selves to be of no other Church And before men a man is to be taken to be of that Religion and Church of which he professeth himself to be till he be proved false in that Profession If a Papist affirm himself a member of the Roman Church in disputing with him we will take it for granted that he is so every man being best acquainted with his own mind and fittest to describe the Religion which he owns So that two things I here include 1. It is only such a Catholick Church that hath been still visible that Protestants own 2. And only such that really they are of their Profession being valid Note also that it is not directly the inexistency by internal invisible faith that is in question among us or that I mean but the inexistency by external Visible Profession Bellarmine thinks the bare Professors that are wicked are best termed Dead members and the true Professors Living members we will not stick needlesly on words We take the Living members only to be in strict propriety members but Sincerity and Hypocrisie being known only to God and the possessors we speak of Professors as Professors abstractively from their Sincerity or Hypocrisie Hath been Visible 1. Not visible to man in its Internal faith but in its external Profession 2. Not Visible at once to any one man for no man can see all the Christian world at once But Visible in its parts both in Congregations and individual persons 3. Not Visible in the soundness of its professed faith unto Infidels and Hereticks For they cannot see that faith to be sound which they take to be fabulous and false But Visible in the soundness of its professed faith to themselves that know the soundness of faith 4. Not Visible in the excellent degree of soundness in the better parts unto the corrupter or infirmer parts For though de facto they may know what Doctrine the better part do hold as Infidels know what Doctrine the Church holdeth yet they know it not to be true and sound in the points wherein they differ And note again that it is not the Visibility of every accident of the Church nor of every Truth or duty that is but of the Integrity of Religion and necessary only ad melius esse Ecclesiae to the Better being of the Church but it is the Visibility of the Church that we speak of Lastly it is the Body and not the Head whose Visibility is in Question by us Though the Head also is truly Visible in Heaven and Visus or seen to the most excellent Triumphant part of his Body who are fittest to be his Courtiers and in his presence and as much seen on earth as the Pope is to most of the Church which is not at all Ever since the dayes of Christ on earth 1. But not still in one and the same place on earth It might be in one age much of it in Iudea at Ephesus Sardis Laodicaea Colosse Philippi and other parts of Asia and in other ages removed thence either wholly or for the most part It might be in one age in Tenduâ— Nâ—bia and other great Kingdoms where it shall afâ—er cease to be But in some part or other of the earth it hath been still 2. Not equally visible in all Times and Places of the earth In some Times as in the Arrians prevalency it was so oppressed and obscured that the world groaned to find it self turn'd Arrian and the Arrians in General Councils and number of Bishops to whom the true Christians were very few did seem to carry away the Name and glory of the Catholick Church so that in their eyes and in the eyes of slanders by that were of neither
terms of unity then these shall never attain it but raise up a new Sect and encrease our wounds I am as much for unity as ever was Cassander Erasmus Grotius or any of the Reconcilers But I am certain that to subscribe to the Trent Decrees and Creed and to turn Papist or Semi-Papist or participate of any sin for peace is not the way Let some plead for all the Greek corruptions and some for the Popes supremacy regulated by Canons and some for his meer Primacy as principium unitatis and his Government of all the West as Patriark let them digladiate about a Pope and Council as wisely as Greece and Troy did fight ten years for a beautiful whore I am sure that none of these are the way to the Churches Unity and Peace as I have opened in my description of the true Catholike Church Nor will their design be more successeful that would so discordantly agree us all with the first three hundred years as to deny the first hundred or two hundred to be our pattern and to make all the forms and ceremonies to be necessary to our concord which the third or fourth Century used but as things indifferent with diversity and mutation and mutual forbearance But of the terms of Catholike Vnity I have spoken as in the forecited papers so in a Pacificatory Letter of the Worcestershire Ministers to Mr. J. Dury and if God will shall do it yet more â—ully And of the evils in Popery that move me to distast it having given a Breviate in an Epistle before another mans Book which I perceive is seen of very few I shall here annex so much of that Epistle as is pertinent to the present business Readers WEre not the Iudgements of God so dreadfull and infatuation so lamentable in matters of everlasting consequence and sin so odious and the calamities of the Church the dishonour of God and the Damnation of Souls such deplorable things as tolerate not a laughter in the standers by it would seem one of the most ridiculous things in the World that a man of seeming wisdom should be a Papist and that so many Princes and learned men with the vulgar multitude should be able so far to renounce or intoxicate their Reason while they are awake And a Papist would be described to be one that sets up his understanding to be the laughing-stock of the sober rational World There are abundance of Controversies among Physitians that concern mens lives and yet I have heard of none so vain as to step forth and challenge the Authority of being the universal Decider of them or to charge God with solly or oversight if he have not appointed some such universal Iudge in the World to end all Controversies in matters of such weight But if in Physick's Law or any of the Sciences the Controversies should be never so many or so great if yet you could resolve them into sense it self and bring all to the judgement of mens eyes and ears and taste and feeling who would not laugh or hiss at him that would still make them the matters of serious doubts The Papists finding that man is 〈◊〉 perfect and knoweth but in part and 〈◊〉 the Scripture there are some things are hard to be understood and that Earth hath not so much Light as Heaven imagine that hereby they have a fair advantage to plead for an universal terrestrial Iudge and to reproach God if he have appointed none such and next to plead that their Pope or his approved Councils must needs have this Authority And when they come to the Decision they are not ashamed to see after so many hundred years pretentions that the World is but basfled with the empty name of a Judge of Controversies and that Difficulties are no less Difficulties still and Controversies are nowhere so voluminous as with them But this is a small matter with them Their Iudge sâ—â—ms much wiser when he is silent then when he speaks When he comes to a Decision and formeth up thereby the Hodge-podge of Popery they seem not to smile at nor be ashamed of the Picture which they have drawn which is of an Harlot shewing her nakedness and committing her lewdness in the open Assemblies in the sight of the Sún They openly proclaim their shame against the light of all the acknowledged Principles in the World their own or others and in opposition to all or almost all that is commendable among men The charge seems high but in a few words take the proof 1. They confess the Scripture to be the Word of God and yet when we would appeal to that as the Rule of Faith and Life or as a divine Revelation in our Disputes they fly off and tell us of its obscurity and the necessity of a Iudge If they meet with a Hoc est corpus meum they seem for a while to be zealous for the Scripture But tell them that Paul in 1 Cor. 11.26 27 28. doth call it Bread after the Consecration no less than three times in the three next Verses and then Scripture is non-sense to them till the Pope make sense of it It is one of their principal labours against us to argue against the Scriptures sufficiency to this use By no means can we prevail with them to stand to the Decision of the Scripture 2. They excessively cry up the Church and appeal to its Decision and therefore we might hope that here if anywhere we might have some hold of them But when it comes to the Point they not only disown the judgement of the Church but impudently call Christ's Spouse a Strumpet and cut off in their uncharitable imagination two or three parts of the universal Church as Hereticks or Schismaticks The judgement of the Churches in Armenia Ethiopia Egypt Syria the Greeks and many more besides the Reformed Churches in the West is against their Popes universal Vicarship or Soveraignty and many of their Errours that depend thereon And yet their judgement is not regarded by this Faction And if a third or fourth part such as it is of the Universal Church may cry up themselves as the Church to be appealed to and condemn the far greater part why may not a tenth or a twentieth part do the like Why may not the Donatists the Novatians or the Greeks much more do so as well as Papists 3. They cry up Tradition And when we ask them How we shall know it and where it is to be found they tell us principally in the profession and practice of the present Church And yet when two or three parts of the universal Church profess that Tradition is against the Papal Monarchy and other Points depending on it they cast Tradition behind their backs 4. They cry up the Fathers and when we bring their judgements against the substance of Popery they sometime vilifie or accuse them as erroneous and sometime tell us that Fathers as well as Scripture must be no otherwise understood than their Church
expoundeth them 5. They plead for an appeal to Councils and though we easily prove that none of them were universal yet such as they were they call them all Reprobate which were not approved by their Pope let the number of Bishops there be never so great And those that were approved if they speak against them they reject also either with lying shifts denying the approbation or saying the acts are not de fide or not conciliariter facta or the sense must be given by their present Church or one such contemptible shift or other 6. At least one would think they should stand to the judgement of the Pope which yet they will not for shame forbids them to own the Doctrine of those Popes that were Hereticks or Infidels and by Councils so judged And others they are forced to disown because they contradict their Predecessors And at Rome the Cardinals are the Pope while he that hath the name is oft made light of And how infallible he is judged by the French and the Venetians how Sixtus the fifth was valued by the Spaniards and by Bellarmine is commonly known 7. But all this is nothing to their renunciation of humanity even of the common senses and reason of the world When the matter is brought to the Decision of their eyes and taste and feeling whether Bread be Bread and Wine be Wine and yet all Italy Spain Austria Bravaria c. cannot resolve it yea generally unless some latent Protestant do pass their judgement against their senses the senses of all sound men in the World that not in a matter beyond the reach of sense as whether Christ be there spiritually but in a matter belonging to sense if any thing belong to it as whether Bread be Bread c. Kings and Nobles Prelates and Priests do all give their judgement that all their senses are deceived And is it possible for these men then to know any thing or any controversie between us and them to be decided If we say that the Sun is light or that the Pope is a man and Scripture legible or that there are the Writings of Councils and Fathers extant in the World they may as well concur in a denyal of all this or any thing else that sense should judge of If they tell us that Scripture requireth them to contradict all their senses in this point I answer 1. Not that Scripture before mentioned that calleth it Bread after the Consecration thrice in the three next Verses 2. And how know they that there is such a Scripture if all their senses be so fallible If the certainty of sense be not supposed a little learning or wit might satisfie them that Faith can have no certainty But is it not a most dreadful judgement of God that Princes and Nations Learned men and some that in their way are conscientious should be given over to so much inhumanity and to make a Religion of this brutishness and worse and to persecute those with Fire and Sword that are not so far forsaken by God and by their reason and that they should so solicitously labour the perversion of States and Kingdoms for the promoting of stupidity or stark madness 8. And if we go from their Principles to their Ends or Wayes we shall soon see that they are also against the Unity of the Church while they pretend this as their chiefest Argugument to draw men to their way They set up a corrupted Faction and condemn the far greater part of the Church and will have no unity with any but those of their own Faction and Subjection and fix this as an essential part of their Religion creating thereby an impossibility of universal concord 9. They also contradict the Experience of many thousand Saints asserting that they are all void of the Love of God and saving Grace till they become subject to the Pope of Rome when as the Souls of these Believers have Experience of the Love of God within them and feel that Grace that proveth their Iustification I wonder what kind of thing it is that is called Love or Holiness in a Papist which Protestants and other Christians have not and what is the difference 10. They are most notorious Enemies to Charity condemning most of the Christian world to Hell for being out of their subjection 11. They are notorious Enemies to Knowledge under pretence of Obedience and Unity and avoiding Heresie They celebrate their Worship in a Language not understood by the vulgar Worshippers They hinder the People from Reading the holy Scriptures which the ancient Fathers exhorted men and women to as an ordinary thing The quality of their Priests and People testifies this 12. They oppose the Purity of divine Worship setting up a multitude of humane Inventions instead thereof and idolatrously for no less can be said of it adoring a piece of conserated Bread as their God 13. They are Opposers of Holiness both by the foresaid enmity to Knowledge Charity and purity of Worship and by many unholy Doctrines and by deluding Souls with an outside histrionicall way of Religion never required by the Lord consisting in a multitude of Ceremonies and worshipping of Angels and the Souls of Saints and Images and Crosses c. Let experience speak how much the Life of Holiness is promoted by them 14. They are Enemies to common Honesty teaching the Doctrines of Equivocations and Mental Reservations and making many hainous sins venial and many of the most odious sins to be Duties as killing Kings that are excommunicated by the Pope taking Oaths with the foresaid Reservations and breaking them c. For the Jesuits Doctrine Montaltus the Jansenist and many of the French Clergy have pretty well opened it And the Pope himself hath lately been fain to publish a condemnation of their Apology And yet the power and interest of the Jesuites and their followers among them is not altogether unknown to the World 15. They are Enemies to Civil Peace and Government if there be any such in the World as their Doctrine and Practice of killing and deposing excommunicate Princes breaking Oaths c. shews Bellarmine that will go a middle way gives the Pope power in ordine ad spiritualia and indirectly to dispose of Kingdoms and tells us that it is unlawfull to tolerate Heretical Kings that propagate their Heresie that is the ancient Faith How well Doctor Heylin hath vindicated their Council of Laterane in this whose Decrees stand as a Monument of the horrid treasonable Doctrine of the Papists I shall if God will hereafter manifest In the mean time let any man read the words of the Council and Iudge And now whether a Religion that is at such open enmity with 1. Scripture 2. The Church 3. Tradition 4. Fathers 5. Councils 6. Some Popes 7. The common senses and Reason of all the World even their own 8. Vnity of Christians 9. Knowledge 10. Experience of Believers 11. Charity 12. Purity of Worship 13. Holiness 14. Common Honesty
issue which hath been so calmly and soberly prosecuted I am an enemy to passion and as I have hitherto found you sweet and gentle in your proceedings towards me so shall you alwaies find me Worthy Sir Your friend to serve you William Johnson May 2. 1659. Sir Be pleased to return your Answer Papers or Letters which you intend for me to the same place to which you directed your former by which means I shall be secure to receive them at my house which is fourscore miles from London To Mr. T. L. who called me to this work Sir THough I am a stranger to you I thought meet to take notice of the Letters which you sent your friend here T. H. It seems you urge hard for a Reply and intimate somewhat of triumph in my delay you speak as an incompetent Judge God is the Master of my time and work and him I must serve and not neglect his greater work for such trivial objections as your friend hath sent me which are answered over and over by many so long ago Had you read Blondel Molineus de novitate Papismi Whitaker Sibrandus Lubbertus Chamier Abbots Crakenthorp Spalatensis or one of many that have confuted them you would sure call for no more Or if in English you had read Dr. Field Dr. White yea or but Sir Humphery Lind to pass by multitudes you might have seen their vanity Yea plainly read impartially my two books against Popery and be a Papist if you can But it seems you take it for a poor answer to be referred to books Do not fear it But yet let me tell you that my hand is not more legible then my printed books and if I had sent you this in print would that have made it a poor answer Or rather is not this a poor exception and shews that it is not truth that is look after for truth may be printed as well as written If you be deceived by the men of the Papal way let me yet intreat you but to read over those two books The safe Religion and the Key for Catholikes If your soul be not worth so much labour take your course I did my duty But I must say that it is doleful case that professors are so ungrounded that such vanities should carry them away from Catholike verity and unity to a faction that usurps the name of Catholikes To be free with you I think it is that pride and levity that brings them first to separation from our Churches into Sects and the guilt which they there incur that prepareth professors to be so far forsaken of God as to be given up to believe a lie and to turn Papists O dreadful case that one Bishop cannot swell in pride but men must make a Religion of his pride yea and make a Catholike Church of it yea and plead for it and make the sin their own yea condemn all Christians that list not themselves under this Prince of pride He is culpably if not wilfully blind that hath read Scripture and Church history and knoweth not that the Pope for three hundred years after Christ was not the creature that now he is nor had for most of that time any more Government over other Bishops then I have over neighbour Pastors and after that time he was no more an universal Head or Governour or Vicar of Christ then the Archbishop of Canterbury was having indeed a far larger Diocess then he but never was more then the swelled Primate of one National Imperial Church When Synods began to be gathered out of a Principality the Emperours desiring that means of unity within their Empire the pride of the Prelates set them presently a striving for superiority who should sit highest and write his name first and have the largest Diocess c And now men make a Religion of the fruits of this abominable pride What are all their disputings for and all this stir that they make in the world but to set up one man over all the earth and that to do a spirituall work which consisteth not with force but is managed on conscience One wretched man must govern the Antipodes on the other side of the earth that is indeed uncapable of truly and justly Governing the City of Rome it self Popes that their own Councils have condemned for ravishing maids and wives at their doors for Murders Simony Drunkenness Heresie denying the Resurrection and the life to come that is being no Christians these forsooth must be the universal Governours or we are all undone and we are damned if we believe it not O how dreadfull are the effects of sin and how great a judgement is a blinded mind This comes of falling into Sects and parties which leads men into the gulf of the most odious Schism even Popery in the world But if you are engaged in this party it s two to one but you are presently made partial and will not so much as read what is against them or will believe them if they do but tell you that we write lies when they are things done in the open sun and which they cannot confute nor dare attempt leâ—t they manifest their shame Take from them their Clergies vast Dominions Principalities Lands and Lordships Riches and worldly Honours with which they so much abound and then try how many will plead for the Pope then they 'l say If Baâ—l be a God let him plead for himself But I confess I have little hopes of turning any of them though I could shew it them written by an Angel from heaven that Popery is a deceit for the Scripture that 's above Angelical authority declareth it and by making it a nose of wax they take it as if it were not sense nor intelligible without the Popes interpretation which in difficult cases he dare not give They cry up the Church and when we would have them stand to the Church they shamefully turn their backs and when two or three parts of the Churches through the world are against the Papal Soveraignty they refuse them as Hereticks or Schismaticks They cry up Tradition and when we offer them in the main point to be tried by it they disclaim the Tradition of two or three parts of the universal Church as being all Hereticks And may not any Sect do so too as honestly as they yea among the ignorant that know not Chaffe from Corn â—hey have some of them the faces to perswade them that their Church is the greater half of the Christian world when they know they speak notoriously falsly or else they are unworthy to speak of such things that they understand not But to what purpose should any words be used with men that have taught so great a part of the world not to believe their eyes and other senses Can any writing make any matter plainer to you then that Bread is Bread and Wine is Wine when you see them and tast and eat and drink them And yet their general Councils approved by the
Pope have made it an Article of their faith that the whole substance of the Bread and Wine is turned into the Body and Blood of Christ so that there is left no Bread or Wine but only that colour quantity and tast that before belonged to it And if you know not Bread when you eat it or Wine when you drink it and when the senses of all the sound men in the world concur with yours is it not vain for me or any man to dispute with you Can you have any thing brought to a surer judgement then to all your senses And yet no doubt but your seducers can say something to prove that Bread is not Bread when you see and eat it No wonder then if they can confute me But do they indeed believe themselves how is it possible there is no exercise of reason and belief that supposeth not the certainty of sense If I cannot know Bread and Wine when I see touch â—ast them then cannot I know the Pope the Councils the Scripture the Priest or any thing else If you think to let go this point of Popery and hold the rest you know not what Popery is for a Pope and Council having determined it you are damned by them for denying the faith and if you depart from the infallibility of their Rule and judge in points of faith or at least from the obligation of it in one thing they will confess to you that you may as well do it in more False in this and certain in nothing is their own conclusion Sir I have not been unwilling to know the truth having a soul to save or lose as well as you and having as much reason to be loth to perish If you have so far forfeited the Grace of God as meerly to follow the pride of a pretended Vice-Christ that hath turned doctrine into error worship into superstition and dead formality light into darkness discipline into confusion mixt with tyranny if meerly to set up one Tyrant over the consciences and bodies too of all believers in the world you can fall into a Sect deny Scripture Reason the Judgement and Tradition of most of the Church and your own and all mens eye-sight tast and other senses the Lord have mercy on you if you be not past it I have done with you yet remaining An unfeigned desirer of your welfare and lamenter of the Apostacies and giddiness of these times Richard Baxter May. 18. 1659. Did you know what it is by loose and false allegations to be put to read so many Volumes in great part in folio to try whether the alledger say true or false you would not expect that I should return an answer and read so much of so many folios in any less then ten or eleven daies which I think hath been all that I have had to write and read so much The Reader must take notice that I wrote the former Letter to the person that sent Mr. Johnsons Letters with a charitable jealousie that if he were himself in doubt he might be resolved But in his return he fully disclaimed Popery and assured me that it is for the sake of some friends that he desired my labour and not for his own R. B. The Reply to Mr. Johnsons second PAPER Sir THE multitude and urgency of my employments gave me not leave till this day May 2. so much as to read over all your Papers But I shall be as loth to break off our Disputation as you can be though perhaps necessity may sometime cause some weeks delay And again I profess my indignation against the Hypocrital Jugling of this age doth provoke me to welcome so ingenuous and candid a disputant as your self with great content But I must confess also that I was the less hasty in sending you this Reply because I desired you might have leisure to peruse a Book which I published since your last A Key for Catholikes seeing that I have there answered you already and that more largely then I am like to do in this Reply For the sharpness of that I must crave your patience the persons and cause I thought required it Ad 1m. What explications were made to your Friend of your Thesis I could not take notice of who had nothing but your writing to Answer 2. If you will not be precise in Arguing you had little reason to expect much less so strictly to exact a precise Answer which cannot be made as you prescribed to an Argument not precise 3. I therefore expect accordingly that the unlearned be not made the Judges of a dispute which they are not fit to judge of seeing you desire us to avoid their road 4. Again I say if you will not be precise in arguing I can hardly be so in answering And by a Congregation of Christians you may mean Christians politically related to one Head whether Christ or the Pope But the word Assemblies expresseth their actuall Assembling together and so excludeth all Christians that are or were Members of no particular assemblies from having Relation as Members of Christ our Head or the Pope your Head and so from being of the Congregation as you Call The Church universall 5. I had great reason to avoid the snare of an equivocation or ambiguity of which you gave me cause of jealousie by your whatsoever as I told you as seeming to intimate a false supposition To your Like I answer it is unlike and still more intimates the false supposition Whatsoever Congregation of men is the Common-wealth of England is a phrase that importeth that There is a Congregation of men which is not the Common-wealth of England Which is true there being more men in the world So whatsoever Congregation of Christians is now the true Church doth seem to import that you suppose there is a Congregation of Christians univocally so called that are not the true Church which you would distinguish from the other Which I only let you know at the entrance that I deny that you may not think it granted Yet I must tell you that nothing is more ordinary then for the Body to be said to do that which a part of it only doth As that the Church administreth Sacraments Discipline Teatheth c. the Church is assembled in such a Council c. when yet it is but a small part of the Church that doth these things And when Bellarmine Gretser c. say the Church is the infallible judge of Controversies of faith they mean not the whole Church which containeth every Christian when they tell you that It is the Pope they mean and therefore I had reason to enquire into your sense unless I would willfully be over-reacht You now satisfie me that you mean it universally viz. â—ll that Congregation or Church of Christians which is now the true Church of Christ doth acknowledge c. which I told you I deny 6. To my following distinction you say that all the world knows that whatsoever is acknowledged
fair Remember it hereafter that you have discharged me from proving a Church that denied the Papacy formally expresly But as to what you yet demand 1. I have here given it you because you shall not say â—'le sail you I have answered your desire But 2. It is not as a thing necessary but ex abundanti as an overplus For you may now see plainly that to prove that the Church was without an universal Pastor which you require is to prove the Negative viz. that then there was none such whereas its you that must prove that there was such I prove our Religion do you prove yours though I say to pleasure you I 'le disprove it and have done it in two books already My reason from the stress of necessity which you lay on your Affirmative and Additions was but subservient to the foregoing Reasons not first to prove you bound but to prove you the more bound to the proof of your Affirmative And therefore your instance of Mahumetans is impertinent He that saith you shall be damned if you believe not this or that is more obliged to prove it then he that affirmeth a point as of no such moment To what I say of an accident and a corrupt part you say you have answered and do but say so having said nothing to it that is considerable Me thinks you that make Christ to be corporally present in every Church in the Eucharist should not say that the King of the Church is absent But when you have proved 1. That Christ is so absent from his Church that there 's need of a Deputy to essentiate his Kingdom and 2. That the Pope is so Deputed you will have done more then is yet done for your cause And yet let me tell you that in the absence of a King it is only the King and Subjects that are essential to the Kingdom The Deputy is but an officer and not essential Your naked assertion that whatsoever Government Christ instituteth of his Church must be essential to his Church is no proof nor like the task of an Opponent The Government of inferiour officers is not essential to the universal Church no more then Judges and Justices to a Kingdom And yet we must wait long before you will prove that Peter and the Pope of Rome are in Christs place as Governours of the universal Church Sir I desire open dealing as between men that believe these matters are of eternal consequence I watch not for any advantage against you Though it be your part to prove the Affirmative which our Negative supposeth yet I have begun the proof of our Negative but it was on supposition that you will equally now prove your Affirmative better then you have here done I have proved a visible Church successively that hâ—ld not the Popes universal Government do you now prove that the universal Church in all ages did hold the Popes universal Government which is your part or I must say again I shall think you do but run away and give up your cause as unable to defend it I have not failed you do not you fail me You complain of a deficiency in quality though you confess that I abound in number But where is the defect you say I must assert both that these were one Congregation and ever visible since Christs time Reply If by one Congregation you meant one assembly met for personal Communion which is the first sense of the word Congregation it were ridiculous to feign the universal Church to be such If you mean One as united in one visible humane Head that 's it that we deny and therefore may not be required to prove But that these Churches are One as united in Christ the Head we easily prove In that from him the whole family is named the body is Christs body 1 Cor. 12.12 13. and one in him Eph. 4.4 5 6 c. All that are true Christians are one Kingdom or Church of Christ but these of whom I speak are true Christians therefore they are one Kingdom or Church of Christ. And that they have been visible since Christs time till now all history even your own affirms As in Iudaea from the Apostles times in Ethiopia Egypt and other parts Rome was no Church in the time of Christs being on earth And to what purpose talk you of determinate Congregations Do you mean individual assemblies those cease when the persons die or do you mean assemblies meeting in the same place so they have not done still at Rome I told you and tell you still that we hold not that God hath secured the perpetual visibility of his Church in any one City or Country but if it cease in one place it is still in others It may cease at Ephesus at Philippi Colosse c. in Tenduc Nubia c. and yet remain in other parts I never said that the Church must needs be visible still in one Town or Country And yet it hath been so de facto as in Asia Ethiopia c. But you say I nominate none Are you serious must I nominate Christians of these Nations to prove that there were such you require not this of the Church Historians It sufficeth that they tell you that Ethiopia Egypt Armenia Syria c. had Christians without naming them When all history tells you that these Countries were Christians or had Churches I must tell you what and who they were must you have their names sirnames and Genealogies I cannot name you one of a thousand in this small Nation in the age I live in How then should I name you the people of Armenia Abassia c. so long ago You can name but few of the Roman Church in each age And had they wanted learning and records as much as the Abassins and Indians and others you might have been as much to seek for names as they You ask were they different Congregations Answ. As united in Christ they were one Church but as assembling at one time or in one place or under the same guide so they were not one but divers Congregations That there were any Papists of 400. years after Christ do you prove if you are able My conclusion that all have been against you for many hundred years must stand good till you prove that some were for you yet I have herewith proved that there were none at least that could deserve the name of the Church Do you think to satisfie any reasonable man by calling for positive proof from Authors of such Negatives yet proof you shall not want such as the nature of the point requireth viz. That the said Churches of Ethiopia India the outer Armenia and other extra-imperial Nations were not under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome 1. You find all these Churches or most of them at this day that remain from under your jurisdiction and you cannot tell us when or how they turned from you If you could it had been done 2. These Nations
cannot force our own understandings to believe all such things that you believe and meerly because the Pope commands it and when we cannot thus force our own understandings must we be burned or else called Separatists would you have the Communion of our Ashes or else say We forsake your Communion In your Churches we cannot have leave to come without lying against God and our consciences and saying We believe what our senses contradict and without committing that which our consciences tell us are most heynous sins We solemnly protest that we would do as you do and say as you say were it not for the love of truth and holiness and for fear of the wrath of God and the flames of hell but we cannot we dare not rush upon these errours and sell our souls to please the Pope And must we then either be murdered or taken for unchaâ—â—â—â—ble will you say to so many poor souls that are ready to enter into another world Either sin against your consciences and so damn your souls or else let us burn and murder you or else you do not love us you are uncharitable if you deny us leave to kill you and you separate from the Communion of the Church We appeal from the Pope and all unreasonable men to the great God of heaven and earth to judge righteously between you and us concerning this dealing As for possessing our selves of your Bishopricks and Cures if any particular person had personal injury in the change being cast out without cause they must answer for it that did it and not I though I never heard any thing to make me believe it But must the Prince and people let alone delinquent Pastors for fear of being blamed for taking their Bishopricks Ministers of the same Religion with us may be cast out for their crimes Princes have power over Pastors as well as David Solomon and other Kings of Israel had Guil. Barklay and some few of your own knew this The Popes treasonable exemption of the Clergy from their Soveraigns judgement will not warrant those Princes before God that neglect to punish offeâ—â—ing Pastors And I beseech you tell us â—hen our consciences after the use of all means that we can use to be informed cannot renounce all our sences nor our reason nor the judgement of the most of the Church or of antiquity or the Word of God and yet we must do so or be no members of your Church what wrong is it to you if we choose us Pastors of our own in the order that God hath appointed Had not the people in all former ages the choice of their Pastors we and our late forefathers here were never under your oversight but we know not why we may not now choose our Pastors as well as formerly We do it not by tumults we kill not men and tread not in their blood while we choose our Pastors as Pope Damasus was chosen The tythes and other temporal maintenance we take from none but the Magistrate disposeth of it as he seeth meet for the Churches good And the maintenance is for the cure or work and therefore they that are justly cast out of the cure are justly deprived of the maintenance And surely when they are dead none of you can with any shew of reason stand up and say These Bishopricks are yours or these Parsonages yourâ—â— It is the Incumbent personally that only â—an claim title saving the supereminent title of Christ to whom they are devoted But the successive Popes cannot have title to all the tithes and Temples in the world nor any of his Clergy that never were called to the charges If this be disunion it is you that are the Separatists and cause of all If you will needs tell all the Christian world that except they will be ruled by the Pope of Rome and be burned if they believe not as he bids them in despight of all their senses he will call them Separatists Schismaticks and say they disunite and are uncharitable again we appeal to God and all wise men that are impartial whether it be he or we that is the divider You ask me Is not charity subordination and obedience to the same state and Government required as well to make one Congregation of Christians as it is required to make a Congregation of Commonwealths men Answ. Yes it is But as all the world is one Kingdom under God the universal King but yet hath no universal Vice-King but every Commonwealth only hath its own Soveraign even so all the Christian world is one Church under Christ the universal King of the Church but haâ—â— not one Vice-Christ but every Church hath its own Pastors as every School hath its own Schoolmaster But all the anger is because we are loth to be ruled by a cruel usurper therefore we are uncharitable Your next reason against me is because They cannot be parts of the Catholike Church unless Arrians and Pelagians and Donatists be parts and so Hereticks and Schismaticks be parts Reply 1. You know sure that your own Divines are not agreed whether Hereticks and Schismaticks are parts of the Church And if they were yet it is not de fide with you as not determined by the Pope If it be then all yours are Hereticks that are for the affirmative Bellarmine nameth you some of them If it be not then how can you be sure its true and so impose it on me that they are no parts 2. Arrians are no Christians as denying that which is essential to Christ and so to Christianity Pelagianism is a thing that you are not agreed among your selves of the true nature of Many of the Dominicans and Jansenists think the Jesuits Pelagianize or Semipelagianize at least I hope you will not shut them out Donatists were â—chismaticks because they divided in the Catholike Church and not absolutely from it and because they divided from the particular Churches about them that held the most universal external Communion I think they were still members of the universal Church but I 'le not contend with any that will plead for his uncharitable denyal It s nothing to our case That the Aethiopians are Eutychian Hereticks I will see better proved before I will believe it Rosses words I so little regard that I will not so much as open his book to see whether he say so or not I know that Heresie is a personal crime and cannot be charged on Nations unless you have evidence that the Nations consent to it which here you have none Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity these are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser errors consistent with Christianity and these may be in the Church The Abassines and all the rest have not been yet tryed and convicted before any competent Judge and slanderers we regard not 2. Many of your own writers acquit them of Heresie and say the
Acacius of Caesarea and his party depose not only Eleusius Basilius and many others but with them also Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople Socrat. lib. 2. c. 33. vel 42. Did this prove Acacius the Vice-Christ What should I instance in Theophilus actions against Chrysostome or Cyrils against Iohan. Antiochen and many such like 4. Still you suppose one Empire to be all the Christian world We must grant you that in all your instances 14. For what you alledge from Gregory I shall give you enough of him anon for your satisfaction if you will be indifferent As to your citation what can I say A years time were little enough to search after your citations if you should thus write but many more sheets If a man had so much time and so little wit as to attend you You turn me to Greg. cap. 7. ep 63. but what Book or what Indiction you tell me not But whatever it be false it must needs be there being no one Book of his Epistles according to all the Editions that I have seen where c. 7. and ep 63. do agree or meet together But at last I found the words in lib. 7. c. 63. ep 63. To which I say that either your great Gregory by subject meant that the Bishop of Constantinople was of an inferiour Order as the Patriarch of Alexandria and Antioch were to Constantinople that yet had no Government of them or else he could say and unsay But I doubt not but this was all his sense But if it had been otherwise Constantinople and the Empire was not all the Christian world Your next citation is lib. 7. ep 37. But it s falsly cited There is no such word and you are in so much haste for an answer that I will not read over all Gregories Epistles 15. You say Cyril would not break off Communion with Nestorius till Celestine had condemned him of this you give us no proof But what if it be true Did you think that it proved the Pope to be the Vice-Christ Prudence might well make Cyril cautelous in excommunicating a Patriarch And we still grant you that the Order of the Empire had given the Roman Bishop the Primacy therein and therefore no wonder if his consent were expected But that Nestorius was condemned by a Council needs no proof And what if Celestine began and first condemned him I she therefore the Universal Bishop But it was not Celestine alone but a Synod of the Western Bishops And yet Cyril did not hereupon reject him without further warning And what was it that he threatned but to hold no Communion with him Vid. Concil Ephes. 1. Tom. 1. cap. 14. And though Pride made excommunication an Engine to advance one Bishop above others I can easily prove that if I had then lived it had been my duty to avoid Communion with a notorious Heretick though he had been Pope The long story that you next tell is but to fill up Paper that Cyril received the Popes Letters that Nestorius repented not that he accused Cyril that Theodosius wrote to Celestine about a Council and many such impertinent words But the proof is that Cyril was the Popes chief Legate Ordinary Forsooth because in his absence he was the chief Patriarch therefore he is said Celestini locum tenere which he desired Well let your Pope sit highest seeing he so troubles all the world for it Christ will shortly bid him come down lower when he humbleth them that exalt themselves That Cyril subscribed before Philip you may see Tom. 2. cap. 23. but where I may find that Philip subscribed first you tell me not But what if the Archbishop of Canterbury sate highest and subscribed first in England Doth it follow that he was Governour of all the world no nor of York it self neither 16. And here you tell us of Iuvenal Act. 6. Repl. 1. The Council is not divided into Acts in Binnius but many Tomes and Chapters but your words are in the Notes added by your historian but how to prove them Iuvenals words I know noâ— nor find in him or you 2. But why were not the antecedent words of the Bishop of Antioch and his Clergy as valid to the contrary as Iuvenals for this 3. If these words were spoken they only import a Iudgeing in Council as a chief member of it and not of himself And his apostolica ordinatione is expresly contrary to the â—orecited Canon of the Council of Chalcedon and therefore not to be believed Yet some called things done Ordinatione apostolica which were ordained by the Seats which were held Apostolike 4. But still you resolve to forget that Antioch or the Empire extended not to the Antipodes nor contained all the Catholick Church 17. You next tell me of Valentinians words A. D. 445. Reply It is the most plausible of all your testimonies but worth nothing to your end For 1. Though Theodosius name pro forma were at it yet it was only Valentinians act and done at Rome where Leo prevailed with a raw unexperienced Prince to word the Epistle as he desired so that it is rather Leo's then the Emperours originally And Leo was the first that attempted the excessive advancement of his Seat above the rest of the Patriarchs 2. It is known that the Emperours sometime gave the Primacy to Rome and sometime to Constantinople as they were pleased or displeased by each of them So did Iustinian who A. D. 530. Lampadio Oreste Coss. C. de Episcopis lib. 1. lege 24. saith Constantinopolitana Ecclesia omnium aliarum est Caput The Church of Constantinople is the Head of all other 3. It is your fiction and not the words of Valentinian or Leo that the succession from Peter was the foundation of Romes Primacy It was then believed that Antioch and other Churches had a succession from Peter It is the Merit of Peter and the Dignity of the City of Rome and the Authority of the Synod joyntly that he ascribeth it to The Merit of Peter was nothing but the Motive upon which Leo would have men believe the Synod gave the Primacy to Rome And Hosius in the Council of Sardica indeed useth that as his motive Let us for the honour of Peter c. They had a conceit that where Peter last preached and was martyred and buried and his relicts lay there he should be most honoured 4. Here is not the least intimation that this Primacy was by Gods appointment or the Apostles but the Synods Nor that it had continued so from Peters dayes but that joyntly for Peters Merits and honour and the Cities dignity it was given by the Synod 5. And it was but Leo's fraud to perswade the raw Emperour of the authority of a Synod which he would not name because the Synod of Sardica was in little or no authority in those daies The rest of the reasons were fraudulent also which though they prevailed with this Emperour yet they took not in the East And Leo himself it
they reason against the knowledge and experience of my soul. Your scope is to prove me in a state of damnation You confess that if I have charity I am in a state of salvation I know and feel that I have charity Therefore I know that your Reasonings are deceit Arg. 2. The Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation hath been Visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth But the Church whose faith is contained in the holy Scriptures as its Rule in all points necessary to salvation is it of which the Protestants are Members Therefore the Church of which the Protestants are Members hath been visible ever since the dayes of Christ on earth That the Catholick Church which hath been Visible till now hath received the Holy Scriptures which we receive is confessed by all Papists that ever I heard or read making mention of it And no wonder for it cannot be denied That this Church hath taken these Scriptures for the Rule of faith in all points necessary to salvation allowing Church-Governours to make Canons about the circumstantials of Government and worship which in the Universal Law are not determined but left to humane prudence to determine 1. I have proved in my third Dispute of the safe Religion already 2. It is confessed by the Papists the forecited passages of Bellarmine and Costerus are sufficient But in the great Council at Basil Orat. Ragus Bin. p. 299. it is most plainly and with fuller authority asserted The holy Scripture in the Literal sense soundly and well understood is the infallible and Most sufficient Rule of faith See my vindication of this Testimony in my Catholick Key and the like from Card. Richlieu Gerson saith de exam doctr p. 2. cont 1. Nihil audendum dicere de divinis nisi quae nobis à sacra Scriptura tradita sunt Durandus in his Preface is wholly for the excellency and sufficiency of the Scriptures Three wayes he saith God revealeth himself and other things to man The lowest way is by the book of the creatures so heathens may know him The highest is by manifest Vision as in heaven and the middle way is in the Book of holy Scripture without which there is no coming to the highest way And going on to extoll the Scripture he citeth Ieromes words ad Paulinum Let us learn on earth the knowledge of those things which will abide with us in heaven But this is only saith he in the holy Scripture And after ex Hierom ad Marcell If Reason be brought against the authority of the Scriptures how acute soever it is it cannot be true And after We must speak of the mysterie of Christ and universally of those things that meerly concern faith conformably to what the holy Scripture delivereth So Christ Iohn 5. Search the Scriptures It is they that testifie of me If any observe not this he speaks not of the mysterie of Christ and of other things directly touching faith as he ought but falls into that of the Apostle 1 Cor. 8. If any man think he knoweth any thing he yet knoweth nothing as he ought to know For the measure is not to exceed the measure of faith of which the Apostle bids us Rom. 12. Not to be wiser then we ought to be but to be wise to sobriety and as God hath divided to every man the measure of faith Which Measure consisteth in two things to wit that we subtract not from faith that which is of faith nor N.B. attribute that to faith which is not of faith For by either of these wayes the measure of faith is exceeded and men deviate from the continence of the sacred Scripture which expresseth the measure of faith That is from the full sufficiency of the Scripture measure And this measure by Gods assistance we will hold that we may write or teach nothing dissonant to the holy Scripture But if by ignorance or inadvertency we should write any thing dissonant let it be taken ipso facto as not written This is a confession of the Religion of the Protestants And though he adjoyn a submission to the Roman Church because he was bred in it it is only as to an interpreter of doubtfull Texts of Scripture So that the sufficiency of our Rule and measure of faith is granted by him and zealously asserted and that without Bellarmine and Costerus limitation to points necessary to the salvation of all he extendeth it to all the faith Aquin. 22. q. 1. a. 10. ad 1. saith That in the Doctrine of Christ and his Apostles the truth of the faith is sufficiently explicated even when he is pleading for the Popes power to make new Creeds to obviate errours And in his sum de Verit. disp de fide q. 10. ad 11. he saith That all the means by which the faith cometh to us are free from suspicion The Prophets and Apostles we believe for this reason because God bore them witness by working Miracles as Mar. 16. confirming their speech with following signs But their successors we believe not but so far as they declare to us those things which they have left us in the Scripture This is the Religion of the Protestants Scotus in Prolog in sent 1. makes it his second Question Whether supernaturall knowledge necessary to us in the Way be sufficiently delivered in the holy Scâ—ipture which he proveth having first given ten arguments to prove the Truth of Scripture And first he shews it containeth the Doctrine of the End and 2. of the things necessary to that end and the sufficiency of them summarily in the Decalogue explained in the other Scriptures as to matter of faith hope and practice and so concludes that the holy Scripture sufficiently containeth the doctrine necessary viatori to us in the way And he answereth the objection of Difficulties in it without flying to the Church that no science explaineth all things to be known but those things from which the rest may conveniently be gathered and so many needfull truths are not expressed in Scripture though they are virtually there contained as conclusions in the Principles about the investigation whereof the labour of Expositors and Doctors hath been profitable This is his doctrine out of Origen Gregor Ariminensis in Prol. q. 1. act 2. Resp. ad act fol. 3. 4. saith A discourse properly Theologicall is that which consisteth of words or propositions contained in the holy Scripture or of those that are deduced from them or at least from one of these This is proved 1. by the forealledged authority of Dionys. For he will have it that there can be no leading of that man to Theologicall science that assenteth not to the sayings of the holy Scripture It follows therefore that no discourse that proceedeth not from the words of holy Scripture or of that which is deduced from them is Theologicall 2. The same is proved from the common conception of all men For
all men judge that then only is any thing proved Theologically when they prove it from the words of the holy Scripture This is more then the former say For to extend the sufficiency and necessity of Scripture to all that 's Theologicall is more then to extend it to matter of faith No Protestant goeth higher then this that I know of And note that he makes this the very common conception and judgement of all men See then where our Religion and Church was before Luther even among all Christians Yet more fully he proceeds ibid. Hence it further appeareth that Principles of Theology thus taken that is which is acquired by Theologicall discourse are the very Truths themselves of the holy Canon because the ultimate Resolution of all Theologicall discourse doth stand or belong to them and all Theologicall conclusions are deduced first from them But distinguishing the Conclusions Theologicall from the Principles I say that all truths are not in themselves formally contained in the holy Scripture but of necessity following from those that are contained in them and this whether they are Articles of faith or not N B and whether they are knowable or known by another science or not and whether they are determined by the Church or not But of other Truths to wit not following from the words of the holy Scripture I say there is no Theologicall conclusion This is proved c. When I read over the Schoolmen and Divines of all sorts that wrote before the Reformers fell so closely upon the Pope and find how generally even the Papists themselves maintained the sufficiency of the holy Scripture just as the Protestants now do I am convinced 1. of the succession of the Protestants Religion in the Universal Visible Church and 2. that it was the Reformers Arguments from Scripture that forced the Papists to oppose this holy Rule as to its sufficiency and to invent the new doctrine of supplementall Tradition for conservative Ministeriall Tradition of the holy Scriptures we are for as much at least as they The words of Guil. Parisieâ—sis too large to be recited in extolling the fulness and perfection of the Scripture even for all sorts of men you may read de Legibus cap. 16. pag. 46. Bellarmine de Verbo Dei lib. 3. cap. 10. ad Arg. 15. saith We must know that a Proposition of faith is concluded in such a syllogism Whatsoever God hath revealed in Scripture is true But this God hath revealed in Scripture Therefore it is true Though he require another word of God by the Pope or Council to prove that this is revealed in Scripture But if so then Scripture containeth all that 's true in points of faith 2. And that all things that are revealed and which we ought to believe are not Essentiall to the Christian faith and therefore that all are of the Church that hold these Essentialls and that such a distinction must be maintained the Papists have still confessed till lately that disputing hath encreased their novelties and errours Bellarmines and Costerus confession I recited even now Guliel Parisiensis in Operum pag. 9 10 11 12. de fide industriously proveth the necessity of distinguishing the fundamentalls or essentialls from the rest of the points of faith and it is they that constitute the Catholick faith which he saith is therefore called Catholick or Universal because it is the common faith or the common foundation of Religion And he proves that hence it is that the Catholick faith is but One and found in all Catholicks these fundamentalls being found in all By many arguments he proveth this And that there are some points even these common Articles necessary to be known of all necessitati medii the Schoolmen commonly grant as Aquin. 22. q. 2. a. 5. c. Bannes in 22. q. 2. a. 8. c. Of these saith Espencaeus in 2. Ti. c. 3. dig 17. which are the objects of faith per se and not the secondary objects the adult must have an explicite faith and the Colliers faith at this time decantate by the Catholicks will not serve the turn And we have both the Scripture sufficiency to all points of faith even the lowest and also the foresaid distinction given us together by Tho. Aquinas 22. q. art 5. c. We must say that the object of faith per se is that by which man is made blessed But by accident and secondarily all things are the object of faith which are contained in the holy Scripture See the judgement of Occham Canus Tolet and many more cited by Dr. Potter and yet more for the sufficiency of the Symbole or Creed as the test of Christianity pag. 89 90 91 92 93. Where you have the sense of the Ancients upon the point and p. 102 103. I conclude therefore with the Jesuite Azorius par 1. lib. 8. c. 6. The substance of the Article in which we believe One holy Catholick Church is that no man can be saved out of the Congregation of men professing the reception of the faith and Religion of Christ and that salvation may be obtained within this same Congregation of godly and faithfull men And as to the Essence of the Christian faith and Church we say with Tertullian of the Symbole Fides in Regula posita est habes legem salutem ex observatione legis exercitatio autem in curiositate consistit habens gloriam solam ex peritiae studio Cedat curiositas fidei Cedat gloria saluti Corte aut non obstrepant aut quiescant adversus regulam Nihil ultra scire est omnia scire That is Faith lieth in the Rule Here you have the Law and salvation in the observation of that Law but it is exercise that consisteth in curiosity having only a name or glory by the study of skill Let curiosity give place to faith Let glory give place to salvation Let them not prate or let them be quiet against the Rule To know nothing further is to know all things De Praescript cap. 13 14. So cap. 8. Nobis curiositate opus non est post Christum Iesum nec inquisitione post Evangelium Cum credimus nihil desideramus ultra credere hoc enim prius credimus non esse quod ultra credere debeamus That is As for us we need not curiosity after Jesus Christ nor inquisition after the Gospel When we believe we need to believe no further For we first believe this that there is nothing further that we ought to believe And here on the by for the right understanding of Tertullians Book de Praescript note 1. That the Rule of Essentialls extracted from the whole Scripture is the Churches ancient Creed 2. That the compleat Rule of all points of faith is the whole Scripture And that Tertullian had to do with Hereticks that denied the Essentials and desired the whole Scripture to dispute their case from both because they had questioned or rejected much of it and because it was a larger field to exercise their
Council of Nice that many Princes were subjected to the Church of Rome by Ecclesiastical custom and no other right the Synod should do the greatest injury to the Bishop of Rome if it should attribute those things to him only from custom which were his due by Divine Right This Citation I take from Bishop Bromhall having not seen the Book my self The Popish Bishop of Calcedâ—n Survey cap. 5. To us it sufficeth that the Bishop of Rome is Saint Peters successour and this all the Fathers testifie and all the Catholick Church believeth but whether it be jure divino or humano is no point of Faith An ingenuous Confession destroying Popery See Aubert Miraeus notitia Episcopat where in the antient Notit and Leunclavius record of Leo Philos. Impera There are none of the Abassine or other extramperial Nations under the old Patriarcks Cassander Epist. 37. D. Ximenio operum p. 1132. saith of that learned pious Bishop of Valentia Monlucius so highly commended by Thuanus and other learned men that he said Si sibi permittatur in his tribus capitibus viz. forma publicarum precum de ritibus Baptismi de formâ Eucharistiae sive Missae Christianam formam ad normam priscae Ecclesiae Institutam legi conâ—idere se quod ex quinquaginta mill quos habet in suâ Dioecesi à praesenti disciplina Ecclesiae diversos quaùraginta millia ad Ecclesiasticam uniâ—nâ—m sit reducturus That is If he had but leave in these three heads the form of publick Prayers of the rites of Baptism and the form of the Eucharist or the Mass to follow the Christian form Instituted according to the rule of the Antient Church he was confident that of fifty thousand that he had in his Diocess that differed from the present discipline of the Church he should reduce forty thousand to Ecclesiastical union By this testimony it is plain that the Church of Rome hath forsaken the antient Discipline and Worship of the Church by Innovation and that the Protestants desire the restitution of it and would be satisfied therewith but cannot obtain it at the Papists hands So Cassâ—nder himself Epist. 42 p. 1138. I would not despair of moderation if they that hold the Church possessions would remove some intolerable abuses and would restore at tolerable form of the Church according to the prescript of the Word of God and of the antient Church especially that which flourished for some ages after Constantine when liberty was restored which if they will not do and that betime there is danger they may in many places be cast out of their possessions Still you see Rome is the Innovator and it is Restitution of the antient Church-form that would have quieted the Protestans which could never be obtained So again more plainly Epist. 45. p. 1141. Whether Hereticks are in the Church When I came to London I enquired after Mr. Iohnson to know whether I might at all expect any Answer to the foregoing Papers or not And at last instead of an Answer I received only these ensuing lines PAg. 5. part 1. You say I reply first had not you despaired of making good your cause you should have gone by argumentation till you had forced me to contradict some common principle Now I have by Argumentation forced you to this if you will maintain what after you seem to assert in divers passages viz. That Hereticks are true parts of Christs Catholick Church for thus you write p. 11. Some are called Hereticks for denying points essential to Christianity those are no Christians and so not in the Church but many also are called Hereticks by you and by the Fathers for lesser Errours consistent with Christianity And these may be in the Church And p. 12. you answer thus to your adversary Whereas you say it is against all antiquity and Christianity to admit condemned Hereticks into the Church I reply first I hate their condemnation rather then reverence it where you saying nothing against their admittance into the Church seem to grant it I therefore humbly entreate you to declare your opinion more fully in this question Whether any professed Hereticks properly so called are true parts of the universal visible Church of Christ so that they compose one universal Church with the other visible parts of it Iunii 6 to William Johnson The Answer ANsw. My words are plain and distinctly answer your question so that I know not what more is needful for the explication of my sense Unless you would call us back from the Thing to the meer Name by your properly so called you are answered already But I would speak as plainly as I can and if it be possible for me to be understood by you I shall do my part 1. It is supposed that you and I are not agreed What the Vniversal visible Church it self is while you take the Pope or any meer humane Head to be an essential part which is an assertion that with much abhorrence I deny You think each member of that Church must necessarily ad esse be a subject of the Pope and I think it enough that he be a subject of Christ and to his orderly and well-being that he hold local Communion with the parts within the reach of his capacity and be subject to the Pastors that are set over him maintaining due association with and charity to the rest of the more distinct members as he is capable of communion with them at that distance So that when I have proved a person to be a member of the Catholick Church it is not your Catholick Church that I mean No â—ound Christian is a member of yours it is Hereticks in the softer sense that are its matter It s necessary therefore that we first agree of the Definition of the Catholick Church before we dispute who is in it 2. Your word Properly so called is ambiguous referring either to the Etymologie or to some definition in an authentick Canon or to custom and common speech Of the first we have no reason now to enter controversie For the second I know no such stablisht Definition that we are agreed on For the third custom is so variable here not agreeing with it self that what is to be denominated Proper or Improper from it is not to be well conjectured However all this is but de nomine and What is the proper and What the improper use of the word Heretick is no Article of Faith nor necessary for our debate Therefore again you must accept of my distinguishing and give me leave to fly confusion 1. The word Heretick is either spoken of one that corrupteth the Doctrine of Faith as such or of one that upon some difference of Opinion or some personal quarrels withdraweth from the Communion of those particular Churches that before he held communion with and gathereth a separated party such are most usually called Schismaticks but of oâ—d the name Hereticks was oft applyed unto such 2. The word Heretick in the