Church were Infallible therefore the Clurch is Infallible I answer that there is no repugnance but we may be certain enough of the Universal Traditions of the ancient Church such as in S. Austin's account these were which here are spoken of and yet not be certain enough of the definitions of the present Church Unless you can shew which I am sure you can never do that the Infallibility of the present Church was always a Tradition of the ancient Church Now your main business is to prove the present Church Infallible not so much in consigning ancient Traditions as in defining emergent controversies Again it follows not because the Churches Authority is warrant enough for us to believe some Doctrin touching which the Scripture is silent therefore it is Warrant enough to believe these to which the Scripture seems repugnant Now the Doctrins which S. Austin received upon the Churches Authority were of the first sort the Doctrins for which we deny your Churches Infallibility are of the second And therefore though the Churches Authority might be strong enough to bear the weight which S. Austin laid upon it yet happily it may not be strong enough to bear that which you lay upon it Though it may support some Doctrines without Scripture yet surely not against it And last of all to deal ingeniously with you and the world I am not such an Idolater of S. Austin as to think a thing proved sufficiently because he says it nor that all his sentences are Oracles and particularly in this thing that whatsoever was practised or held by the Universal Church of his time must needs have come from the Apostles Though considering the nearness of his time to the Apostles I think it a good probable way and therefore am apt enough to follow it when I see no reason to the contrary Yet I profess I must have better satisfaction before I can induce my self to hold it certain and infallible And this not because Popery would come in at this door as some have vainly feared but because by the Church Universal of some time and the Church Universal of other times I see plain contradictions held and practised Both which could not come from the Apostles for then the Apostles had been teachers of falsehood And therefore the belief or practice of the present Universal Church can be no infallible proof that the Doctrin so believed or the custom so practised came from the Apostles I instance in the Doctrine of the Millenaries and the Eucharists necessity for Infants both which Doctrines have been taught by the consent of the eminent Fathers of some ages without any opposition from any of their Contemporaries and were delivered by them not as Doctors but as Witnesses not as their own Opinions but as Apostolick Traditions And therefore measuring the Doctrin of the Church by all the Rules which Cardinal Perron gives us for that purpose both these Doctrines must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrines of the Ancient Church of some age or ages And that the contrary Doctrines were Catholick at some other time I believe you will not think it needful for me to prove So that either I must say the Apostles were fountains of contradictious Doctrines or that being the Universal Doctrine of the present Church is no sufficient proof that it came originally from the Apostles Besides who can warrant us that the Universal Traditions of the Church were all Apostolical seeing in that famous place for Traditions in Tertullian a De Corona Militis c 3. 4. Where having recounted sundry unwritten Traditions then observed by Christians many whereof by the way notwithstanding the Council of Trents profession to receive them and the written Word with the like affection of Piety are now rejected and neglected by the Church of Rome For example Immersion in Baptism Tasting a mixture of Milk and Honey presently after Abstaining from Bathes for a week after Accounting it an impiety to pray kneeling on the Lords day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in the 3. chap. He adds another in the fourth of the Veiling of Women And then adds Since I find no law for this it follows that Tradition must have given this observation to custom which shall gain in time Apostolick authority by the interpretation of the reason of it By these examples therefore it is declared that the observing of unwritten Tradition being confirmed by custom may be defended The perseverance of the observation being a good testimony of the goodnest of the Tradition Now custom even in civil affairs where a law is wanting passes for a law Neither is it material whether it be grounded on Scripture or reason seeing reason is commendation enough for a law Moreover if law be grounded on reason all that must be law which is so grounded A quocunque productum Whosoever is the producer of it Do ye think it is not lawful Omni fideli for every faithful man to conceive and constitute Provided he constitute only what is not repugnant to Gods will what is conducible for discipline and available to salvation seeing the Lord says why even of our selves judge ye not what is right And a little after This reason now demand saving the respect of the Tradition A quocunque Traditore censetur nec auctorem respiciens sed Auctoritatem From whatsoever Traditor it comes neither regard the Author but the Authority Quicunque traditor any Author whatsoever is founder good enough for them And who can secure us that Humane inventions and such as came à quocunque Traditore might not in a short time gain the reputation of Apostolick Seeing the direction then was b Hier. Precepta majorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 46. But let us see what S. Chrysostom says They the Apostles delivered not all things in writing who denies it but many things also without writing who doubts of it and these also are worthy of belief Yes if we knew what they were But many things are worthy of belief which are not necessary to be believed As that Julius Caesar was Emperor of Rome is a thing worthy of belief being so well testified as it is but yet it is not necessary to be believed a man may be saved without it Those many works which our Saviour did which S. John supposes would not have been contained in a World of Books if they had been written or if God by some other means had preserved the knowledge of them had been as worthy to be believed and as necessary as those that are written But to shew you how much a more faithful keeper Records are than report those few that were written are preserved and believed those infinity more that were not written are all lost and vanished out of the memory of men And seeing God in his providence hath not thought fit to preserve the memory of them he hath freed us from the obligation of
savour wherewith shall it be Salted it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast forth and to be trodden under Foot So the Church may be by Duty the Pillar and Ground that is the Teacher of Truth of all truth not only necessary but profitable to Salvation and yet she may neglect and violate this Duty and be in fact the teacher of some Error 78. Fourthly and lastly if we deal most liberally with you and grant that the Apostle here speaks of the Catholick Church calls it the Pillar and ground of Truth and that not only because it should but because it always shall and will be so yet after all this you have done nothing your Bridge is too short to bring you to the Bank where you would be unless you can shew that by truth here is certainly meant not only all necessary to Salvation but all that is profitable absolutely and simply All. For that the true Church alwaies shall be the maintainer and teacher of all necessary truth you know we grant and must grant for it is of the essence of the Church to be so and any company of Men were no more a Church without it than any thing can be a Man and not be reasonable But as a Man may be still a Man though he want a Hand or an Eye which yet are profitable parts so the Church may be still a Church though it be defective in some profitable truth And as a Man may be a Man that has some Boyls and Botches on his Body so the Church may be the Church though it have many corruptions both in Doctrine and practice 79. And thus you see we are at liberty from the former places having shewed that the sense of them either must or may be such as will do your Cause no service But the last you suppose will be a Gordian knot and ties us fast enough The words are Eph. 4.11 12 13. He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministry c. Until we all meet into the Unity of Faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine Out of which words this is the only argument which you collect or I can collect for you There is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine unless it be a Church universally Infallible But it is impious to say there is no means to conserve unity of Faith against every wind of Doctrine Therefore there must be a Church universally Infallible Whereunto I answer that your major is so far from being confirmed that it is plainly confuted by the place alledged For that tells us of another means for this purpose to wit the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension and that their consummating the Saints doing the work of the Ministry and Edifying the body of Christ was the means to bring those which are there spoken of be they who they will to the unity of Faith and to perfection in Christ that they might not be wavering and carried about with every wind of false Doctrine Now the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors are not the present Church therefore the Church is not the only means for this end nor that which is here spoken of 80. Peradventure by he gave you conceive is to be understood he promised that he would give unto the worlds end But what reason have you for this conceit Can you shew that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath this signification in other places and that it must have it in this place Or will not this interpretation drive you presently to this blasphemous absurdity that God hath not performed his promise Unless you will say which for shame I think you will not that you have now and in all Ages since Christ have had Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists for as for Pastors and Doctors alone they will not serve the turn For if God promised to give all these then you must say he hath given all or else that he hath broke his promise Neither may you pretend that the Pastors and Doctors were the same with the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and therefore having Pastors and Doctors you have all For it is apparent that by these names are denoted several Oâ—ders of men clearly distinguished and diversified by the Original Text but much more plainly by your own Translations for so you read it some Apostles and some Prophets and other some Evangelists and other some Pastors and Doctors and yet more plainly in the parallel place 1 Cor. 12. to which we are referred by your Vulgar Translation God hath set some in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Teachers therefore this subterfuge is stopped against you Obj. But how can they which died in the first Age keep us in Unity and guard us from Error that live now perhaps in the last This seems to be all one as if a Man should say that Alexander or Julius Caesar should quiet a mutiny in the King of Spains Army Ans I hope you will grant that Hippocrates and Galen and Euclid and Aristotle and Salust and Caesar and Livie were dead many Ages since and yet that we are now preserved from Error by them in a great part of Physick of Geometry of Logick of the Roman story But what if these men had writ by divine Inspiration and writ compleat bodies of the Sciences they professed and writ them plainly and perspicuously You would then have granted I believe that their works had been sufficient to keep us from error and from dissention in these matters And why then should it be incongruous to say that the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors and Doctors which Christ gave upon his Ascension by their writings which some of them writ but all approved are even now sufficient means to conserve us in Unity of Faith and guard us from Error Especially seeing these writings are by the confession of all parts true and divine and as we pretend and are ready to prove contain a plain and perfect Rule of Faith and as the * Perron Chiefest of you acknowledge contain immediatly all the Principal and Fundamental points of Christianity referring us to the Church and Tradition only for some minute particularities But tell me I pray the Bishops that composed the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the Pope that confirmed them are they means to conserve you in Unity and keep you from Error or are they not Peradventure you will say their Decrees are but not their Persons but you will not deny I hope that you owe your unity and freedom from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will you deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles
believe would prove his intent had not the corruptions of the Roman Church possessed and infected even the publick Service of God among them in which their Communion was required and did not the Church of Rome require the Belief of all her Errors as the condition of her Communion But howsoever be his reasons conclusive or not conclusive certainly this was the profest opinion of him and divers others as by name Cassander and Baldwin who though they thought as ill of the Doctrine of the most prevailing part of the Church of Rome as Protestants do yet thought it their duty not to separate from her Communion And if there were any considerable number of considerable men thus minded as I know not why any man should think there was not then it is made not only a most difficult but even an impossible thing to know what was the Catholick Judgment of our Fathers in the points of controversie seeing they might be joyned in Communion and yet very far divided in opinion They might all live in obedience to the Pope and yet some think him head of the Church by Divine right others as a great part of the French Church at this day by Ecclesiastical constitution others by neither but by Practice and Usurpation wherein yet because he had Prescription of many Ages for him he might not justly be disturbed All might go to Confession and yet some only think it necessary others only profitable All might go to Mass and the other Services of the Church and some only like and approve the Language of it others only tolerate it and wish it altered if it might be without greater inconvenience All might receive the Sacrament and yet some believe it to be the Body and Blood of Christ others only a Sacrament of it Some that the Mass was a true and proper Sacrifice others only a Commemorative Sacrifice or the Commemoration of a Sacrifice Some that it was lawful for the Clergy to deny the Laiety the Sacramental Cup others that it was lawful for them to receive in one kind only seeing they could not in both Some might adore Christ as present there according to his Humanity others as present according to his Divine Nature only Some might pray for the Dead as believing them in Purgatory others upon no certain ground but only that they should rather have their Prayers and Charity which wanted them not than that they which did want them should not have them Some might pray to Saints upon a belief that they heard their Prayers and knew their Hearts others might pray to them meaning nothing but to pray by them that God for their sakes would grant their Prayers others thirdly might not pray to them at all as thinking it unnecessary others as fearing it unlawful yet because they were not fully resolved only forbearing it themselves and not condemning it in others Uncle I pray you then remember also what it is that Protestants do commonly taunt and check Catholicks with is it not that they believe Traditions It is a meer Calumny that Protestants condemn all kind of Traditions who subscribe very willingly to that of Vincentius Lerinensis That Christian Religion is res tradita non inventa a matter of Tradition not of mans invention is what the Church received from the Apostles and by consequence what the Apostles delivered to the Church and the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God Chemnitius in his Examen of the Council of Trent hath liberally granted seven sorts of Traditions and Protestants find no fault with him for it Prove therefore any Tradition to be Apostolick which is not written Shew that there is some known Word of God which we are commanded to believe that is not contained in the Books of the Old and New Testament and we shall quickly shew that we believe Gods Word because it is Gods and not because it is written If there were any thing not written which had come down to us with as full and Universal a Tradition as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture That thing should I believe as well as the Scripture but I have long fought for some such thing and yet I am to seek Nay I am confident no one point in Controversie between Papists and Protestants can go in upon half so fair Cards for to gain the esteem of an Apostolick Tradition as those things which are now decried on all hands I mean the opinion of the Chiliasts and the Communicating Infants The latter by the confession of Cardinal Perron Maldonate and Binius was the Custom of the Church for 600 years at least It is expresly and in terms vouched by S. Austin for the Doctrine of the Church and an Apostolick Tradition it was never instituted by General Council but in the use of the Church as long before the First general Council as S. Cyprian before the Council There is no known Author of the beginning of it all which are the Catholick marks of an Apostolick Tradition and yet this you say is not so or if it be why have you abolisht it The former Lineally derives its pedigree from our Saviour to St. John from S. John to Papias from Papias to Just in Martyr Irenaeus Melito Sardensis Tertullian and others of the two first Ages who as they generally agree in the Affirmation of this Doctrine and are not contradicted by any of their Predecessors so some of them at least speak to the point not as Doctors but Witnesses and deliver it for the Doctrine of the Church and Apostolick Tradition and condemn the contrary as Heresie And therefore if there be any unwritten Traditions these certainly must be admitted first or if these which have so fair pretence to it must yet be rejected I hope then we shall have the like liberty to put back Purgatory and Indulgences and Transubstantiation and the Latin Service and the Communion in one kind c. none of which is of Age enough to be Page to either of the forenamed Doctrines especially the opinion of the Millenaries Uncle What think you means this word Tradition No other thing certainly but that we confute all our Adversaries by the Testimony of the former Church saying unto them this was the belief of our Fathers Thus were we taught by them and they by theirs without stop or stay till you come to Christ We confute our Adversaries by saying thus Truly a very easie confutation But saying and proving are two Mens Offices and therefore though you be excellent in the former I fear when it comes to the Tryal you will be found defective in the Latter Uncle And this no other but the Roman Church did or could ever pretend to which being in truth undeniable and they cannot choose but grant the thing Their last refuge is to laugh and say that both Fathers and Councils did Err because they were men as if Protestants themselves were more Is it not so as I tell you No indeed it is not by your
leave good Uncle For first the Greek Church as every body knows pretends to perpetual succession of Doctrine and undertakes to derive it from Christ and his Apostles as confidently as we do ours Neither is there any word in all this discourse but might have been urged as fairly and as probably for the Greek Church as for the Roman and therefore seeing your Arguments fight for both alike they must either conclude for both which is a direct impossibility for then Contradictions should be both true or else which is most certain they conclude for neither and are not Demonstrations as you pretend for never any Demonstration could prove both parts of a Contradiction but meer Sophisms and Captions as the progress of our answer shall justifie Secondly It is so far from Protestants to grant the thing you speak of To wit that the controverted Doctrines of the Roman Church came from Apostolick Tradition that they verily believe should the Apostles now live again they would hardly be able to find amongst you the Doctrin which they taught by reason of abundance of trash and rubbish which you have laid upon it And lastly They pretend not that Fathers and Councils may err and they cannot nor that they were men and themselves are not but that you do most unjustly and vainly to father your inventions of Yesterday upon the Fathers and Councils Nephew I know that we Catholicks do reverence Traditions as much as Scripture it self neither do I see why we should be blamed for it for the words which Christ and his Apostles spake must needs be as infallible as those which were written True But still the question depends whether Christ and his Apostles did indeed speak those words which you pretend they did we say with Irenaeus Praeconiaverunt primum scripserunt postea What they preacht first that they wrote afterwards we say with Tertullian Ecclesias Apostoli condiderunt ipsi eis praedicando tam vivâ quod aiunt voce quam per Epistolas postea The Apostles founded the Churches by their Preaching to them first by word of mouth then after by their writings If you can prove the contrary do so and we yield but hitherto you do nothing Nephew And as for the keeping of it I see the Scripture it self is beholden to Tradition Gods providence presupposed for the integrity both of the letter and the sense Of the letter it is confest of the sense manifest For the sense being a distinct thing from the naked letter and rather fetcht out by force of consequence than in express and formal terms contained which is most true whether we speak of Protestant sense or the Catholick it belongeth rather to Tradition than express Text of Scripture That which you desire to conclude is That we must be beholden to Tradition for the sense of Scripture and your reason to conclude this is because the sense is fetcht out by force of consequence This of some places of Scripture is not true especially those which belong to faith and good manners which carry their meaning in their foreheads Of others it is true but nothing to the purpose in hand but rather directly against it For who will not say If I collect the sense of Scripture by Reason then I have it not from Authority that is unless I am mistaken If I fetch it out by force of Consequence then I am not beholden to Tradition for it But the letter of Scripture has been preserved by Tradition and therefore why should we not receive other things upon Tradition as well as Scripture I answer The Jews Tradition preserved the books of the Old Testament and why then doth our Saviour receive these upon their Tradition and yet condemn other things which they suggested as matters of Tradition If you say it was because these Traditions came not from Moses as they were pretended I say also that yours are only pretended and not proved to come from the Apostles Prove your Tradition of these Additions as well as you prove the Tradition of Scripture and assure your selves we then according to the injunction of the Council of Trent shall receive both with equal reverence Nephew As it may appear by the sense of these few words Hoc est corpus meum whether you take the Protestant or the Catholick sense For the same Text cannot have two contrary senses of it self but as they are fetcht out by force of Argument and therefore what sense hath best Tradition to shew for it self that 's the Truth This is neither Protestant nor Catholick sense but if we may speak the truth direct nonsense For what if the same Text cannot have contrary senses is there therefore no means but Tradition to determin which is the true sense What connexion or what relation is there between this Antecedent and this Consequent certainly they are meer strangers to one another and until they met by chance in this argument never saw each other before He that can find a third proposition to joyn them together in a good syllogism I profess unto you Erit mihi magnus Appollo But what if of these two contrary senses the one that is the Literal draw after it a long train of absurdities The other that is the Figurative do not so Have we not reason enough without advising with Tradition about the matter to reject the Literal sense and embrace the Spiritual S. Austin certainly thought we had For he gives us this direction in his Book de Doctrinâ Christianâ and the first and fittest Text that he could choose to exemplifie his Rule what think you is it even the Cousin-German to that which you have made choice of Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man c. Here saith he the Letter seems to command impiety Figura est ergo Therefore it is a Figure commanding to feed devoutly upon the Passion of our Lord and to lay up in our memory that Christ was crucified for us Uncle These particulars peradventure would require a further discussion and now I will take nothing but what is undeniable As this is to wit That what points are in Controversie betwixt us and Protestants we believe to have been delivered by Christ and his Apostles to our forefathers and by them delivered from hand to hand to our Fathers whom we know to have delivered them for such to us and to have received and believed them for such themselves Certainly though Ink and Paper cannot blush yet I dare say you were fain to rub your forehead over and over before you committed this to Writing Say what you list for my part I am so far from believing you that I verily believe you do not believe your selves when you pretend that you believe those points of your Doctrin which are in controversie to have been delivered to your Forefathers by Christ and his Apostles Is it possible that any sober man who has read the New Testament should believe that Christ and his Apostles taught
Christians That it was fit and lawful to deny the Laity the Sacramental Cup That it was expedient and for the edification of the Church that the Scripture should be read and the publick worship of God perpetually celebrated in a language which they understand not and to which for want of understanding unless S. Paul deceive us they cannot say Amen Or is it reasonable you should desire us to believe you when your own Men your own Champions your own Councils confess the contrary Does not the Council of Constance acknowledg plainly That the custom which they ratified was contrary to Christs institution and the custom of the Primitive Church and how then was it taught by Christ and his Apostles Do not Cajetan and Lyranus confess ingenuously that it follows evidently from S. Paul that it is more for edification that the Liturgy of the Church should be in such a Language as the Assistants understand The like Confession we have from others concerning Purgatory and Indulgences Others acknowledges the Apostles never taught Invocation of Saints Rhenanus says as much touching Auricular Confession It is evident from Peter Lombard that the Doctrin of Transubstantiation was not a point of Faith in his time From Pius Mirandula that the Infallibility of the Church was no Article much less a foundation of Faith in his time Bellarmine acknowledges that the Saints enjoying the Vision of God before the day of judgment was no Article of Faith in the time of Pope John the XXII But as the Proverb is when Thieves fall out true men recover their goods so how small and heartless the reverence of the Church of Rome is to ancient Tradition cannot be more plainly discovered than by the Quarrels which her Champions have amongst themselves especially about the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin The Patrons of the Negative opinion Cajetan Bannes Bandellus and Canus alledg for it First an whole army of Scriptures Councils and Fathers agreeing unanimously in this Doctrin That only Christ was free from sin Then an innumerous multitude of Fathers expresly affirming the very point in question not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries or Predecessors or indeed of their Successors for many ages All the Holy Fathers agree in this that the Virgin Mary was conceived in Original sin So * In part primum q. 1. Art 8. Dub. 5. Bannes Cajetan brings for it fifteen Fathers in his judgment irrefragable others produce two hundred Bandellus almost three hundred Thus †Disp 51. in Ep. ad Rom. Salmeron That all the Holy Fathers who have fallen upon the mention of this matter with one mouth affirm that the Blessed Virgin was conceived in Original sin So ‖ Lib. VII loc cap. 1. cap. 3. n. 9. Canus And after That the contrary Doctrin has neither Scripture nor Tradition for it For saith he no Traditions can be derived unto us but by the Bishops and Holy Fathers the Successors of the Apostles and it is certain that those ancient writers received it not from their predecessors Now against this stream of ancient Writers when the contrary new Doctrin came in and how it prevailed it will be worth the considering The First that set it abroach was Richardus de Sancto Victore as his country-man * Omnium expresse primus Christiferam virginem originalis noxae expertem tenuit De gestis Scotorum III. 12. Johannes Major testifies of him He was expresly the first that held the Virgin Mary free from Original sin or he was the first that expresly held so So after upon this false ground which had already taken deep root in the heart of Christians That it was impossible to give too much honour to her that was the Mother of the Saviour of the World like an ill weed it grew and spread apace So that in the Council of †Sess XXXVI Basil which Binius tells us was reprobated but in part to wit in the point of the Authority of Councils and in the deposition of Eugenius the Pope it was defined and declared to be Holy Doctrin and consonant to the worship of the Church to the Catholick Faith to right Reason and the Holy Scripture and to be approved held and embraced by all Catholicks and that it should be lawful for no man for the time to come to preach or teach the contrary The custom also of keeping the Feast of her Holy Conception which before was but particular to the Roman and some other Churches and it seems somewhat neglected was then renewed and made Universal and commanded to be celebrated sub nomine Conception is under the name of the Conception Binius in a Marginal note tells us indeed That they celebrate not this Feast in the Church of Rome by virtue of this Renovation cum esset Conciliabalum being this was the act not of a Council but of a Conventicle yet he himself in his Index stiles it the Oecomenical Council of Basil and tells that it was reprobated only in two points of which this is none Now whom shall we believe Binius in his Margin or Binius in his Index Yet in after-times Pope Sixtus IV. and Pius V. thought not this Decree so binding but that they might and did again put life into the condemned opinion giving liberty by their constitutions to all men to hold and maintain either part either that the Blessed Virgin was conceived with Original sin or was not Which Constitution of Sixtus IV. The * Sess V. Council of Trent renewed and confirmed But the wheel again turning and the Negative opinion prevailing The Affirmative was banisht first by a Decree of Paul V. from all publick Sermons Lectures Conclusions and all publick Acts whatsoever and since by another Decree of Gregory XV. from all private Writings and private Conferences But yet all this contents not the University of Paris They as Salmeron tells us admit none to the Degree of Doctor of Divinity unless they have first bound themselves by solemn Oath to maintain the Immaculate conception of the Blessed Virgin Now I beseech you Mr. R. consider your courses with some indifference First You take Authority upon you against the universal constant unopposed Tradition of the Church for many ages to set up as a rival a new upstart yesterdays invention and to give all men liberty to hold which they please So Pope Sixtus IV. The Council of Trent and Pius V. that is you make it lawful to hold the ancient Faith or not to hold it nay to hold the contrary This is high presumption But you stay not here For Secondly The ancient Doctrin you cloyster and hook up within the narrow close and dark rooms of the thoughts and brains of the defenders of it forbidding them upon pain of damnation so much as to whisper it in their private discourses and writings and in the mean time the New Doctrin you set at full liberty and give leave nay countenance and encouragement to all men to
Council of Trent so accordingly on the other side by the Religion of Protestants I do not understand the Doctrine of Luther or Calvin or Melancthon nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva nor the Catechism of Heidelburg nor the Articles of the Church of England no nor the Harmony of Protestant Confessions but that wherein they all agree and which they all subscribe with a greater Harmony as a perfect rule of their Faith and Actions that is The Bible The Bible I say The Bible only is the Religion of Protestants Whatsoever else they believe besides it and the plain irrefragable indubitable consequences of it well may they hold it as a matter of Opinion but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves nor require the belief of it of others without most high and most Schismatical presumption I for my part after a long and as I verily believe and hope impartial search of the true way to Eternal Happiness do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my Foot but upon this Rock only I see plainly and with mine own eyes that there are Popes against Popes Councils against Councils some Fathers against others the same Fathers against themselves a Consent of Fathers of one Age against a Consent of Fathers of another Age the Church of one Age against the Church of another Age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended but there are few or none to be found No Tradition but only of Scripture can derive it self from the Fountain but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an Age after Christ or that in such an Age it was not in In a word there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon This therefore and this only I have reason to believe This I will profess according to this I will live and for this if there be occasion I will not only willingly but even gladly lose my life though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me Propose me any thing out of this Book and require whether I believe it or no and seem it never so incomprehensible to humane reason I will subscribe it with Hand and Heart as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this God hath said so therefore it is true In other things I will take no mans liberty of judgment from him neither shall any man take mine from me I will think no man the worse man nor the worse Christian I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me And what measure I mete to others I expect from them again I am fully assured that God does not and therefore that men ought not to require any more of any man than this To believe the Scripture to be Gods word to endeavour to find the true sense of it and to live according to it 57. This is the Religion which I have chosen after a long deliberation and I am verily persuaded that I have chosen wisely much more wisely than if I had guided my self according to your Churches authority For the Scripture being all true I am secured by believing nothing else that I shall believe no falshood as matter of Faith And if I mistake the sense of Scripture and so fall into Error yet am I secure from any danger thereby if but your grounds be true because endeavouring to find the true sense of Scripture I cannot but hold my Error without pertinacy and be ready to forsake it when a more true and a more probable sense shall appear unto me And then all necessary truth being as I have proved plainly set down in Scripture I am certain by believing Scripture to believe all necessary Truth And he that does so if his life be answerable to his Faith how is it possible he should fail of Salvation 58. Besides whatsoever may be pretended to gain to your Church the credit of a Guide all that and much more may be said for the Scripture Hath your Church been Ancient The Scripture is more Ancient Is your Church a means to keep men at Unity So is the Scripture to keep those that believe it and will obey it in Unity of belief in matters necessary or very profitable and in Unity of Charity in points unnecessary Is your Church Universal for time or place Certainly the Scripture is more Universal For all the Christians in the World those I mean that in truth deserve this name do now and always have believed the Scripture to be the Word of God whereas only you say that you only are the Church of God and all Christians besides you deny it 59. Thirdly following the Scripture I follow that whereby you prove your Churches infallibility whereof were it not for Scripture what pretence could you have or what notion could we have and by so doing tacitely confess that your selves are surer of the Truth of the Scripture than of your Churches authority For we must be surer of the proof than of the thing proved otherwise it is no proof 60. Fourthly following the Scripture I follow that which must be true if your Church be true for your Church gives attestation to it Whereas if I follow your Church I must follow that which though Scripture be true may be false nay which if Scripture be true must be false because the Scripture testifies against it 61. Fifthly to follow the Scripture I have Gods express warrant and command and no colour of any prohibition But to believe your Church infallible I have no command at all much less an express command Nay I have reason to fear that I am prohibited to do so in these Words call no man Master on Earth They fell by infidelity Thou standest by Faith Be not high minded but fear The Spirit of truth The World cannot receive 62. Following your Church I must hold many things not only above reason but against it if any thing be against it whereas following the Scripture I shall believe many mysteries but no impossibilities many things above reason but nothing against it many things which had they not been revealed reason could never have discovered but nothing which by true reason may be confuted many things which reason cannot comprehend how they can be but nothing which reason can comprehend that it cannot be Nay I shall believe nothing which reason will not convince that I ought to believe it For reason will convince any man unless he be of a perverse mind that the Scripture is the Word of God And then no reason can be greater than this God says so therefore it is true 63. Following your Church I must hold many things which to any mans judgment that will give himself the liberty of judgment will seem much more plainly contradicted by Scripture than the infallibility of your Church appears to be confirmed by it and consequently must be so
Pictures That the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture about Freewil Predestination Universal Grace That all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works Inherent Justice Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledg Traditions Commandments possible to be kept That their thirty nine Articles are patient nay ambitious of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick That to Alledge the necessity of Wife and Children in these days is but a weak Plea for a Married Minister to compass a Benefice That Calvinism is at length accounted Heresie and little less than Treason That Men in Talk and Writing use willingly the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars That they are now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers which if they do with sincerity it is easie to tell what Doom will pass against Protestants seeing by the confession of Protestants the Fathers are on the Papists side which the Answerer to some so clearly demonstrated that they remained convinced In fine as the Samaritans saw in the Disciples countenances that they meant to go to Hierusalem so you pretend it is even legible in the Fore-heads of these Men that they are even going nay making hast to Rome Which scurrilous Libel void of all Truth Discretion and Honesty what effect it may have wrought what credit it may have gained with credulous Papists who dream what they desire and believe their own dreams or with ill-affected jealous and weak Protestants I cannot tell But one thing I dare boldly say that you your self did never believe it 21. The truth is they that run to extreams in opposition against you they that pull down your Infallibility and set up their own they that declaim against your Tyranny and exercise it themselves over others are the Adversaries that give you the greatest advantage and such as you love to deal with whereas upon Men of temper and moderation such as will oppose nothing because you maintain it but will draw as near to you that they may draw you to them as the Truth will suffer them such as require of Christians to believe only in Christ and will Damn no Man nor Doctrine without express and certain warrant from Gods Word upon such as these you know not how to fasten but if you chance to have conference with any such which yet as much as possibly you can you avoid and decline you are very speedily put to silence and see the indefensible weakness of your cause laid open to all Men. And this I verily believe is the true Reason that you thus rave and rage against them as foreseeing your time of prevailing or even of subsisting would be short if other adversaries gave you no more advantage than they do 22. In which perswasion also I am much confirmed by consideration of the Silliness and Poorness of those suggestions and partly of the apparent vanity and Falshood of them which you offer in justification of this wicked Calumny For what if out of Devotion towards God out of a desire that He should be Worshiped as in Spirit and Truth in the first place so also in the Beauty of Holiness what if out of fear that too much Simplicity and Nakedness in the publick Service of God may beget in the ordinary sort of Men a dull and stupid irreverence and out of hope that the outward State and Glory of it being well disposed and wisely moderated may ingender quicken encrease and nourish the inward reverence respect and devotion which is due unto Gods Sovereign Majesty and Power What if out of a persuasion and desire that Papists may be won over to us the sooner by the removing of this Scandal out of their way and out of an Holy Jealousie that the weaker sort of Protestants might be the easier seduced to them by the Magnificence and Pomp of their Church-service in case it were not removed I say what if out of these considerations the Governors of our Church more of late than formerly have set themselves to adorn and beautifie the places where Gods Honour dwells and to make them as Heavenly as they can with Earthly Ornaments Is this a sign that they are warping towards Popery Is this Devotion in the Church of England an argument that She is coming over to the Church of Rome Sir Edwin Sands I presume every Man will grant had no inclination that way yet He Forty Years since highly commended this part of Devotion in Papists and makes no scruple of proposing it to the imitation of Protestants little thinking that they who would follow his Counsel and endeavour to take away this disparagement of Protestants and this Glorying of Papists should have been censured for it as making way and inclining to Popery His Words to this purpose are excellent Words and because they shew plainly Survey of Religion that what is now practised was approved by Zealous Protestants so long ago I will here set them down 23. This one thing J cannot but highly commend in that sort and Order They spare nothing which either cost can perform in enriching or skill in adorning the Temple of God or to set out his Service with the greatest Pomp and magnificence that can be devised And although for the most part much Baseness and Childishness is predominant in the Masters and contrivers of their Ceremonies yet this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due unto Sovereign Majesty and Power And although I am not ignorant that many Men well reputed have embraced the thrifty Opinion of that Disciple who thought all to be wasted that was bestowed upon Christ in that sort and that it were much better bestowed upon him on the Poor yet with an eye perhaps that themselves would be his quarter Almoners notwithstanding I must confess it will never sink into my Heart that in proportion of Reason the allowance for furnishing out of the Service of God should be measured by the scant and strict rule of meer necessity a proportion so low that Nature to other most bountiful in matter of necessity hath not failed no not the most ignoble Creatures of the World and that for our selves no measure of heaping but the most we can get no rule of expence but to the utmost Pomp we lift Or that God himself had so inriched the lower parts of the World with such wonderfull varieties of Beauty and Glory thut they might serve only to the Pampering of Mortal Man in his Pride and that in the Service of the High Creator Lord and giver the outward Glory of whose higher Pallace may appear by the very Lamps that we see so far off Burning gloriously in it only the Simpler Baser Cheaper Less Noble Less Beautiful Less Glorious things should be imployed Especially seeing as in Princes Courts so in the Service
of God also this outward State and Glory being well disposed doth as I have said ingender quicken increase and nourish the inward reverence respect and Devotion which is due to so Sovereign Majesty and Power Which those whom the use thereof cannot persuade unto would easily by the want of it be brought to confess for which cause I crave leave to be excused by them herein if in Zeal to the common Lord of all I choose rather to commend the vertue of an Enemy than to flatter the vice and imbecility of a Friend And so much for this matter 24. Again what if the Names of the Priests and Altars so frequent in the Ancient Fathers though not in the now Popish sense be now resumed and more commonly used in England than of late times they were that so the colourable argument of their conformity which is but nominal with the Ancient Church and our inconformity which the Governors of the Church would not have so much as nominal may be taken away from them and the Church of England may be put in a State in this regard more justifiable against the Roman than formerly it was being hereby enabled to say to Papists whensoever these Names are objected we also use the Names of Priests and Altars and yet believe neither the Corporal Presence nor any Proper and propitiatory Sacrifice 25. What if Protestants be now put in mind that for exposition of Scripture they are bound by a Canon to follow the Ancient Fathers which whosoever doth with sincerity it is utterly impossible he should be a Papist And it is most falsly said by you that you know that to some Protestants I clcarly demonstrated or ever so much as undertook or wentabout to demonstrate the contrary What if the Centurists be censured somewhat roundly by a Protestant Divine for affirming that the keeping of the Lords day was a thing indifferent for two Hundren Years Is there in all this or any part of it any kind of proof of this scandalous Calumny 26. As for the points of Doctrine wherein you pretend that these Divines begin of late to falter and to comply with the Church of Rome upon a due examination of particulars it will presently appear First that part of them always have been and now are held constantly one way by them as the Authority of the Church in determining Controversies of Faith though not the Infallibility of it That there is Inherent Justice though so imperfect that it cannot justifie That there are Traditions though none necessary That Charity is to be preferred before knowledg That good Works are not properly meritorious And lastly that Faith alone justifies though that Faith justifies not which is alone And Secondly for the remainder that they every one of them have been Anciently without breach of Charity disputed among Protestants such for example were the Questions about the Popes being the Antichrist the Lawfulness of some kind of Prayers for the Dead the Estate of the Fathers Souls before Christs Ascension Freewil Predestination Universal Grace the Possibility of keeping Gods Commandments The use of Pictures in the Church Wherein that there hath been anciently diversity of opinion anongst Protestants it is justified to my hand by a witness with you beyond exception even your great Friend M. Brerely whose care exactness and fidelity you say in your Preface is so extraordinary great Consult him therefore Tract 3. Sect. 7. of his Apology And in the 9 10 11. 14. 24. 26. 27. 37. Subdivisions of that Section you shall see as in a mirror your self proved an egregious calumniator for charging Protestants with innovation and inclining to Popery under pretence forsooth that their Doctrine begins of late to be altered in these points Whereas M Brerely will inform you they have been anciently and even from the begininng of the Reformation controverted amongst them though perhaps the Stream and Current of their Doctors run one way and only some Brook or Rivulet of them the other 27. It remains now in the last place that I bring my self fairly off from your foul Aspersions that so my Person may not be any disparagement to the Cause nor any scandal to weak Christians 28. First upon Hearsay you charge me with a great number of false and impious Doctrines which I will not name in particular because I will not assist you so far in the spreading of my own undeserved defamation but whosoever teaches or holds them let him be Anathema The Summ of them all is this Nothing ought or can be certainly believed farther than it may be proved by evidence of Natural Reason where I conceive Natural reason it opposed to supernatural Revelation and whosoever holds so let him be Anathema And moreover to clear my self once for all from all imputations of this nature which charge me injuriously with denial of Supernatural Verities I profess sincerely that I believe all those Books of Scripture which the Church of England accounts Canonical to be the Infallible Word of God I believe all things evidently contained in them all things evidently or even probably deducible from them I acknowledge all that to be Heresie which by the Act of Parliament primo of Q. ELIZ. is declared to be so and only to be so And though in such points which may be held diversly of divers men salvâ Fidei compage I would not take any Mans Liberty from him and humbly beseech all men that they would not take mine from me Yet thus much I can say which I hope will satisfie any man of reason that whatsoever hath been held necessary to Salvation either by the Catholick Church of all ages or by the consent of Fathers measured by Vincentius Lyrinensis his rule or is held necessary either by the Catholick Church of this age or by the consent of Protestants or even by the Church of England that against the Socinians and all others whatsoever I do verily believe and embrace 29. But what are all Personal matters to the business in hand If it could be proved that Cardinal Bellarmine was indeed a Jew or that Cardinal Perron was an Atheist yet I presume you would not accept of this for an Answer to all their writings in defence of your Religion Let then my actions and intentions and opinions be what they will yet I hope truth is nevertheless Truth nor reason ever the less Reason because I speak it And therefore the Christian Reader knowing that his Salvation or Damnation depends upon his impartial and sincere judgment of these things will guard himself I hope from these Impostures and regard not the Person but the cause and the reasons of it not who speaks but what is spoken Which is all the favour I desire of him as knowing that I am desirous not to persuade him unless it be truth whereunto I persuade him 30. The last Accusation is That I answer out of Principles which Protestants themselves will profess to detest whch indeed were to the purpose
if it could be justified But besides that it is confuted by my whole Book and made ridiculous by the Approbations premised unto it it is very easie for me out of your own Mouth and Words to prove it a most injurious calumny For what one Conclusion is there in the whole Fabrick of my Discourse that is not naturally deducible out of this one Principle That all things necessary to Salvation are evidently contained in Scripture Or what one Conclusion almost of importance is there in your Book which is not by this one clearly confutable Grant this and it will presently follow in opposition to your first Conclusion and the argument of your first Ch that amongst men of different opinions touching the obscure and controverted Questions of Religion such as may with probability be disputed on both Sides and such as are the disputes of Protestants Good men and lovers of truth of all Sides may be saved because all necessary things being supposed evident concerning them with men so qualified there will be no difference There being no more certain sign that a Point is not evident than that honest and understanding and indifferent men and such as give themselves liberty of judgment after a mature consideration of the matter differ about it 31. Grant this and it will appear Secondly that the means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our understanding and which are to determine all Controversies in Faith necessary to be determined may be for any thing you have said to the contrary not a Church but the Scripture which contradicts the Doctrine of your Second Chapter 32. Grant this and the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental will appear very good and pertinent For those truths will be Fundamental which are evidently delivered in Scripture and commanded to be Preached to all men Those not Fundamental which are obscure And nothing will hinder but that the Catholick Church may Err in the latter kind of the said points because Truths not necessary to the Salvation cannot be necessary to the being of a Church and because it is not absolutely necessary that God should assist his Church any farther than to bring Her to Salvation neither will there be any necessity at all of any Infallible Guide either to consign unwritten Traditions or to declare the obscurities of the Faith Not for the former end be cause this Principle being granted true nothing unwritten can be necessary to be consigned Nor for the latter because nothing that is obscure can be necessary to be understood or not mistaken And so the discourse of your whole Third Chap will presently vanish 33. Fourthly for the Creed's containing the Fundamentals of simple belief though I see not how it may be deduced from this principle yet the granting of this plainly renders the whole dispute touching the Creed necessary For if all necessary things of all sorts whether of simple belief or practice be confessed to be clearly contained in Scripture what imports it whether those of one sort be contained in the Creed 34. Fifthly let this be granted and the immediate Corollary in opposition to your Fifth Chap. will be and must be That not Protestants for rejecting but the Church of Rome for imposing upon the Faith of Christians Doctrines unwritten and unnecessary and for disturbing the Churches Peace and dividing Unity for such matters is in a high degree presumptuous and Schismatical 35. Grant this sixthly and it will follow unavoidably that Protestants cannot possibly be Hereticks seeing they believe all things evidently contained in Scripture which are supposed to be all that is necessary to be believed and so your Sixth Chapter is clearly confuted 36. Grant this Lastly and it will be undoubtedly consequent in contradiction of your Seventh Chapter that no Man can shew more Charity to himself than by continuing a Protestant seeing Protestants are supposed to believe and therefore may accordingly practice at least by their Religion are not hindered from practising and performing all things necessary to Salvation 37. So that the position of this one Principle is the direct overthrow of your whole Book and therefore I needed not nor indeed have I made use of any other Now this principle which is not only the Corner-stone or chief Pillar but even the base and adequate Foundation of my Answer and which while it stands firm and unmovable cannot but be the supporter of my Book and the certain ruin of yours is so far from being according to your pretence detested by all Protestants that all Protestants whatsoever as you may see in their Harmony of Confessions unanimously profess and maintain it And you your self C. 6. § 30. plainly confess as much in saying The whole Edifice of the Faith of Protestants is setled on these two Principles These particular Books are Canonical Scripture And the sense and meaning of them is plain and evident at least in all points necessary to Salvation 38. And thus your Venom against me is in a manner spent saving only that there remain two little impertinences whereby you would disable me from being a fit advocate for the cause of Protestants The first because I refuse to subscribe the Artic. of the Ch. of England The second because I have set down in writing motives which sometime induced me to forsake Protestantism and hitherto have not answered them 39. By the former of which objections it should seem that either you conceive the 39 Articles the common Doctrine of all Protestants and if they be why have you so often upbraided them with-their many and great differences Or else that it is the peculiar defence of the Church of England and not the common cause of all Protestants which is here undertaken by me which are certainly very gross mistakes And yet why he who makes scruple of subscribing the truth of one or two Propositions may not yet be fit enough to maintain that those who do subscribe them are in a saveable condition I do not understand Now though I hold not the Doctrine of all Protestants absolutely true which with reason cannot be required of me while they hold contradictions yet I hold it free from all impiety and from all Error destructive of Salvation or in it self damnable And this I think in reason may sufficiently qualifie me for a maintainer of this assertion that Protestancy destroys not Salvation For the Church of England I am persuaded that the constant Doctrine of it is so pure and Orthodox that whosoever believes it and lives according to it undoubtedly he shall be saved and that there is no Error in it which may necessitate or warrant any Man to disturb the peace or renounce the Communion of it This in my opinion is all intended by Subscription and thus much if you conceive me not ready to subscribe your Charity I assure you is much mistaken 40. Your other Objection is yet more impertinent and frivolous than the former Unless perhaps it be a just
Sacramentalibus doct 3. fol. 5. and he shall be fully satisfied that I have done you no injury For many of you hold the Popes Proposal Ex Cathedra to be sufficient and obliging Some a Council without a Pope Some of neither of them severally but only both together Some not this neither in matter of manners which Bellarmine acknowledges and tells us it is all one in effect as if they denyed it sufficient in matter of Faith Some not in matter of Faith neither think this Proposal Infallible without the acceptation of the Church Universal Some deny the Infallibility of the Present Church and only make the Tradition of all Ages the Infallible Propounder Yet if you were agreed what and what only is the Infallible Propounder this would not satisfie us nor yet to say that All is Fundamental which is propounded sufficiently by him For though agreeing in this yet you might still disagree whether such or such a Doctrine were propounded or not or if propounded whether sufficiently or only insufficiently And it is so known a thing that in many points you do so that I assure my self you will not deny it Therefore we constantly urge and require a particular and perfect Inventory of all these Divine Revelations which you say are sufficiently propounded and that such a one to which all of your Church will subscribe as neither redundant nor deficient which when you give in with one hand you shall receive a particular Catalogue of such Points as I call Fundamental with the other Neither may you think me unreasonable in this demand seeing upon such a particular Catalogue of your sufficient Proposals as much depends as upon a particular Catalogue of our Fundamentals As for example Whether or no a man do not Err in some point defined and sufficiently proposed and whether or no those that differ among you differ in Fundamentals which if they do One Heaven by your own Rule cannot receive them All. Perhaps you will here complain that this is not to satisfie your demand but to avoid it and to put you off as the Areopagites did hard Causes ad diem longissimum and bid you come again a Hundred Years hence To deal truly I did so intend it should be Neither can you say my dealing with you is injurious seeing I require nothing of you but that what you require of others you should shew it possible to be done and just and necessary to be required For for my part I have great reason to suspect it is neither the one nor the other For whereas the Verities which are delivered in Scripture may be very fitly divided into such as were written because they were necessary to be believed Of which rank are those only which constitute and make up the Covenant between God and Man in Christ and then such as are necessary to be believed not in themselves but only by accident because they were written Of which rank are many matters of History of Prophecy of Mystery of Policy of Oeconomy and such like which are evidently not intrinsecal to the Covenant Now to sever exactly and punctally these Verities one from the other what is necessary in it self and antecedently to the writing from what is but only profitable in it self and necessary only because written is a business of extream great difficulty and extream little necessity For first he that will go about to distinguish especially in the story of our Saviour what was written because it was profitable from what was written because necessary shall find an intricate peice of business of it and almost impossible that he should be certain he hath done it when he hath done it And then it is apparently unnecessary to go about it seeing he that believes all certainly believes all that is necessary And he that doth not believe all I mean all the undoubted parts of the undoubted Books of Scripture can hardly believe any neither have we reason to believe he doth so So that that Protestants give you not a Catalogue of Fundamentals it is not from Tergiversation as you suspect who for want of Charity to them always suspect the worst but from Wisdom and Necessity For they may very easily Err in doing it because though all which is necessary be plain in Scripture yet all which is plain is not therefore written because it was necessary For what greater necessity was there that I should know S. Paul left his Cloak at Troas than those Worlds of Miracles which our Saviour did which were never written And when they had done it it had been to no purpose There being as matters now stand as great necessity of believing those truths of Scripture which are not Fundamental as those that are You see then what reason we have to decline this hard labour which you a rigid Task-master have here put upon us Yet instead of giving you a Catalogue of Fundamentals with which I dare say you are resolved before it come never to be satisfied I will say that to you which if you please may do you as much service and this it is That it is sufficient for any Mans Salvation that he believe the Scripture That he endeavour to believe it in the true sense of it as far as concerns his Duty And that he conform his Life unto it either by Obedience or Repentance He that does so and all Protestants according to the Doctamen of their Religion should do so may be secure that he cannot Err Fundamentally And they that do so cannot differ in Fundamentals So that notwithstanding their differences and your presumption the same Heaven may receive them All. 28. Ad 20. § Your Tenth and last request is to know distinctly what is the Doctrine of the Protestant English Church in these points and what my private Opinion Which shall be satisfied when the Church of England hath expressed her self in them or when you have told us what is the Doctrine of your Church in the Question of Predetermination or the Immaculate Conception 29. Ad 21. and 22. § These answers I hope in the judgment of indifferent men are satisfactory to your Questions though not to you For I have either answered them or given you a reason why I have not Neither for ought I can see have I flitted from things considered in their own nature to accidental or rare Circumstances But told you my Opinion plainly what I thought of your Errors in themselves and what as they were qualified or malignified with good or bad Circumstances CHAP. I. The ANSWER to the First CHAPTER Shewing that the Adversary grants the Old Question and proposeth a New one And that there is no reason why among Men of different Opinions and Communions one Side only can be saved 1. AD 1. § Protestants are here accused of uncharitableness while they accuse you of it and you make good this charge in this manner Protestants charge the Roman Church with many and great Errors judge reconciliation of their
all Let not the Weapons of your Warfare be Carnal such as are Massacres Treasons Persecutions and in a word all means either violent or fraudulent These and other things which the Scripture commands you do and then we shall willingly give you such Testimony as you deserve but till you do so to talk of estimation respect and reverence to the Scripture is nothing else but talk 2. For neither is that true which you pretend That we possess the Scripture from you or take it upon the integrity of your Custody but upon Universal Tradition of which you are but a little part Neither If it were true that Protestants acknowledged The integrity of it to have been guarded by your alone Custody were this any argument of your reverence towards them For first you might preserve them entire not for want of Will but of Power to corrupt them as it is a hard thing to Poyson the Sea And then having prevailed so far with men as either not to look at all into them or but only through such spectacles as you should please to make for them and to see nothing in them though as clear as the Sun if it any way made against you you might keep them entire without any thought or care to conform your Doctrine to them or reform it by them which were indeed to reverence the Scriptures but out of a persuasion that you could qualifie them well enough with your glosses and interpretations and make them sufficiently conformable to your present Doctrine at least in their judgment who were prepossessed with this persuasion that your Church was to judge of the sense of Scripture not to be judged by it 3. Whereas you say No cause imaginable could avert your will from giving the function of Supream and sole judge to holy Writ but that the thing is impossible and that by this means controversies are encreased and not ended What indifferent and unprejudiced man may not easily conceive another cause which I do not say does but certainly may prevert your Wills and avert your understandings from submitting your Religion and Church to a Tryal by Scripture I mean the great and apparent and unavoidable danger which by this means you would fall into of losing the Opinion which men have of your Infallibility and consequently your Power and Authority over mens Consciences and all that depends upon it so that though Diana of the Ephesians be cryed up yet it may be feared that with a great many among you though I censure or judge no man the other cause which wrought upon Demetrius and the Craftsmen may have with you also the more effectual though more secret influence and that is that by this craft we have our living by this craft I mean of keeping your Proselytes from an indifferent Tryal of your Religion by Scripture and making them yield up and captivate their judgment unto yours As for the impossibility of Scriptures being the sole Judge of Controversies that is the sole rule for man to judge them by for we mean nothing else you only affirm it without proof as if the thing were evident of it self And therefore I conceiving the contrary to be more evident might well content my self to deny it without refutation Yet I cannot but desire you to tell me If Scripture cannot be the Judge of any Controversie how shall that touching the Church and the Notes of it be determined And if it be the sole Judge of this one why may it not of others Why not of All Those only excepted wherein the Scripture it self is the subject of the Question which cannot be determined but by natural reason the only Principle beside Scripture which is common to Christians 4. Then for the Imputation of increasing contentions and not ending them Scripture is innocent of it as also this Opinion That Controversies are to be decided by Scripture For if men did really and sincerely submit their judgments to Scripture and that only and would require no more of any man but to do so it were impossible but that all Controversies touching things necessary and very profitable should be ended and if others were continued or increased it were no matter 5. In the next Words we have direct Boyes-play a thing given with one hand and taken away with the other an acknowledgment made in one line and retracted in the next We acknowledge say you Scripture to be a perfect rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule only we deny that it excludes unwritten Tradition As if you should have said we acknowledge it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing can be only we deny it to be as perfect a Rule as a writing may be Either therefore you must revoke your acknowledgment or retract your retractation of it for both cannot possibly stand together For if you will stand to what you have granted That Scripture is as perfect a Rule of Faith as a Writing can be you must then grant it both so Compleat that it needs no addition and so evident that it needs no interpretation For both these properties are requisite to a perfect rule and a Writing is capable of both these properties 6. That both these Properties are requisite to a perfect rule it is apparent Because that is not perfect in any kind which wants some parts belonging to its integrity As he is not a perfect man that wants any part appertaining to the Integrity of a Man and therefore that which wants any accession to make it a perfect rule of its self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or less perfect in its kind as it is more or less fit to attain the end for which it is ordained But nothing obscure or unevident while it is so is fit to regulate and direct them to whom it is so Therefore it is requisite also to a rule so far as it is a Rule to be evident otherwise indeed it is no rule because it cannot serve for direction I conclude therefore that both these properties are required to a perfect Rule both to be so compleat as to need no Addition and to be so evident as to need no Interpretation 7. Now that a Writing is capable of both these perfections it is so plain that I am even ashamed to prove it For he that denies it must say That something may be spoken which cannot be written For if such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may be delivered by word of mouth as you pretend it may and is and whatsoever is delivered by word of mouth may also be written then such a compleat and evident rule of Faith may also be written If you will have more light added to the Sun answer me then to these Questions Whether your Church can set down in writing all these which she pretends to be Divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written
be drawn out of uncertain Principles by thirteen or fourteen more uncertain consequences He that can believe it let him All these Reasons I hope will convince you that though we have and have great necessity of Judges in Civil and Criminal causes yet you may not conclude from thence that there is any publick authorized Judge to determine Controversies in Religion nor any necessity there should be any 24. But the Scripture stands in need of some watchful and unerring eye to guard it by means of whose assured vigilancy we may undoubtedly receive it sincere and pure Very true but this is no other than the watchful Eye of Divine providence the goodness whereof will never suffer that the Scriptures should be depraved and corrupted but that in them should be always extant a conspicuous and plain way to Eternal happiness Neither can any thing be more palpably unconsistent with his goodness than to suffer Scripture to be undiscernably corrupted in any matter of moment and yet to exact of men the belief of those verities which without their fault or knowledge or possibility of prevention were defaced out of them So that God requiring of men to believe Scripture in its purity ingages himself to see it preserved in sufficient purity and you need not fear but he will satisfie his ingagement You say we can have no assurance of this but your Churches Vigilancy But if we had no other we were in a hard case for who could then assure us that your Church has been so vigilant as to guard Scripture from any the least alteration There being various Lections in the ancient Copies of your Bibles what security can your new raised Office of Assurance give us that that reading is true which you now receive and that false which you reject Certainly they that anciently received and made use of these divers Copies were not all guarded by the Churches vigilancy from having their Scripture altered from the purity of the Original in many places For of different readings it is not in nature impossible that all should be false but more than one cannot possibly be true Yet the want of such a protection was no hindrance to their Salvation and why then shall the having of it be necessary for ours But then this Vigilancy of your Church what means have we to be ascertain'd of it First the thing is not evident of it self which is evident because many do not believe it Neither can any thing be pretended to give evidence to it but only some places of Scripture of whose incorruption more than any other what is it that can secure me If you say the Churches vigilancy you are in a Circle proving the Scriptures uncorrupted by the Churches vigilancy and the Churches vigilancy by the incorruption of some places of Scripture and again the incorruption of those places by the Churches vigilancy If you name any other means than that means which secures me of the Scriptures incorruption in those places will also serve to assure me of the same in other places For my part abstracting from Divine Providence which will never suffer the way to Heaven to be blocked up or made invisible I know no other means I mean no other natural and rational means to be assured hereof than I have that any other Book is uncorrupted For though I have a greater degree of rational and humane Assurance of that than this in regard of divers considerations which make it more credible That the Scripture hath been preserved from any material alteration yet my assurance of both is of the same kind and condition both Moral assurances and neither Physical or Mathematical 25. To the next argument the Reply is obvious That though we do not believe the Books of Scripture to be Canonical because they say so For other Books that are not Canonical may say they are and those that are so may say nothing of it yet we believe not this upon the Authority of your Church but upon the Credibility of Universal Tradition which is a thing Credible of it self and therefore fit to be rested on whereas the Authority of your Church is not so And therefore your rest thereon is not rational but meerly voluntary I might as well rest upon the judgment of the next man I meet or upon a chance of a Lottery for it For by this means I only know I might Err but by relying on you I know I should Err. But yet to return you one suppose for another suppose I should for this and all other things submit to her direction how could she assure me that I should not be mis-led by doing so She pretends indeed infallibility herein but how can she assure us that she hath it What by Scriptures That you say cannot assure us of its own Infallibility and therefore not of yours What then by Reason That you say may deceive in other things and why not in this How then will she assure us hereof By saying so Of this very affirmation there will remain the same Question still How it can prove it self to be infallibly true Neither can there be an end of the like multiplied Demands till we rest in something evident of it self which demonstrates to the World that this Church is infallible And seeing there is no such Rock for the Infallibility of this Church to be setled on it must of necessity like the Island of Delos flote up and down for ever And yet upon this point according to Papists all other Controversies in Faith depend 26. To the 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 § The sum and substance of the Ten next Paragraphs is this That it appears by the Confessions of some Protestants and the Contentions of others that the Questions about the Canon of Scripture what it is and about the Various reading and Translations of it which is true and which not are not to be determined by Scripture and therefore that all Controversies of Religion are not decidable by Scripture 27. To which I have already answered saying That when Scripture is affirmed to be the rule by which all Controversies of Religion are to be decided Those are to be excepted out of this generality which are concerning the Scripture it self For as that general saying of Scripture He hath put all things under his Feet is most true though yet S. Paul tells us That when it is said he hath put all things under him it is manifest he is excepted who did put all things under him So when we say that all Controversies of Religion are decidable by the Scripture it is manifest to all but Cavillers that we do and must except from this generality those which are touching the Scripture it self Just as a Merchant shewing a Ship of his own may say all my substance is in this Ship and yet never intended to deny that his Ship is part of his substance nor yet to say that his Ship is in it self Or as a man may
by Have you been trained up in Schools of subtilty and cannot you see a great difference between these two We receive the Books of the New Testament as they are commonly received and we receive those that are commonly received because they are so To say this were indeed to make being commonly received a Rule or Reason to know the Canon by But to say the former doth no more make it a Rule than you should make the Church of England the rule of your receiving them if you should say as you may The Books of the New Testament we receive for Canonical as they are received by the Church of England 45. You demand upon what infallible ground we agree with Luther against you in some and with you against Luther in others And I also demand upon what infallible ground you hold your Canon and agree neither with us nor Luther For sure your differing from us both is of it self no more apparently reasonable than our agreeing with you in part and in part with Luther If you say your Churches Infallibility is your ground I demand again some Infallible ground both for the Churches Infallibility and for this that Yours is the Church and shall never cease multiplying demands upon demands until you settle me upon a Rock I mean give such an answer whose Truth is so evident that it needs no further evidence If you say This is Universal Tradition I reply your Churches Infallibility is not built upon it and that the Canon of Scripture as we receive it is For we do not profess our selves so absolutely and undoubtedly certain neither do we urge others to be so of those Books which have been doubted as of those that never have 46. The Conclusion of your Tenth § is That the Divinity of a writing cannot be known from it self alone but by some extrinsecal Authority Which you need not prove for no Wise Man denies it But then this authority is that of Universal Tradition not of your Church For to me it is altogether as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the Gospel of Saint Matthew is the Word of God as that all which your Church says is true 47. That Believers of the Scripture by considering the Divine matter the excellent precepts the glorious promises contained in it may be confirmed in their Faith of the Scriptures Divine Authority and that among other inducements and inforcements hereunto internal arguments have their place and force certainly no man of understandeng can deny For my part I profess if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great I should want one main pillar of my Faith and for want of it I fear should be much staggered in it Now this and nothing else did the Doctor mean in saying The Believer sees by that glorious beam of Divine light which shines in Scripture and by many internal Arguments that the Scripture is of Divine Authority By this saith he he sees it that is he is moved to and strengthened in his belief of it and by this partly not wholly by this not alone but with the concurrence of other Arguments He that will quarrel with him for saying so must find fault with the Master of the Sentences and all his Scholars for they all say the same 48. In the next Division out of your liberality you will suppose that Scripture like to a corporal light is by it self alone able to determine and move our understanding to assent yet notwithstanding this supposal Faith still you say must go before Scripture because as the light is visible only to those that have eyes so the Scripture only to those that have the Eye of Faith But to my understanding if Scripture do move and determine our Understanding to assent then the Scripture and its moving must be before this assent as the cause must be before its own effect now this very assent is nothing else but Faith and Faith nothing else than the Understandings assent And therefore upon this supposal Faith doth and must originally proceed from Scripture as the effect from its proper cause and the influence and efficacy of Scripture is to be presupposed before the assent of Faith unto which it moves and determines and consequently if this supposition of yours were true there should need no other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith Scripture it self being able as here you suppose to determine and move the understanding to assent that is to believe them and the Verities contained in them Neither is this to say that the Eyes with which we see are made by the light by which we see For you are mistaken much if you conceive that in this comparison Faith answers to the Eye But if you will not pervert it the Analogy must stand thus Scripture must answer to light The Eye of the Soul that is the Understanding or the faculty of assenting to the bodily Eye And lastly assenting or believing to the Act of seeing As therefore the light determining the Eye to see though it presupposes the Eye which it determines as every Action doth the Object on which it is imployed yet it self is presupposed and antecedent to the Act of seeing as the cause is always to its effect So if you will suppose that Scripture like light moves the understanding to assent The Understanding that 's the Eye and Objection which it works must be before this influence upon it But the Assent that is the belief whereof the Scripture moves and the understanding is moved which answers to the Act of seeing must come after For if it did assent already to what purpose should the Scripture do that which was done before Nay indeed how were it possible it should be so any more than a Father can beget a Son that he hath already Or an Architect build an House that is built already Or than this very world can be made again before it be unmade Transubstantiation indeed is fruitful of such Monsters But they that have not sworn themselves to the defence of Error will easily perceive that Jam factum facere and Factum infectum facere are equally impossible But I digress 49. The close of this Paragraph is a fit cover for such a Dish There you tell us That if there must be some other means precedent to Scripture to beget Faith this can be no other than the Church By the Church we know you do and must understand the Roman Church so that in effect you say no man can have Faith but he must be moved to it by your Churches Authority And that is to say that the King and all other Protestants to whom you write though they verily think they are Christians and believe the Gospel because they assent to the truth of it and would willingly Die for it yet indeed are Infidels and believe nothing The Scripture tells us The Heart of man
knoweth no Man but the Spirit of Man which is in him And who are you to take upon you to make us believe that we do not believe what we know we do But if I may think verily that I believe the Scripture and yet not believe it how know you that you believe the Roman Church I am as verily and as strongly persuaded that I believe the Scripture as you are that you believe the Church And if I may be deceived why may not you Again what more ridiculous and against sense and experience than to affirm That there are not Millions amongst you and us that believe upon no other reason than their Education and the authority of their Parents and Teachers and the Opinion they have of them The tenderness of the subject and aptness to receive impressions supplying the defect and imperfection of the Agent And will you proscribe from Heaven all those believers of your own Creed who do indeed lay the Foundation of their Faith for I cannot call it by any other name no deeper than upon the Authority of their Father or Master or Parish Priest Certainly if these have no true Faith your Church is very full of Infidels Suppose Xaverius by the Holiness of his Life had converted some Indians to Christianity who could for so I will suppose have no knowledge of your Church but from him and therefore must last of all build their Faith of the Church upon their Opinion of Xaverius Do these remain as very Pagans after their Conversion as they were before Are they brought to assent in their Souls and obey in their Lives the Gospel of Christ only to be Tantalized and not saved and not benefited but deluded by it because forsooth it is a man and not the Church that begets Faith in them What if their motive to believe be not in reason sufficient Do they therefore not believe what they do believe because they do it upon sufficient motives They choose the Faith imprudently parhaps but yet they do choose it Unless you will have us believe that that which is done is not done because it is not done upon good reason which is to say that never any man living ever did a foolish action But yet I know not why the Authority of one Holy Man which apparently has no ends upon me joyned with the goodness of the Christian Faith might not be a far greater and more rational motive to me to embrace Christianity than any I can have to continue in Paganism And therefore for shame if not for Love of Truth you must recant this fancy when you write again and suffer true Faith to be many times where your Churches Infallibility has no hand in the begetting of it And be content to tell us hereafter that we believe not enough and not go about to persuade us we believe nothing for fear with telling us what we know to be manifestly false you should gain only this Not to be believed when you speak truth Some pretty Sophisms you may happily bring us to make us believe we believe nothing but Wise men know that Reason against Experience is alwaies Sophistical And therefore as he that could not answer Zeno's subtilties against the existence of Motion could yet confute them by doing that which he pretended could not be done So if you should give me a hundred Arguments to persuade me because I do not believe Transubstantiation I do not believe in God and the Knots of them I could not unty yet I should cut them in pieces with doing that and knowing that I do so which you pretend I cannot do 53. It is superfluous for you to prove out of S. Athanasius and Austine that we must receive the sacred Canon upon the credit of Gods Church Understanding by Church as here you explain your self The Credit of Tradition And that not the Tradition of the Present Church which we pretend may deviate from the Ancient but such a Tradidition which involves an evidence of Fact and from Hand to Hand from Age to Age bringing us up to the times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour Himself commeth to be confirmed by all these Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Thus you Now prove the Canon of Scripture which you receive by such Tradition and we will allow it Prove your whole Doctrine or the Infallibility of your Church by such a Tradition and we will yield to you in all things Take the alledged places of S. Athanasius and S. Austin in this sense which is your own and they will not press us any thing at all We will say with Athanasius That only four Gospels are to be received because the Canons of the Holy and Catholick Church understand of all Ages since the perfection of the Canon have so determined 54. We will subscribe to S. Austin and say That we also would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Catholick Church did move us meaning by the Church the Church of all Ages and that succession of Christians which takes in Christ himself and his Apostles Neither would Zwinglius have needed to cry out upon this saying had he conceived as you now do that by the Catholick Church the Church of all Ages fince Christ was to be understood As for the Council of Carthage it may speak not of such Books only as were certainly Canonical and for the regulating of Faith but also of those which were only profitable and lawful to be read in the Church Which in England is a very slender Argument that the Book is Canonical where every body knows that Apocryphal Books are read as well as Canonical But howsoever if you understand by Fathers not only their immediate Fathers and Predecessors in the Gospel but the succession of them from the Apostles they are right in the Thesis that whatsoever is received from these Fathers as Canonical is to be so esteemed Though in the application of it to this or that particular Book they may happily Err and think that Book received as Canonical which was only received as Profitable to be read and think that Book received alwaies and by all which was rejected by some and doubted of by many 55. But we cannot be certain in what Language the Scriptures remain uncorrupted I HIL Not so certain I grant as of that which we can demonstrate But certain enough morally certain as certain as the nature of the thing will bear So certain we may be and God requires no more We may be as certain as S. Austin was who in his second Book of Baptism against the Donatists c. 3. plainly implies the Scripture might possibly be corrupted He means sure in matters of little moment such as concertain not the Covenant between God and Man But thus he saith The same S. Austin in his 48. Epist clearly intimates a Neque enim sic posuit integritas atque notitia literarum quamlibet illustris Episcopi
so careless of preserving the integrity of the Copies of her Translation as to suffer infinite variety of Readings to come in to them without keeping any one perfect Copy which might have been as the Standard and Polycletus his Canon to correct the rest by So that which was the true reading and which the false it was utterly undiscernable but only by comparing them with the Originals which also she pretends to be corrupted 84. Ad 17. § In this Division you charge us with great uncertainty concerning the true meaning of Scripture Which hath been answered already by saying That if you speak of plain places and in such all things necessary are contained we are sufficiently certain of the meaning of them neither need they any Interpreter If of obscure and difficult places we confess we are uncertain of the sense of many of them But then we say there is no necessity we should be certain For if Gods Will had been we should have understood him more certainly he would have spoken more plainly And we say besides that as we are uncertain so are You too which he that doubts of let him read your Commentators upon the Bible and observe their various and dissonant Interpretations and he shall in this point need no further satisfaction 85. Obj. But seeing there are contentions among us we are taught by nature and Scripture and experience so you tell us out of M. Hooker to seek for the ending of them by submiting unto some Judicical sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand Answ This is very true Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such a means of ending all our Controversies if we could tell where to find it But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the World a judicial definitive obliging Sentence in Controversies of Religion but only such a Man or such a society of Men as is authorized thereto by God And besides we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any Man or Society of Men any such authority And therefore though we wish heartily that all Controversies were ended as we do that all sin were abolisht yet we have little hope of the one or the other till the World be ended And in the mean while think it best to content our selves with and to persuade others unto an Unity of Charity and mutual Toleration seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to Unity of Opinion Neither do we think it fit to argue thus To us it seems convenient there should be one Judge of all Controversies for the whole World therefore God has appointed one But more modest and more reasonable to collect thus God hath appointed no such Judge of Controversies therefore though it seems to us convenient there should be one yet it is not so Or though it were convenient for us to have one yet it hath pleased God for Reasons best known to himself not to allow us this convenience 87. Ad 18. § That the true Interpretation of the Scripture ought to be received from the Church you need not prove for it is very easily granted by them who profess themselves very ready to receive all Truths much more the true sense of Scripture not only from the Church but from any Society of men nay from any man whatsoever 88. That the Churches Interpretation of Scripture is always true that is it which you would have said and that in some sense may be also admitted viz. If you speak of that Church which before you speak of in the 14. § that is of the Church of all Ages since the Apostles Upon the Tradition of which Church you there told us We were to receive the Scripture and to believe it to be the Word of God For there you teach us that our Faith of Scripture depends on a Principle which requires no other proof And that such is Tradition which from Hand to Hand and Age to Age bring us up to the Times and Persons of the Apostles and our Saviour himself cometh to be confirmed by all those Miracles and other Arguments whereby they convinced their Doctrine to be true Wherefore the Ancient Fathers avouch that we must receive the Sacred Scripture upon the Tradition of this Church The Tradition then of this Church you say must teach us what is Scripture and we are willing to believe it And now if you make it good unto us that the same Tradition down from the Apostles hath delivered from Age to Age and from Hand to Hand any Interpretation of any Scripture we are ready to embrace that also But now if you will argue thus The Church in one sense tells us what is Scripture and we believe therefore if the Church taken in another sense tell us this or that is the meaning of the Scripture we are to believe that also this is too transparent Sophistry to take any but those that are willing to be taken 89. If there be any Traditive Interpretation of Scripture produce it and prove it to be so and we embrace it But the Tradition of all Ages is one thing and the authority of the present Church much more of the Roman Church which is but a Part and a corrupted Part of the Catholick Church is another And therefore though we are ready to receive both Scripture and the sense of Scripture upon the authority of Original Tradition yet we receive neither the one nor the other upon the Authority of your Church 90. First for the Scripture how can we receive them upon the Authority of your Church who hold now those Books to be Canonical which formerly you rejected from the Canon I instance in the Book of Macchabees and the Epistle to the Hebrews The first of these you held not to be Canonical in S. Gregories time or else he was no member of your Church for it is apparent a See Greg. Mor. l. 19. c. 13. He held otherwise The second you rejected from the Canon in S. Hieroms time as it is evident out of b Thus he testifies Com. in Esa c. 6. in these words Vnde Paulus Apost in Epist ad Heb. quam Latina consuetudo non recipit and again in c. 8. in these In Ep. quae ad Hebraeos scribitur â—licet eam â—aâ—ina Consuetudo inter Canonicas Scripturas non recipiat c. many places of his Works 91. If you say which is all you can that Hierom spake this of the particular Roman Church not of the Roman Catholick Church I answer there was none such in his time None that was called so Secondly what he spake of the Roman Church must be true of all other Churches if your Doctrine of the necessity of the Conformity of all other Churches to that Church were then Catholick Doctrine Now then choose whether you will either that the particular Roman Church was not then believed to be the Mistris of all other Churches
not go about this noble work presently If he should not How shall we know that the calling of the Council of Trent was not upon his own voluntary motion or upon humane importunity and suggestion and not upon the motion of the Holy Ghost And consequently how shall we know whether he were assistant to it or no seeing he assists none but what he himself moves to And whether he did move the Pope to call this Council is a secret thing which we cannot possibly know nor perhaps the Pope himself 96. If you say your meaning is only That the Church shall be infallibly guarded from giving any false sense of any Scripture and not infalliblyassisted positively to give the true sense of all Scripture I put to you your own Question why should we believe the Holy Ghost will stay there Or why may we not as well think he will stay at the first thing that is in teaching the Church what Books be true Scripture For if the Holy Ghosts assistance be promised to all things profitable then will he be with them infallibly not only to guard them from all Errors but to guide them to all profitable truths such as the true senses of all Scripture would be Neither could he stay there but defend them irresistibly from all Vices Nor there neither but infuse into them irresistibly all Vertues for all these things would be much for the benefit of Christians If you say he cannot do this without taking away their free-will in living I say neither can he necessitate men to believe aright without taking away their free-will in believing and in professing their belief 97. Obj. To the place of S. Austin I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Contr. ep Fund c. 5. Answ I answer That not the Authority of the present Church much less of a Part of it as the Roman Church is was that which alone moved Saint Austin to believe the Gospel but the perpetual Tradition of the Church of all Ages Which you your self have taught us to be the only Principle by which the Scripture is proved and which it self needs no proof and to which you have referred this very saying of S. Austin Ego vero Evangelio non crederem nisi c. p. 55. And in the next place which you cite out of his Book De Util. Cred. c. 14. he shews that his motives to believe were Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity And seeing this Tradition this Consent this Antiquity did as fully and powerfully move him not to believe Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel the Christian Tradition being as full against Manichaeus as it was for the Gospel therefore he did well to conclude upon these grounds that he had as much reason to disbelieve Manichaeus as to believe the Gospel Now if you can truly say that the same Fame Celebrity Consent Antiquity that the same Universal and Original Tradition lies against Luther and Calvin as did against Manichaeus you may do well to apply the Argument against them otherwise it will be to little purpose to substitute their names instead of Manichaeus unless you can shew the things agrees to them as well as him 98. If you say that S. Austin speaks here of the Authority of the Present Church abstracting from consent with the Ancient and therefore you seeing you have the present Church on your side against Luther and Calvin as S. Austin against Manichaeus may urge the same words against them which S. Austin did against him 99. I answer First that it is a vain presumption of yours that the Catholick Church is of your side Secondly that if S. Austin speak here of that present Church which moved him to believe the Gospel without consideration of the Antiquity of it and its both Personal and Doctrinal succession from the Apostles His Argument will be like a Buskin that will serve any leg It will serve to keep an Arrian or a Grecian from being a Roman Catholick as well as a Catholick from being an Arrian or a Grecian In as much as the Arrians and Grecians did pretend to the Title of Catholicks and the Church as much as the Papists now do If then you should have come to an Ancient Goth or Vandal whom the Arrians converted to Christianity and should have moved him to your Religion might he not say the very same words to you as S. Austin to the Manichaeans I would not believe the Gospel unless the Authority of the Church did move me Them therefore whom I obeyed saying believe the Gospel why should I not obey saying to me do not believe the Homoousians Choose what thou pleasest If thou shalt say believe the Arrians they warn me not to give any Credit to you If therefore I believe them I cannot believe thee If thou say do not believe the Arrians thou shalt not do well to force me to the Faith of the Homoousians because by the Preaching of the Arrians I believed the Gospel it self If you say you did well to believe them commending the Gospel but you did not well to believe them discommending the Homoousians Doest thou think me so very foolish that without any reason at all I should believe what thou wilt and not believe what thou wilt not It were easie to put these words into the mouth of a Grecian Abyssine Georgian or any other of any Religion And I pray bethink your selves what you would say to such a one in such a case and imagine that we say the very same to you 101. And whereas you say S. Austin may seem to have spoken Prophetically against Protestants when he said Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them before all others by whose Authority I was moved to believe that Christ Commanded any good thing Answ I answer Until you can shew that Protestants believe that Christ commanded any good thing that is That they believe the truth of Christian Religion upon the Authority of the Church of Rome this place must be wholly impertinent to your purpose which is to make Protestants believe your Church to be the infallible expounder of Scriptures and judge of Controversies nay rather is it not directly against your purpose For why may not a member of the Church of England who received his Baptism Education and Faith from the Ministry of this Church say just so to you as S. Austin here to the Manichees Why should I not most diligently inquire what Christ commanded of them the Church of England before all others by whose authority I was moved to believe that Christ commandded any good thing Can you F. or K. or whosoever you are better declare to me what he said whom I would not have thought to have been or to be if the belief thereof had been recommended by you to me This therefore that Christ Jesus did those miracles and taught that Doctrine which is contained evidently in the undoubted Books of the New
Testament I believed by Fame strengthened with Celebrity and Consent even of those which in other things are at infinite variance one with another and lastly by Antiquity which gives an Universal and a constant attestation to them But every one may see that you so few in comparison of all those upon whose consent we ground our belief of Scripture so turbulent that you damn all to the Fire and to Hell that any way differ from you that you profess it is lawful for you to use violence and power whensoever you can have it for the planting of your own Doctrine and the extirpation of the contrary lastly so new in many of your Doctrines as in the lawfulness and expedience of debarring the Laity the Sacramental Cup the lawfulness and expedience of your Latine Service Transubstantiation Indulgences Purgatory the Popes infallibility his Authority over Kings c so new I say in comparison of the undoubted Books of Scripture which evidently containeth or rather is our Religion and the sole and adequate object of our Faith I say every one may see that you so few so turbulent so new can produce nothing deserving authority with wise and considerate men What madness is this Believe them the consent of Christians which are now and have been ever since Christ in the World that we ought to believe Christ but learn of us what Christ said which contradict and damn all other parts of Christendom Why I beseech you Surely if they were not at all and could not teach me any thing I would more easily persuade my self that I were not to believe in Christ than that I should learn any thing concerning him from any other than them by whom I believed him at least than that I should learn what his Religion was from you who have wronged so exceedingly his Miracles and his Doctrine by forging so evidently so many false Miracles for the Confirmation of your new Doctrine which might give us just occasion had we no other assurance of them but your Authority to suspect the true ones Who with forging so many false Stories and false Authors have taken a fair way to make the Faith of all Stories questionable if we had no other ground for our belief of them but your Authority who have brought in Doctrines plainly and directly contrary to that which you confess to be the Word of Christ and which for the most part make either for the honour or profit of the Teachers of them which if there were no difference between the Christian and the Roman Church would be very apt to make suspicious men believe that Christian Religion was a humane invention taught by some cunning Impostors only to make themselves rich and powerful who make a profession of corrupting all sorts of Authors a ready course to make it justly questionable whether any remain uncorrupted For if you take this Authority upon you upon the six Ages last past how shall we know that the Church of that time did not Usurp the same Authority upon the Authors of the six last Ages before them and so upwards until we come to Christ himself Whose questioned Doctrines none of them came from the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition but have insinuated themselves into the Streams by little and little some in one Age and some in another some more Anciently some more lately and some yet are Embrio's yet hatching and in the Shell as the Popes Infallibility the Blessed Virgins immaculate conception the Popes power over the Temporalities of Kings the Doctrine of Predetermination c. all which yet are or in time may be imposed upon Christians under the Title of Original and Apostolick Tradition and that with that necessity that they are told they were as good believe nothing at all as not believe these things to have come from the Apostles which they know to have been brought in but yesterday which whether it be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus with themselves I am told that I were as good believe nothing at all as believe some points which the Church teaches me and not others and some things which she teaches to be Ancient and Certain I plainly see to be New and False therefore I will believe nothing at all Whether I say the foresaid grounds be not a ready and likely way to make men conclude thus and whether this conclusion be not too often made in Italy and Spain and France and in England too I leave it to the judgment of those that have Wisdom and Experience Seeing therefore the Roman Church is so far from being a sufficient Foundation for our belief in Christ that it is in sundry regards a dangerous temptation against it why should I not much rather conclude Seeing we receive not the knowledg of Christ and Scriptures from the Church of Rome neither from her must we take his Doctrine or the Interpretation of Scripture 102. Ad § 19. In this number this Argument is contained The Judge of Controversies ought to be intelligible to learned and unlearned The Scripture is not so and the Church is so Therefore the Church is the Judge and not the Scripture 103. To this I answer As to be understandible is a condition requisite to a Judge so is not that alone sufficient to make a Judge otherwise you might make your self Judge of Controversies by arguing The Scripture is not intelligible by all but I am therefore I am Judge of Controversies If you say your intent was to conclude against the Scripture and not for the Church I demand why then but to delude the simple with Sopistry did you say in the close of this § Such is the Church and the Scripture is not such but that you would leave it to them to infer in the end which indeed was more than you undertook in the beginning Therefore the Church is Judge and the Scripture not I say Secondly that you still run upon a false supposition that God hath appointed some Judge of all Controversies that may happen among Christians about the sense of obscure Texts of Scripture whereas he has left every one to his liberty herein in those words of S. Paul Quisque abundet in sensu suo c. I say Thirdly Whereas some Protestants make the Scripture Judge of Controversies that they have the Authority of Fathers to warrant their manner of speaking as of * Contra Parmen l. 5. in Prin. Optatus 104. But speaking truly and properly the Scripture is not a Judge nor cannot be but only a sufficient Rule for those to judge by that believe it to be the word of God as the Church of England and the Church of Rome both do what they are to believe and what they are not to believe I say sufficiently perfect and sufficiently intellible in things necessary to all that have understanding whether they be learned or unlearned And my reason hereof is convincing and demonstrative because nothing is necessary to be believed
Church you say is Infallible I am very doubtful of it How shall I know it The Scripture you say affirms it as in the 59. of Esau My spirit that is in thee c. Well I confess I find there these words but I am still doubtful whether they be spoken of the Church of Christ and if they be whether they mean as you pretend You say the Church says so which is infallible Yea but that is the Question and therefore not to be begged but proved Neither is it so evident as to need no proof otherwise why brought you this Text to prove it Nor is it of such a strange quality above all other Propositions as to be able to prove it self What then remains but that you say Reasons drawn out of the Circumstances of the Text will evince that this is the sense of it Perhaps they will But Reasons cannot convince me unless I judge of them by my Reason and for every man or woman to relie on that in the choice of their Religion and in the interpreting of Scripture you say is a horrible absurdity and therefore must neither make use of your own in this matter nor desire me to make use of it 119. But Universal Tradition you say and so do I too is of it self credible and that has in all Ages taught the Churches Infallibility with full consent If it have I am ready to believe it But that it has I hope you would not have me take upon your word for that were to build my self upon the Church and the Church upon You. Let then the Tradition appear for a secret Tradition is somewhat like a silent Thunder You will perhaps produce for the confirmation of it some sayings of some Fathers who in every Age taught this Doctrine as Gualterius in his Chronology undertakes to do but with so ill success that I heard an able Man of your Religion profess that in the first three Centuries there was not one Authority pertinent but how will you warrant that none of them teach the contrary Again how shall I be assured that the places have indeed this sense in them Seeing there is not one Father for 500 years after Christ that does say in plain terms The Church of Rome is Infallible What shall we believe your Church that this is their meaning But this will be again to go into the Circle which made us giddy before To prove the Church Infallible because Tradition says so Tradition to say so because the Fathers say so The Fathers to say so because the Church says so which is Infallible Yea but reason will shew this to be the meaning of them Yes if we may use our Reason and rely upon it Otherwise as light shews nothing to the Blind or to him that uses not his eyes so reason cannot prove any thing to him that either has not or uses not his reason to judge of them 120. Thus you have excluded your self from all proof of your Churches Infallibility from Scripture or Tradition And if you fly lastly to Reason it self for succour may not it justly say to you as Jephte said to his Brethren Ye have cast me out and banished me and do you now come to me for succour But if there be no certainty in Reason how shall I be assured of the certainty of those which you aledge for this purpose Either I may judge of them or not if not why do you propose them If I may why do you say I may not and make it such a monstrous absurdity That men in the choice of their Religion should make use of their Reason which yet without all question none but unreasonable men can deny to have been the chiefest end why Reason was given them 121. Ad § 22. An Heretick he is saith D. Potter who opposeth any truth which to be a Divine Revelation he is convinced in Conscience by any means whatsoever Be it by a Preacher or Lay-man be it by reading Scripture or hearing them read And from hence you infer that he makes all these safe propounders of Faith A most strange and illogical deduction For may not a private man by evident reason convince another man that such or such a Doctrine is Divine Revelation and yet though he be a true propounder in this point yet propound another thing falsely and without proof and consequently not be a safe propounder in every point Your Preachers in their Sermons do they not propose to men Divine Revelations and do they not sometimes convince men in Conscience by evident proof from Scripture that the things they speak are Divine Revelations And whosoever being thus convinced should oppose this Divine Revelation should he not be an Heretick according to your own grounds for calling Gods own Truth into question And would you think your self well dealt with if I should collect from hence that you make every Preacher a safe that is an infallible Propounder of Faith Be the means of Proposal what it will sufficient or insufficient worthy of credit or not worthy though it were if it were possible the barking of a Dog or the chirping of a Bird or were it the Discourse of the Devil himself yet if I be I will not say convinced but persuaded though falsly that it is a Divine Revelation and shall deny to believe it I shall be a formal though not a material Heretick For he that believes though falsly any thing to be Divine Revelation and yet will not believe it to be true must of necessity believe God to be false which according to your own Doctrine is the formality of an Heretick 122. And how it can be any way advantagious to Civil Government that men without warrant from God should Usurp a Tyranny over other mens Consciences and prescribe unto them without reason and sometimes against reason what they shall believe you must shew us plainer if you desire we should believe For to say Verily I do not see but that it must be so is no good demonstration For whereas you say that a Man may be a passionate and Seditious Creature from whence you would have us infer that he may make use of his interpretation to satisfie his Passion and raise Sedition There were some colour in this consequence if we as you do made private men infallible interpreters for others for then indeed they might lead Disciples after them and use them as Instruments for their vile purposes But when we say they can only interpret for themselves what harm they can do by their passionate or seditious interpretations but only endanger both their Temporal and Eternal happiness I cannot imagine For though we deny the Pope or Church of Rome to be an infallible Judge yet we do not deny but that there are Judges which may proceed with certainty enough against all Seditious Persons such as draw men to disobedience either against Church or State as well as against Rebels and Traytors and Thieves and Murderers 123. Ad §
a crime is common to us with you as I have proved above and the difference is not that we are choosers and you not choosers but that we as we conceive choose wisely but you being wilfully blind choose to follow those that are so too not remembring what our Saviour hath told you when the Blind lead the Blind both shall fall into the Ditch But then again I must tell you you have done ill to confound together Judges and infallible Judges unless you will say either that we have no Judges in our Courts of Civil judicature or that they are all Infallible 154. Thus have we cast off your dilemma and broken both the Horns of it But now my retortion lies heavy upon you and will not be turned off For first you content not your selves with a moral certainty of the things you believe nor with such a degree of assurance of them as is sufficient to produce obedience to the condition of the new Covenant which is all that we require Gods Spirit if he please may Work more and certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence But neither God doth nor man may require of us as our Duty to give a greater assent to the conclusion than the premises deserve to build an infallible Faith upon Motives that are only highly credible and not infallible as it were a great and heavy building upon a Foundation that hath not strength proportionable But though God require not of us such unreasonable things You do and tell men they cannot be saved unless they believe your Proposals with an infallible Faith To which end they must believe also your Propounder your Church to be simply Infallible Now how is it possible for them to give a rational assent to the Churches infallibility unless they have some infallible means to know that she is infallible Neither can they infallibly know the infallibility of this means but by some other and so on for ever unless they can dig so deep as to come at length to the Rock that is to settle all upon something evident of it self which is not so much as pretended But the last resolution of all is into Motives which indeed upon examination will scarce appear probable but are not so much as avouched to be any more than very credible For example if I ask you why you do believe Transubstantiation What can you answer but because it is a Revelation of the prime Verity I demand again how can you assure your self or me of that being ready to embrace it if it may appear to be so And what can you say but that you know it to be so because the Church says so which is Infallible If I ask what mean You by your Church You can tell me nothing but the Company of Christians which adhere to the Pope I demand then lastly Why should I believe this Company to be the Infallible Propounder of Divine Revelation And then you tell me that there are many Motives to induce a Man to this belief But are these Motives lastly infallible No say you but very credible Well let them pass for such because now we have not leisure to examine them Yet methinks seeing the Motives to believe the Churches infallibility are only very credible it should also be but as credible that your Church is Infallible and as credible and no more perhaps somewhat less that her Proposals particularly Transubstantiation are Divine Revelations And methinks You should require only a Moral and Modest assent to them and not a Divine as you call it and Infallible Faith But then of these Motives to the Churches Infallibility I hope you will give us leave to consider and judge whether they be indeed Motives and sufficient or whether they be not Motiues at all or not sufficient or whether these Motives or Inducements to your Church be not impeached and opposed with Compulsives and enforcements from it or lastly whether these Motives which You use be not indeed only Motives to Christianity and not to Popery give me leave for distinction sake to call your Religion so If we may not judge of these things how can my judgment be moved with that which comes not within its cognizance If I may then at least I am to be a Judge of all these Controversies 1. Whether every one of these Motives be indeed a Motive to any Church 2. If to some whether to Yours 3. If to Yours whether sufficient or insufficient 4. Whether other Societies have not as many and as great Motives to draw me to them 5. Whether I have not greater reason to believe you do Err than that you cannot And now Sir I pray let me trouble You with a few more Questions Am I a sufficient Judge of these Controversies or no If of these why shall I stay here why not of others Why not of all Nay doth not the true examining of these few contain and lay upon me the examination of all What other Motives to your Church have you but your Notes of it Bellarmine gives some 14. or 15. And one of these fifteen contains in it the examination of all Controversies and not only so but of all uncontroverted Doctrines For how shall I or can I know the Church of Romes conformity with the Ancient Church unless I know first what the Ancient Church did hold and then what the Church of Rome doth hold and lastly whether they be conformable or if in my judgment they seem not conformable I am then to think the Church of Rome not to be the Church for want of the Note which she pretends is proper and perpetual to it So that for ought I can see Judges we are and must be of all sides every one for himself and God for us all 155. § 26. C. M. I ask whether this Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a Fundamental point of Faith or no I HIL I answer This assertion that Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith if it be taken properly is neither a Fundamental nor Unfundamental point of Faith nor no point of Faith at all but a plain falshood It is not a Judge of Controversies but a Rule to Judge them by and that not an absolutely perfect Rule but as perfect as a written Rule can be which must always need something else which is either evidently true or evidently credible to give attestation to it and that in this case is Universal Tradition So that Universal Tradition is the Rule to judge all Controversies by But then because nothing besides Scripture comes to us with as full a stream of Tradition as Scripture Scripture alone and no unwritten Doctrine nor no Infallibility of any Church having attestation from Tradition truly Universal for this reason we conceive as the Apostles persons while they were living were the only Judges of Controversies so their Writings now they are dead are the only Rule for us to judge them by There being
Books and not the Authority of the Books and therefore if a man should profess the not believing of these I should have reason to fear he did not believe that But there is not always an equal necessity for the belief of those things for the belief whereof there is an equal reason We have I believe as great reason to believe there was such a man as Henry the VIII King of England as that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate yet this is necessary to be believed and that is not so So that if any man should doubt of or disbelieve that it were most unreasonably done of him yet it were no mortal sin nor no sin at all God having no where commanded men under pain of damnation to believe all which reason induceth them to believe Therefore as an Executor that should perform the whole Will of the dead should fully satisfie the Law though he did not believe that Parchment to be his written Will which indeed is so So I believe that he who believes all the particular doctrines which integrate Christianity and lives according to them should be saved though he neither believed nor knew that the Gospels were written by the Evangelists or the Epistles by the Apostles 160. This discourse whether it be rational and concluding or no I submit to better judgment But sure I am that the corollary which you draw from this position that this point is not Fundamental is very inconsequent that is that we are uncertain of the truth of it because we say the whole Church much more particular Churches and private men may err in points not Fundamental A pretty Sophism depending upon this Principle that whosoever possibly may err he cannot be certain that he doth not err And upon this ground what shall hinder me from concluding that seeing you also hold that neither particular Churches nor private men are Infallible even in Fundamentals that even the Fundamentals of Christianity remain to you uncertain A Judge may possibly err in judgment can he therefore never have assurance that he hath judged right A Traveller may possibly mistake his way must I therefore be doubtful whether I am in the right way from my Hall to my Chamber Or can our London Carrier have no certainty in the middle of the day when he is sober and in his wits that he is in the way to London These you see are right worthy consequences and yet they are as like your own as an Egg to an Egg or Milk to Milk 163. Ad § 27. C. M. S. Austin plainly affirms that to oppose the Churches definitions is to resist God himself speaking of the Controversie of Rebaptization de Unit. Eccl. cap. 22. where he saith that Christ bears witness to his Church and whosoever refuseth to follow the practice of the Church doth resist our Saviour himself who by his testimony recommends the Church c. I HIL I Answer First that in many things you will not be tried by S. Augustines judgment nor submit to his authority not concerning Appeals to Rome not concerning Transubstantiation not touching the use and worshiping of Images not concerning the State of Saints souls before the day of judgment not touching the Virgin Maries freedom from actual and original sin not touching the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants not touching the damning Infants to Hell that die without Baptism not touching the knowledge of Saints departed not touching Purgatory not touching the fallibility of Councils even general Councils not touching perfection and perspicuity of Scripture in matters necessary to Salvation not touching Auricular Confession not touching the half Communion not touching Prayers in an unknown tongue In these things I say you will not stand to S. Austines judgment and therefore can with no reason or equity require us to do so in this matter 2. To S. Augustine in heat of disputation against the Donatists and ransacking all places for arguments against them we oppose S. Austine out of this heat delivering the doctrine of Christianity calmly and moderately where he says In iis quae apertè posita sunt in sacris Scriptur is omnia ea reperiuntur quae continent fidem moresque vivendi 3. We say he speaks not of the Roman but the Catholick Church of far greater extent and therefore of far greater credit and authority than the Roman Church 4 He speaks of a point not expressed but yet not contradicted by Scripture whereas the errors we charge you with are contradicted by Scripture 5. He says not that Christ has recommended the Church to us for an Infallible definer of all emergent controversies but for a credible witness of Ancient Tradition Whosoever therefore refuseth to follow the practice of the Church understand of all places and ages though he be thought to resist our Saviour what is that to us who cast off no practiecs of the Church but such as are evidently post-nate to the time of the Apostles and plainly contrary to the practice of former and purer times Lastly it is evident and even to impudence it self undeniable that upon this ground of believing all things taught by the present Church as taught by Christ Error was held for example the necessity of the Eucharist for Infants and that in S. Austines time and that by S. Austine himself and therefore without controversie this is no certain ground for truth which may support falshood as well as truth 164. To the Argument wherewith you conclude I Answer That though the visible Church shall always without fail propose so much of Gods revelation as is sufficient to bring men to Heaven for otherwise it will not be the visible Church yet it may sometimes add to this revelation things superfluous nay hurtful nay in themselves damnable though not unpardonable and sometimes take from it things very expedient and profitable and therefore it is possible without sin to resist in some things the Visible Church of Christ But you press us farther and demand what Visible Church was extant when Luther began whether it were the Roman or Protestant Church As if it must of necessity either be Protestant or Roman or Roman of necessity if it were not Protestant yet this is the most usual fallacy of all your disputers by some specious Arguments to perswade weak men that the Church of Protestants cannot be the true Church and thence to infer that without doubt it must be the Roman But why may not the Roman be content to be a part of it and the Grecian another And if one must be the whole why not the Greek Church as well as the Roman there being not one Note of your Church which agrees not to her as well as to your own unless it be that she is poor and oppressed by the Turk and you are in glory and splendor CHAP. III. The ANSWER to the Third CHAPTER Wherein it is maintained That the distinction of points Fundamental and not Fundamental is in this present Controversie
good and pertinent And that the Catholick Church may err in the latter kind of the said points 1. This distinction is imployed by Protestants to many purposes and therefore if it be pertinent and good as they understand and apply it the whole Edifice built thereon must be either firm and stable or if it be not it cannot be for any default in this distinction 2. If you object to them discords in matter of faith without any means of agreement They will answer you that they want not good and solid means of agreement in matters necessary to salvation viz. Their belief of all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture which who so believes must of necessity believe all things necessary to salvation and their mutual suffering one another to abound in their several sense in matters not plainly and undoubtedly there delivered And for their agreement in all Controversies of Religion either they have means to agree about them or not If you say they have why did you before deny it If they have not means why do you find fault with them for not agreeing 3. You will say that their fault is that by remaining Protestants they exclude themselves from the means of agreement which you have and which by submission to your Church they might have also But if you have means of agreement the more shame for you that you still disagree For who I pray is more inexcusably guilty for the omission of any duty they that either have no means to do it or else know of none they have which puts them in the same case as if they had none or they which profess to have an easie and expedite means to do it and yet still leave it undone If you had been blind saith our Saviour to the Pharisees you had had no sin but now you say you see therefore your sin remaineth 4. If you say you do agree in matters of Faith I say this is ridiculous for you define matters of Faith to be those wherein you agree So that to say you agree in matters of Faith is to say you agree in those things wherein you do agree And do not Protestants do so likewise Do not they agree in those things wherein they do agree 5. But you are all agreed that only those things wherein you do agree are matters of Faith And Protestants if they were wise would do so too Sure I am they have reason enough to do so seeing all of them agree with explicite Faith in all those things which are plainly and undoubtedly delivered in Scripture that is in all which God hath plainly revealed and with an implicite Faith in that sense of the whole Scripture which God intended whatsoever it was Secondly That which you pretend is false for else why do some of you hold it against Faith to take or allow the Oath of Allegiance others as learned and honest as they that it is against Faith and unlawful to refuse it and allow the refusing of it Why do some of you hold that it is de Fide that the Pope is Head of the Church by divine Law others the contrary Some hold it de Fide that the Blessed Virgin was free from Actual sin others that it is not so Some that the Popes indirect power over Princes in temporalties is de Fide Others the contrary Some that it is Universal Tradition and consequently de Fide that the Virgin Mary was conceived in original sin others the contrary 6. But what shall we say now if you be not agreed touching your pretended means of agreement how then can you pretend to Unity either Actual or Potential more than Protestants may Some of you say the Pope alone without a Council may determine all Controversies But others deny it Some that a General Council without a Pope may do so Others deny this Some Both in conjunction are infallible determiners Others again deny this Lastly some among you hold the Acceptation of the decrees of Councils by the Universal Church to be the only way to decide Controversies which others deny by denying the Church to be Infallible And indeed what way of ending Cotroversies can this be when either part may pretend that they are part of the Church and they receive not the decree therefore the whole Church hath not received it 7. Again Means of agreeing differences are either Rational and well grounded and of Gods appointment or voluntary and taken up at the pleasure of men Means of the former nature we say you have as little as we For where hath God appointed that the Pope or a Council or a Council confirmed by the Pope or that Society of Christians which adhere to him shall be the Infallible Judge of Controversies I desire you to shew any one of these Assertions plainly set down in Scripture as in all Reason a thing of this nature should be or at least delivered with a full consent of Fathers or at least taught in plain terms by any one Father for four Hundred years after Christ And if you cannot do this as I am sure you cannot and yet will still be obtruding your selves upon us for our Judges who will not cry out perisse frontem de rebus that you have lost all modesty 8. But then for means of the other kind such as yours are we have great abundance of them For besides all the ways which you have devised which we may make use of when we please we have a great many more which you yet have never thought of for which we have as good colour out of Scripture as you have for yours For first we could if we would try it by Lots whose Doctrine is true and whose false And you know it is written a Prov. 16.33 The Lot is cast into the Lap but the whole disposition of it is from the Lord. 2. We could refer them to the King and you know it is written b Prov. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the Lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgment c Prov. 21.1 The Heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. We could refer the matter to any assembly of Christians assembled in the name of Christ seeing it is written where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them We may refer it to any Priest because it is written d Mat. 2.7 The Priests Lips shall preserve knowledge f Mat. 25.2 The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses Chair c. To any Preacher of the Gospel to any Pastor or Doctor for to every one of them Christ hath promised g Mat. 28.20 he will he with them alwaies even to the end of the World and of every one of them it is said h Luk. 10.16 He that heareth you heareth me c. To any Bishop or Prelate for it is written i Heb. 13.17 Obey your Prelates and again k Eph.
And he more likely to err than any other because he may err and thinks he cannot and because he conceives the Spirit absolutely promised to the succession of Bishops of which many have been notoriously and confessedly wicked men Men of the World whereas this Spirit is the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because he seeth him not neither knoweth him 38. Ad § 16. To this Paragraph which pretends to shew that if the Catholick Church be fallible in some points it follows that no true Protestant can with assurance believe the Universal Church in any one point of Doctrin I Answer Though the Church being not Infallible I cannot believe her in every thing she says yet I can and must believe her in every thing she proves either by Scripture Reason or Universal Tradition be it Fundamental or be it not Fundamental This you say we cannot in points not Fundamental because in such we believe she may err But this I know we can because though she may err in some things yet she does not err in what she proves though it be not Fundamental Again you say we cannot do it in Fundamentals because we must know what points be Fundamental before we go to learn of her Not so but I must learn of the Church or of some part of the Church or I cannot know any thing Fundamental or not Fundamental For how can I come to know that there was such a Man as Christ that he taught such Doctrin that he and his Apostles did such miracles in confirmation of it that the Scripture is Gods Word unless I be taught it So then the Church is though not a certain Foundation and proof of my Faith yet a necessary introduction to it 39. But the Churches infallible direction extending only to Fundamentals unless I know them before I go to learn of her I may be rather deluded than instructed by her The reason and connexion of this consequence I fear neither I nor you do well understand And besides I must tell you you are too bold in taking that which no man grants you that the Church is an infallible directer in Fundamentals For if she were so then must we not only learn Fundamentals of her but also learn of her what is fundamental and take all for fundamental which she delivers to be such In the performance whereof if I knew any one Church to be infallible I would quickly be of that Church But good Sir you must needs do us this favor to be so acute as to distinguish between being infallible in fundamentals and being an infallible guide in fundamentals That there shall be always a Church infallible in fundamentals we easily grant for it comes to no more but this that there shall be always a Church But that there shall be always such a Church which is an infallible Guide in fundamentals this we deny For this cannot be without setling a known infallibility in some one known society of Christians as the Greek or the Roman or some other Church by adhering to which Guide men might be guided to believe aright in all Fundamentals A man that were destitute of all means of communicating his thoughts to others might yet in himself and to himself be infallible but he could not be a Guide to others A man or a Church that were invisible so that none could know how to repair to it for direction could not be an infallible guide and yet he might be in himself infallible You see then there is a wide difference between these two and therefore I must beseech you not to confound them nor to take the one for the other 40. But they that know what points are Fundamental otherwise than by the Churches authority learn not of the Church Yes they may learn of the Church that the Scripture is the word of God and from the Scripture that such points are fundamental others are not so and consequently learn even of the Church even of your Church that all is not fundamental nay all is not true which the Church teacheth to be so Neither do I see what hinders but a man may learn of a Church how to confute the Errors of that Church which taught him as well as of my Master in Physick or the Mathematicks I may learn those rules and principles by which I may confute my Masters erroneous conclusions 41. But you ask If the Church be not an infallible teacher why are we commanded to hear to seek to obey the Church I Answer For commands to seek the Church I have not yet met with any and I believe you if you were to shew them would be your self to seek But yet if you could produce some such we might seek the Church to many good purposes without supposing her a Guide infallible And then for hearing and obeying the Church I would fain know whether none may be heard and obeyed but those that are infallible Whether particular Churches Governors Pastors Parents be not to be heard and obeyed Or whether all these be Infallible I wonder you will thrust upon us so often these worn-out Objections without taking notice of their Answers 42. Your Argument from S. Austine's first place is a fallacy A dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter If the whole Church practise any of these things matters of order and decency for such only there he speaks of to dispute whether that ought to be done is insolent madness And from hence you infer If the whole Church practise any thing to dispute whether it ought to be done is insolent madness As if there were no difference between any thing and any of these things Or as if I might not esteem it pride and folly to contradict and disturb the Church for matter of order pertaining to the time and place and other circumstances of Gods worship and yet account it neither pride nor folly to go about to reform some errors which the Church hath suffered to come in and to vitiate the very substance of Gods worship It was a practice of the whole Church in Saint Austines time and esteemed an Apostolick Tradition even by Saint Austine himself That the Eucharist should be administred to Infants Tell me Sir I beseech you Had it been insolent madness to dispute against this practice or had it not If it had how insolent and mad are you that have not only disputed against it but utterly abolished it If it had not then as I say you must understand Saint Austines words not simply of all things but as indeed he himself restrained them of these things of matter of Order Decency and Uniformity 44. Obj. But the Doctrines that Infants are to be baptized and those that are baptized by Hereticks are not to be rebaptized are neither of them to be proved by Scripture And yet according to S. Austine they are true Doctrins and we may be certain of them upon the Authority of the Church which we could not be unless the
believing them for every obligation ceases when it becomes impossible Who can doubt but the Primitive Christians to whom the Epistles of the Apostles were written either of themselves understood or were instructed by the Apostles touching the sense of the obscure places of them These Traditive interpretations had they been written and dispersed as the Scriptures were had without question been preserved as the Scriptures are But to shew how excellent a Keeper of the Tradition the Church of Rome hath been or even the Catholick Church for want of writing they are all lost nay were all lost within a few Ages after Christ So that if we consult the Ancient Interpreters we shall hardly find any two of them agree about the sense of any one of them Cardinal Perron in his discourse of Traditions having alledged this place for them Hold the Traditions c. tell us we must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist to the Thessalonians yet were afterwards witten and in other Books of Scripture because it is upon occasion of Tradition touching the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist which was never written that he lays this injunction upon them to hold the Traditions Well let us grant this Argument good and concluding and that the Church of the Thessalonians or the Catholick Church for what S. Paul writ to one Church he writ to all were to hold some unwritten Traditions and among the rest what was the cause of the hinderance of the coming of Antichrist But what if they did not perform their duty in this point but suffered this Tradition to be lost out of the memory of the Church Shall we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to Salvation to be lost and he has suffered this Tradition to be lost therefore the knowledge or belief of it though it were a profitable thing yet it was not necessary I hope you will not challenge such authority over us as to oblige us to impossibilities to do that which you cannot do your selves It is therefore requisite that you make this command possible to be obeyed before you require obedience unto it Are you able then to instruct us so well as to be fit to say unto us Now ye know what withholdeth Or do you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can ye or dare you say this or this was this hindrance which S. Paul here meant and all men under pain of damnation are to believe it Or if you cannot as I am certain you cannot go then and Vaunt your Church for the only Watchful Faithful Infallible Keeper of the Apostles Traditions when here this very Tradition which here in particular was deposited with the Thessalonians and the Premitive Church you have utterly lost it so that there is no Footstep or print of it remaining which with Divine Faith we may rely upon Blessed therefore be the goodness of God who seeing that what was not written was in such danger to be lost took order that what was necessary should be written S. Chrysostoms counsel therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy of belief we are willing to obey And if you can of any thing make it appear that it is Tradition we will seek no farther But this we say withal that we are persuaded we cannot make this appear in any thing but only the Canon of Scripture and that there is nothing now extant and to be known by us which can put in so good Plea to be the unwritten Word of God as the unquestioned Books of Canonical Scripture to be the written Word of God 47. You conclude this Paragraph with a sentence of S. Austin's who says The Church doth not approve nor dissemble nor do these things which are against Faith or good Life and from hence you conclude that it never hath done so nor never can do so But though the argument hold in Logick à non posse ad non esse yet I never heard that it would hold back again à non esse ad non posse The Church cannot do this therefore it does it not follows with good consequence but the Church does not this therefore it shall never do it nor can never do it this I believe will hardly follow In the Epistle next before to the same Januarius writing of the same matter he hath these words It remains that the thing you inquire of must be of that third kind of things which are different in divers places Let every one therefore do that which he finds done in the Church to which he comes for none of them is against Faith or good manners And why do you not infer from hence that no particular Church can bring up any Custom that is against Faith or good manners Certainly this consequence has as good reason for it as the former If a man say of the Church of England what S. Austin of the Church that she neither approves nor dissembles nor does any thing against Faith or good manners would you collect presently that this man did either make or think the Church of England infallible Furthermore it is observable out of this and the former Epistle that this Church which did not as S. Austin according to you thought approve or dissemble or do any thing against Faith or good Life did yet tolerate and dissemble vain superstitions and humane presumptions and suffer all places to be full of them and to be exacted as nay more severely than the commandments of God himself This S. Austin himself professeth in this very Epistle This saith he I do infinitely grieve at that many most wholesom precepts of the Divine Scripture are little regarded and in the mean time all is so full of so many presumptions that he is more grievously found fault with who during his octaves toucheth the Earth with his naked Foot than he that shall bury his Soul in Drunkenness Of these he says that they were neither contained in Scripture decreed by Councils nor corroborated by the Custom of the Universal Church And though not against Faith yet unprofitable burdens of Christian Liberty which made the condition of the Jews more tolerable than that of Christians And therefore he professes of them Approbare non possum I cannot approve them And ubi facultas tribuitur resecanda existimo I think they are to be cut off wheresoever we have power Yet so deeply were they rooted and spread so far through the indiscreet devotion of the People always more prone to superstion than true Piety and through the connivence of the Governors who should have strangled them at their Birth that himself though he grieved at them and could not allow them yet for fear of offence he durst not speak against them multa hujusmodi propter nonnullarum vel sanctarum vel turbulentarum personarum scandala devitanda liberius improbare non audeo Many of these things for fear of
scandalizing many holy persons or provoking those that are turbulent I dare not freely disallow Nay the Catholick Church it self did see and dissemble and tolerate them for these are the things of which he presently says after the Church of God and you will have him speak of the true Catholick Church placed between Chaffe and Tares tolerates many things Which was directly against the command of the Holy Spirit given the Church by S. Paul To stand fast in that liberty wherewith Christ hath made her free and not to suffer her self to be brought in bondage to these survile burdens Our Saviour tells the Scribes and Pharisees that in vain they Worshiped God teaching for Doctrines mens Commandments For that laying aside the Commandments of God they held the Traditions of men as the washing of Pots and Cups and many other such like things Certainly that which S. Austin complains of as the general fault of Christians of his time was parallel to this Multa saith he quae in divinis libris saluberrima praecepta sunt minus curantur This I suppose I may very well render in our Saviours Words The commandments of God are laid aside and then tam multis presumptionibus sic plena sunt omnia all things or all places are so full of so many presumptions and those exacted with such severity nay with Tyranny that he was more severely censured who in the time of his Octaves touched the Earth with his naked Feet than he which drowned and buried his Soul in Drink Certainly if this be not to teach for Doctrines mens Commandments I know not what is And therefore these superstitious Christians might be said to Worship God in vain as well as Scribes and Pharisees And yet great variety of superstitions of this kind were then already spread over the Church being different in divers place This is plain from these Words of S. Austin of them diversorum locorum diversis moribus innumerabiliter variantur and apparent because the stream of them was grown so violent that he durst not oppose it liberiùs improbare non audeo I dare not freely speak against them So that to say the Catholick Church tolerated all this and for fear of offence durst not abrogate or condemn it is to say if we Judge rightly of it that the Church with silence and connivence generally tolerated Christians to worship God in vain Now how this tolerating of Universal superstition in the Church can consist with the assistance and direction of Gods omnipotent spirit to guard it from superstition and with the accomplishment of that pretended Prophesie of the Church I have set Watchmen upon thy Walls O Jerusalem which shall never hold their peace Day nor Night besides how these superstitions being thus nourished cherished and strengthned by the practice of the most and urged with great violence upon others as the commandments of God and but fearfully opposed or contradicted by any might in time take such deep Root and spread their Branches so far as to pass for Universal Customs of the Church he that does not see sees nothing Especially considering the catching and contagious nature of this sin and how fast ill Weeds spread and how true and experimented that rule is of the Historian Exempla non confistunt ubi incipiunt sed quamlibet in tenuem recepta tramitem latissimè evagandi sibi faciunt potestatem Examples do not stay where they begin but tho at first pent up in a narrow Tract they make themselves room for extravagant wandrings Nay that some such superstition had not already even in S. Austins time prevailed so far as to be Consuetudine universae Ecclesiae roboratum confirmed by the Custom of the Universal Church who can doubt that considers that the practice of Commiunicating Infants had even then got the credit and authority not only of an Universal Custom but also of an Apostolick Tradition 49. But now after all this ado what if S. Austin says not this which is pretended of the Church viz. That she neither approves nor dissembles nor practises any thing against Faith or good Life but only of good men in the Church Certainly though some Copies read as you would have it yet you should not have dissembled that others read the place otherwise vix Ecclesia multa tolerat tamen quae sunt contra Fidem bonam vitam nec bonus approbat c. The Church tolerates many things and yet what is against Faith or good Life a good man will neither approve nor dissemble nor practise 50. Ad § 17. That Abraham begat Isaacc is a point very far from being Fundamental and yet I hope you will grant that Protestants believing Scripture to be the Word of God may be certain enough of the truth and certainty of it For what if they say that the Catholick Church and much more themselves may possibly Err in some unfundamental points it is therefore consequent they can be certain of none such What if a wiser man than I may mistake the sense of some obscure place of Aristotle may I not therefore without any arrogance or inconsequence conceive my self certain that I understand him in some plain places which carry their sense before them And then for points Fundamental to what purpose do you say That we must first know what they be before we can be assured that we cannot Err in understanding the Scripture when we pretend not at all to any assurance that we cannot Err but only to a sufficient certainty that we do not Err but rightly understand those things that are plain whether Fundamental or not Fundamental That God is and is a rewarder of them that seek him That there is no Salvation but by Faith in Christ That by repentance and Faith in Christ Remission of sins may be obtained That there shall be a Resurrection of the Body These we conceive both true because the Scripture says so and Truths Fundamental because they are necessary parts of the Gospel whereof our Saviour saies Qui non crediderit damnabitur All which we either learn from Scripture immediately or learn of those that learn it of Scripture so that neither Learned nor Unlearned pretend to know these things independently of Scripture And therefore in imputing this to us you cannot excuse your self from having done us a palpable injury 52. Ad § 19. To that which is here urged of the differences amongst Protestants concerning many points I answer that those differences between Protestants concerning Errors damnable and not damnable Truths Fundamental and not Fundamental may be easily reconciled For either the Error they speak of may be purely and simply involuntary or it may be in respect of the cause of it voluntary If the cause of it be some voluntary and avoidable fault the Error is it self sinful and consequently in its own nature damnable As if by negligence in seeking the Truth by unwillingness to find it by Pride by obstinacy by desiring that Religion should
Catalogue of Fundamentals And therefore if this be all your reason to demand a particular Catalogue of Fundamentals we cannot but think your demand unreasonable Especially having your self expressed the cause of the difficulty of it and that is Because Scripture doth deliver Divine Truths but seldom qualifies them or declares whether they be or be not absolutely necessary to Salvation Yet not so seldom but that out of it I could give you an abstract of the Essential parts of Christianity if it were necessary but I have shewed it not so by confuting your reason pretended for the necessity of it and at this time I have no leisure to do you courtesies that are so troublesom to my self Yet thus much I will promise that when you deliver a particular Catalogue of your Church Proposals with one hand you shall receive a particular Catalogue of what I conceive Fundamental with the other For as yet I see no such fair proceeding as you talk of nor any performance on your own part of that which so clamorously you require on ours For as for the Catalogue which here you have given us in saying You are obliged under pain of damnation to believe whatsoever the Catholick visible Church of Christ proposeth as revealed by Almighty God it is like a covey of one Patridg or a flock of one sheep or a Fleet composed of one Ship or an Army of one man The Author of Charity Mistaken demands a particular Cataloge of Fundamental points And We say you again and again demand such a Catalogue And surely if this one Proposition which here you think to stop our mouths with be a Catalogue yet at least such a Catalogue it is not and therefore as yet you have not performed what you require For if to set down such a Proposition wherein are comprized all points taught by us to be necessary to Salvation will serve you instead of a Catalogue you shall have Catalogues enough As we are obliged to believe all under pain of damnation which God commands us to believe There 's one Catalogue We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe all whereof we may be sufficiently assured that Christ taught it his Apostles his Apostles the Church There 's another We are obliged under pain of damnation to believe Gods Word and all contained in it to be true There 's a third If these generalities will not satisfie you but you will be importuning us to tell you in particular what they are which Christ taught his Apostles and his Apostles the Church what points are contained in Gods Word Then I beseech you do us reason and give us a particular and exact Inventory of all your Church Proposals without leaving out or adding any such a one which all the Doctors of your Church will subscribe to and if you receive not then a Catalogue of Fundamentals I for my part will give you leave to proclaim us Banckrupts 54. Besides this deceitful generality of your Catalogue as you call it another main fault we find with it that it is extreamly ambiguous and therefore to draw you out of the Clouds give me leave to propose some Questions to you concerning it I would know therefore whether by believing you mean explicitely or implicitely If you mean implicitely I would know whether your Churches infallibility be under pain of damnation to be believed explicitely or no Whether any one point or points besides this be under the same penalty to be believed explicitely or no And if any what they be I would know what you esteem the Proposals of the Catholick Visible Church In particular whether the Decree of a Pope ex Cathedra that is with an intent to oblige all Christians by it be a sufficient and an obliging proposal Whether men without danger of damnation may examine such a Decree and if they think they have just cause refuse to obey it Whether the Decree of a Council without the Popes confirmation be such an obliging Proposal or no Whether it be so in case there be no Pope or in case it be doubtful who is Pope Whether the Decree of a general Council confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal and whether he be an Heretick that thinks otherwise Whether the Decree of a particular Council confirmed by the Pope be such a Proposal Whether the General uncondemned practice of the Church for some Ages be such a sufficient Proposition Whether the consent of the most eminent Fathers of any Age agreeing in the affirmation of any Doctrine not contradicted by any of their Contemporaries be a sufficient Proposition Whether the Fathers testifying such or such a Doctrine or Practice to be Tradition or to be the Doctrine or Practice of the Church be a sufficient assurance that it is so Whether we be bound under pain of damnation to believe every Text of the Vulgar Bible now Authorized by the Roman Church to be the true Translation of the Originals of the Prophets and Evangelists and Apostles without any the least alteration Whether they that lived when the Bible of Sixtus was set forth were bound under pain of damnation to believe the same of that And if not of that of what Bible they were bound to believe it Whether the Catholick Visible Church be alwaies that Society of Christians which adheres to the Bishop of Rome Whether every Christian that hath ability and opportunity be not bound to endeavour to know Explicitely the Proposals of the Church Whether Implicite Faith in the Churches Veracity will not save him that Actually and Explicitely disbelieves some Doctrine of the Church not knowing it to be so and Actually believes some damnable Heresie as that God has the shape of a man Whether an ignorant man be bound to believe any point to be decreed by the Church when his Priest or Ghostly Father assures him it is so Whether his Ghostly Father may not Err in telling him so and whether any man can be obliged under pain of damnation to believe an Error Whether he be bound to believe such a thing defined when a number of Priests perhaps Ten or Twenty tell him it is so And what assurance he can have that they neither Err nor deceive him in this matter Why Implicite Faith in Christ or the Scriptures should not suffice for a mans Salvation as well as implicite Faith in the Church Whether when you say Whatsoever the Church proposeth you mean all that ever she proposed or that only which she now proposeth and whether she now proposeth all that ever she did propose Whether all the Books of Canonical Scripture were sufficiently declared to the Church to be so and proposed as such by the Apostles And if not from whom the Church had this declaration afterwards If so whether all men ever since the Apostles time were bound under pain of damnation to believe the Epistle of S. James and the Epistle to the Hebrews to be Canonical at least not to disbelieve it and believe the
Scripture which are not contained in the Creed when once we come to know that they are written in Scripture but rather to lay a necessity upon men of believing all things written in Scripture when once they know them to be there written For he that believes not all known Divine Revelations to be true how does he believe in God Unless you will say that the same man at the same time may not believe God and yet believe in him The greater difficulty is how it will not take away the necessity of believing Scripture to be the Word of God But that it will not neither For though the Creed be granted a sufficient summary of Articles of meer Faith yet no man pretends that it contains the Rules of Obedience but for them all men are referred to Scripture Besides he that pretends to believe in God obligeth himself to believe it necessary to obey that which reason assures him to be the Will of God Now reason will assure him that believes the Creed that it is the Will of God he should believe the Scripture even the very same Reason which moves him to believe the Creed Universal and never failing Tradition having given this Testimony both to Creed and Scripture that they both by the works of God were sealed and testified to be the words of God And thus much be spoken in Answer to your first Argument the length whereof will be the more excusable If I oblige my self to say but little to the rest 15. I come then to your second And in Answer to it deny flatly as a thing destructive of it self that any Error can be damnable unless it be repugnant immediatly or mediatly directly or indirectly of it self or by accident to some Truth for the matter of it fundamental And to your example of Pontius Pilat's being Judge of Christ I say the denial of it in him that knows it to be revealed by God is manifestly destructive of this Fundamental truth that all Divine Revelations are true Neither will you find any Error so much as by accident damnable but the rejecting of it will be necessarily laid upon us by a real belief of all Fundamentals and simply necessary Truths And I desire you would reconcile with this that which you have said § 15. Every Fundamental Error must have a contrary Fundamental Truth because of two Contradictory propositions in the same degree the one is false the other must be true c. 16. To the Third I Answer That the certainty I have of the Creed That it was from the Apostles and contains the principles of Faith I ground it not upon Scripture and yet not upon the Infallibility of any present much less of your Church but upon the Authority of the Ancient Church and written Tradition which as D. Potter hath proved gave this constant Testimony unto it Besides I tell you it is guilty of the same fault which D. Potter's Assertion is here accused of having perhaps some colour toward the proving it false but none at all to shew it impertinent 17. To the Fourth I Answer plainly thus That you find fault with D. Potter for his Vertues you are offended with him for not usurping the Authority which he hath not in a word for not playing the Pope Certainly if Protestants be faulty in this matter it is for doing it too much and not too little This presumptuous imposing of the senses of men upon the words of God the special senses of men upon the general words of God and laying them upon mens consciences together under the equal penalty of death and damnation this vain conceit that we can speak of the things of God better than in the word of God This Deifying our own Interpretations and Tyrannous inforcing them upon others This restraining of the word of God from that latitude and generality and the understandings of men from that liberty wherein Christ and the Apostles left them a This perswasion is no singularity of mine but the Doctrin which I have learnt from Divines of great learning and judgment Let the Reader be pleased to peruse the seaventh book of Acontius de Stratag Satanae And Zanchius his last Oration delivered by him after the composing of the discord between him and Amerbachius and he shall confess as much is and hath been the only fountain of all the Schisms of the Church and that which makes them immortal the common incendiary of Christendom and that which as I said before tears into pieces not the coat but the bowels and members of Christ Ridente Turcâ nec dolente Judaeo Take away these Walls of separation and all will quickly be one Take away this Persecuting Burning Cursing Damning of men for not subscribing to the words of Men as the words of God Require of Christians only to believe Christ and to call no man master but him only Let those leave claiming Infallibility that have no title to it and let them that in their words disclaim it disclaim it likewise in their actions In a word take away Tyranny which is the Devils instrument to support errors and superstitions and impieties in the several parts of the World which could not otherwise long withstand the power of Truth I say take away Tyranny and restore Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their understanding to Scripture only and as Rivers when they have a free passage run all to the Ocean so it may well be hoped by Gods blessing that Universal Liberty thus moderated may quickly reduce Christendom to Truth and Unity These thoughts of peace I am perswaded may come from the God of peace and to his blessing I commend them and proceed 18. Your fifth and last objection stands upon a false and dangerous supposition That new Heresies may arise For an Heresie being in it self nothing else but a Doctrine Repugnant to some Article of the Christian Faith to say that new Heresies may arise is to say that new Articles of Faith may arise and so some great ones among you stick not to profess in plain terms who yet at the same time are not ashamed to pretend that your whole Doctrin is Catholick and Apostolick So Salmeron Non omnibus omnia dedit Deus ut quaelibet aetas suis gaudeat veritatibus quas prior aetas ignoravit God hath not given all things to All So that every age hath its proper Verities which the former age was ignorant of Disp 57. In Ep. ad Rom. And again in the Margent Habet Unumquodque saeculum peculiares Revelationes Divinas Every age hath its peculiar Divine Revelations Where that he speaks of such Revelations as are or may by the Church be made matters of Faith no man can doubt that reads him an example whereof he gives us a little before in these words Unius Augustini doctrina Assumptionis B. Deiparae cultum in Ecclesiam introduxit The Doctrin of Augustin only hath brought in to the Church the Worship of
Creed without the former can be possibly guarded from falling into them and continuing obstinate in them Nay so far is this Creed from guarding them from these mischiefs that it is more likely to ensnare them into them by seeming and yet not being a full comprehension of all necessary points of Faith which is apt as experience shews to misguide men into this pernitious error That believing the Creed they believe all necessary points of faith whereas indeed they do not so Now upon these grounds I thus conclude That Creed which hath great commodities and no danger would certainly be better then that which hath great danger and wants many of these great commodities But the former short Creed proposed by me I believe the Roman Church to be Infallible if your doctrin be true is of the former condition and the latter that is the Apostles Creed is of the latter Therefore the former if your doctrin be true would without controversie be better than the latter 83. Whereas you say If the Apostles had exprest no Article but that of the Catholick Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means This is very true but no way repugnant to the truth of this which follows that the Apostles if your doctrin be true had done better service to the Church though they had never made this Creed of theirs which now we have if instead thereof they had commanded in plain terms that for mens perpetual direction in the faith this short Creed should be taught all men I believe the Roman Church shall be for ever Infallible Yet you must not so mistake me as if I meant that they had done better not to have taught the Church the substance of Christian Religion for then the Church not having learnt it of them could not have taught it us This therefore I do not say but supposing they had written these Scriptures as they have written wherein all the Articles of their Creed are plainly delivered and preached that Doctrin which they did preach and done all other things as they have done besides the composing their Symbol I say if your doctrin were true they had done a work infinitely more beneficial to the Church of Christ if they had never composed their Symbol which is but an imperfect comprehension of the necessary points of simple belief and no distinctive mark as a Symbole should be between those that are good Christians and those that are not so but instead thereof had delivered this one Proposition which would have been certainly effectual for all the aforesaid good intents and purposes The Roman Church shall be forever Infallible in all things which she proposes as matters of Faith 84. Whereas you say If we will believe we have all in the Creed when we have not all it is not the Apostles fault but our own I tell you plainly if it be a fault I know not whose it should be but theirs For sure it can be no fault in me to follow such Guides whether soever they lead me Now I say they have led me into this perswasion because they have given me great reason to believe it and none to the contrary The reason they have given me to believe it is because it is apparent and confest they did propose to themselves in composing it some good end or ends As that Christians might have a form by which for matter of Faith they might profess themselves Catholicks So Putean out of Thomas Aquinas That the faithful might know what the Christian people is to believe explicitly So Vincent Filiucius That being separated into divers parts of the world they might preach the same thing And that that might serve as a mark to distinguish true Christians from Infidels So Cardinal Richlieu Now for all these and for any other good intent I say it will be plainly uneffectual unless it contain at least all points of simple belief which are in ordinary course necessary to be explicitly known by all men So that if it be a fault in me to believe this it must be my fault to believe the Apostles wise and good men which I cannot do if I believe not this And therefore what Richardus de sancto Victore says of God himself I make no scruple at all to apply to the Apostles and to say Si error est quod credo à vobis deceptus sum If it be an Error which I believe it is you and my reverend esteem of you and your actions that hath led me into it For as for your suspicion That we are led into this perswasion out of a hope that we may the better maintain by it some opinions of our own It is plainly uncharitable I know no opinion I have which I would not as willingly forsake as keep if I could see sufficient reason to induce me to believe that it is the will of God I should forsake it Neither do I know any opinion I hold against the Church of Rome but I have more evident grounds than this whereupon to build it For let but these Truths be granted That the authority of the Scripture is independent on your Church and dependent only in respect of us upon universal Tradition That Scripture is the only Rule of Faith That all things necessary to salvation are plainly delivered in Scripture Let I say these most certain and divine Truths be laid for foundations and let our superstructions be consequent and coherent to them and I am confident Peace would be restored and Truth maintained against you though the Apostles Creed were not in the world CHAP. V. The ANSWER to the Fifth CHAPTER Shewing that the separation of Protestants from the Roman Church being upon just and necessary causes is not any way guilty of Schism 1. AD § 1.2 3 4 5 6 7. In the seven first Sections of this Chapter there be many things said and many things supposed by you which are untrue and deserve a censure As 2. First That Schism could not be a Division from the Church or that a Division from the Church could not happen unless there always had been and should be a visible Church Which Assertion is a manifest falsehood For although there never had been any Church Visible or Invisible before this age nor should be ever after yet this could not hinder but that a Schism might now be and be a Division from the present Visible Church As though in France there never had been until now a lawful Monarch nor after him ever should be yet this hinders not but that now there might be a Rebellion and that Rebellion might be an Insurrection against Sovereign Authority 3. That it is a point to be granted by all Christians that in all ages there hath been a visible Congregation of faithful people Which Proposition howsoever you understand it is not absolutely certain But if you mean by Faithful as it is plain you do free from all error in faith then
Reformation which yet when you measure it without partiality you 'll find to be far short of infinite nor their symbolizing in the general of forsaking your corruptions prove any thing to the contrary or any way advantage your design or make for your purpose For it is not any sign at all much less an evident sign that they had no setled design but only to forsake the Church of Rome for nothing but malice can deny that their intent at least was to reduce Religion to that original purity from which it was fallen The declination from which some conceiving to have begun though secretly in the Apostles times the mystery of iniquity being then in work and after their departure to have shewed it self more openly others again believing that the Church continued pure for some Ages after the Apostles and then declined And consequently some aiming at an exact conformity with the Apostolick times Others thinking they should do God and men good service could they reduce the Church to the condition of the fourth and fifth ages Some taking their direction in this work of Reformation only from Scripture others from the Writings of Fathers and the Decrees of Councils of the first five Ages certainly it is no great marvel that there was as you say disagreement between them in the particulars of their Reformation nay morally speaking it was impossible it should be otherwise Yet let me tell you the difference between them especially in comparison of your Church and Religion is not the difference between good and bad but between good and better And they did best that followed Scripture interpreted by Catholick written Tradition which rule the Reformers of the Church of England proposed to themselves to follow 83. Ad 30.31 32. D. Potter p. 81.82 of his Book speak thus If a Monastery should reform it self and should reduce into practice ancient good discipline when others would not In this case could it be charged with Schism from others or with Apostacy from its rule and order So in a society of men universally infected with some disease they that should free themselves from it could they be therefore said to separate from the society He presumes they could not and from hence concludes That neither can the Reformed Churches be truly accused for making a Schism that is separating from the Church and making themselves no members of it if all they did was as indeed it was to reform themselves 84. Now instead of these two instances which plainly shewed it possible in other societies and consequently in that of the Church to leave the faults of a Society and not leave being of it you disingenuously foist in two other instances clean cross to the Doctors purpose of men under colour of faults abandoning the Society wherein they lived 85. But that no suspicion of tergiversation may be fastned upon me I am content to deal with you a little at your own weapons Put the case then though not just as you would have it yet with as much favour to you as in reason you can expect That a Monastery did observe her substantial vows and all principal statutes but yet did generally practise and also enjoyn the violation of some lesser yet obliging observances and had done so time out of mind And that some inferiour Monks more conscientious than the rest discovering this abuse should first with all earnestness sollicite their Superiors for a general and orderly reformation of these though small and venial corruptions yet corruptions But finding they hoped and laboured in vain to effect this should reform these faults in themselves and refuse to joyn in the practice of them with the rest of their Confraternity and persisting resolutely in such a refusal should by their Superiors be cast out of their Monastery and being not to be re-admitted without a promise of remitting from their stiffness in these things and of condescending to others in the practice of their small faults should choose rather to continue exiles than to re-enter upon such conditions I would know whether you would condemn such men of Apostacy from the Order Without doubt if you should you would find the stream of your Casuists against you and besides involve S. Paul in the same condemnation who plainly tells that we may not do the least evil that we may do the greatest good Put case again you should be part of a Society universally infected with some disease and discovering a certain remedy for this disease should perswade the whole company to make use of it but find the greatest part of them so far in love with their disease that they were reslved to keep it and besides should make a decree that whosoever would leave it should leave their company Suppose now that your self and some few others should notwithstanding their injunction to the contrary free your selves from this disease and thereupon they should absolutely forsake and reject you I would know in this case who deserves to be condemned whether you of uncharitable desertion of your company or they of a tyrannical peevishness And if in these cases you will as I verily believe you will acquit the inferiors and condemn the superiors absolve the minor part and condemn the major then can you with no reason condemn Protestants for choosing rather to be ejected from the communion of the Roman Church than with her to persist as of necessity they were to do if they would continue in her Communion in the profession of Errors though not destructive of salvation yet hindering edification and in the practice or at least approbatiof many suppose not mortal but venial corruptions 86. Besides you censure too partially the corrupt estate of your Church in comparing it to a Monastery which did confessedly observe their substantial Vows and all principal Statutes of their order and moreover was secured by an infallible assistance for the avoiding of all substantial corruptions for of your Church we confess no such matter but say plainly That she not only might fall into substantial corruptions but did so that she did not only generally violate but of all the members of her Communion either in act or approbation require and exact the violation of many substantial Laws of Christ both Ceremonial and Moral which though we hope it was pardonable in them who had not means to know their error yet of its own nature and to them who did or might have known their error was certainly damnable And that it was not the Tything of Mint and Annise and Cummin the neglect whereof we impute unto you but the neglect of judgment justice and the weightier matters of the Law 87. Again you compare Protestants to such a Company as acknowledge that themselves as soon as they were gone out of the Monastery that deferred to reform must not hope to be free from those or the like Errors and Corruptions for which they left their Brethren Which is very strange seeing this very hope and nothing else moved
Faith was commended by the Preaching of the Apostle to whom falshood cannot have access Answ For S. Cyprian all the World knows that he b It is confessed by Baronius Anno. 238. N. 41. By Bellarm l. 4. de R. Pont. c. 7. §. Tertia ratio resolutely opposed a Decree of the Roman Bishop and all that adhered to him in the point of Re-baptizing which that Church at that time delivered as a necessary tradition So necessary that by the Bishop of Rome Firmilianus and other Bishops of Cappadocia Cilicia and Galatia and generally all who persisted in the contrary opinion c Confessed by Baronius An 258. N. 14. 15. By Card. Perron Repl. l. 1. c. 25. Ibid. were therefore deprived of the Churches Communion which excommunication could not but involve S. Cyprian who defended the same opinion as resolutely as Firmilianus though Cardinal Perren magisterially and without all colour of proof affirm the contrary and Cyprian in particular so far cast off as for it to be pronounced by Stephen a false Christ Again so necessary that the Bishops which were sent by Cyprian from Africk to Rome were not admitted to the Communion of ordinary conference But all men who were subject to the Bishop of Romes Authority were commanded by him not only to deny them the Churches peace and Communion but even lodging and entertainment manifestly declaring that they reckoned them among those whom S. John forbids to receive to house or to say God speed to them All these terrors notwithstanding S. Cyprian holds still his former opinion and though out of respect to the Churches peace d Vide Con. Carth. apud sur To. 1. he judged no man nor cut off any man from the right of Communion for thinking otherwise than he held yet he conceived Stephen and his adherents d Bell. l. 2. de Conc. c. 5. Aug. ep 48. lib. 1. de Bapt. c. 18. to hold a pernitious Error And S. Austin though disputing with the Donatists he useth some Tergiversation in the point yet confesseth elsewhere that it is not found that Cyprian did ever change his opinion And so far was he from conceiving any necessity of doing so in submitting to the judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome that he plainly professeth that no other Bishop but our Lord Jesus only had power to Judge with Authority of his Judgment and as plainly intimates that Stephen for usurping such a power and making himself a Judge over Bishops was little better than a Tyrant and as heavily almost he censures him and peremptorily opposes him as obstinate in Error in that very place where he delivers that famous saying How can he have God for his Father who hath not the Church for his Mother little doubting it seems but a man might have the Church for his Mother who stood in opposition to the Church of Rome and far from thinking what you fondly obtrude upon him that to be United to the Roman Church and to the Church was all one and that separation from S. Peters Chair was a mark I mean a certain mark either of Schism or Heresie 26. But you have given a false or at least a strained Translation of S. Cyprians forecited Words for Cyprian saith not to whom falshood cannot have access as if he had exempted the Roman Church from a possibility of Error but to whom perfidiousness cannot have access meaning those perfidious Schismaticks whom he there complains of and of these by a Rhetorical insinuation he says that with such good Christians as the Romans were it was not possible they should find favourable entertainment As for his joyning the Principal Church and the Chair of Peter how that will serve to prove separation from the Roman Church to be a mark of Heresie it is hard to understand Though we do not altogether deny but that the Church of Rome might be called the Chair of S. Peter in regard he is said to have Preached the Gospel there and the principal Church because the City was the principal and imperial City which prerogative of the City if we believe the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon was the ground and occasion why the Fathers of former times I pray observe conferred upon this Church this prerogative above other Churches 27. Obj. But in another place Epist 52. S. Cyprian makes Communicating with Cornelius the Bishop of Rome and with the Catholick Church to be the same Answ This does not prove that to Communicate with the Church and Pope of Rome and to Communicate with the Catholick Church is always for that you assume one and the same thing S. Cyprian speaks not of the Church of Rome at all but of the Bishop only who when he doth Communicate with the Catholick Church as Cornelius at that time did then whosoever Communicates with him cannot but Communicate with the Catholick Church and then by accident one may truely say such a one Communicates with you that is with the Catholick Church and that to Communicate with him is to Communicate with the Catholick Church As if Titius and Sempronius be together he that is in company with Titius cannot but be at that time in company with Sempronius As if a General be marching to some place with an Army he that then is with the General must at that time be with the Army And a man may say without absurdity such a time I was with the General that is with the Army and that to be with the General is to be with the Army Or as if a mans hand be joyned to his Body the finger which is joyned to the hand is joyned to the Body and a man may say truly of it this finger is joyned to the hand that is to the Body and to be joyned to the hand is to be joyned to the Body because all these things are by accident true And yet I hope you would not deny but the finger might possibly be joyned to the hand and yet not to the Body the hand being cut off from the Body and a man might another time be with his General and not with his Army he being absent from the Army And therefore by like Reason your collection is Sophistical being in effect but this to communicate with such a Bishop of Rome who did Communicate with the Catholick Church was to Communicate with the Catholick Church therefore absolutely and always it must be true that to Communicate with him is by consequent to Communicate with the Catholick Church and to be divided from the Communion is to be an Heretick 28. Obj. S. Irenaeus saith lib. 3. cont haer c. 3. Because it were long to number the successions of all Churches we declaring the Tradition of the most great most Ancient and known Church founded by the two glorious Apostles Peter and Paul which Tradition it hath from the Apostles coming to us by succession of Bishops we confound all those who any way either by vain Glory Blindness
or ill Opinion do gather otherwise than they ought For to this Church for a more powerful Principality it is necessary that all Churches resort that is all faithful People undique of what place soever In which Roman Church the Tradition from the Apostles hath always been conserved from those who are undique every where Answ Though at the first hearing the Glorious Attributes here given and that justly to the Church of Rome the confounding Hereticks with her Tradition and saying it is necessary for all Churches to resort to her may sound like Arguments for you yet he that is attentive I hope will easily discover that it might be good and rational in Irenaeus having to do with Hereticks who somewhat like those who would be the only Catholicks declining a tryal by Scripture as not containing the Truth of Christ perfectly and not fit to decide Controversies without recourse to Tradition I say he will easily perceive that it might be rational in Irenaeus to urge them with any Tradition of more credit than their own especially a Tradition consonant to Scripture and even contained in it and yet that it may be irrational in you to urge us who do not decline Scripture but appeal to it as a perfect rule of Faith with a Tradition which we pretend is many ways repugnant to Scripture and repugnant to a Tradition far more general than it self which gives testimony to Scripture and lastly repugnant to it self as giving attestation both to Scripture and to Doctrines plainly contrary to Scripture Secondly that the Authority of the Roman Church was then a far greater Argument of the Truth of her Tradition when it was United with all other Apostolick Churches than now when it is divided from them according to that of Tertullian Had the Churches Erred they would have varied but that which is the same in all cannot be Error but Tradition and therefore though Irenaeus his Argument may be very probable yet yours may be worth nothing Thirdly that fourteen hundred years may have made a great deal of alteration in the Roman Church as Rivers though near the Fountain they may retain their native and unmixt sincerity yet in long Progress cannot but take in much mixture that came not from the Fountain And therefore the Roman Tradition though then pure may now be corrupt and impure and so this Argument being one of those things which are the worse for wearing might in Irenaeus his time be strong and vigorous and after declining and decaying may long since have fallen to nothing Especially considering that Irenaeus plays the Historian only and not the Prophet and says only that the Apostolick Tradition had been always there as in other Apostolick Churches conserved or observed choose you whether but that it should be always so he says not neither had he any warrant He knew well enough that there was foretold a great falling away of the Churches of Christ to Antichrist that the Roman Church in particular was forewarned that she also nay the whole Church of the Gentiles might fall if they look not to their standing and therefore to secure her that she should stand for ever he had no reason nor Authority Fourthly that it appears manifestly out of this Book of Irenaeus quoted by you that the Doctrine of the Chiliasts was in his Judgment Apostolick Tradition as also it was esteemed for ought appears to the contrary by all the Doctors and Saints and Martyrs of or about his time for all that speak of it or whose judgments in the point are any way recorded are for it and Justin Martyr professeth that all good and Orthodox Christians of his time believed it and those that did not he reckons amongst Hereticks Now I demand was this Tradition one of those that was conserved and observed in the Church of Rome or was it not If not had Iraeneus known so much he must have retracted this commendation of that Church If it was then the Tradition of the present Church of Rome contradicts the Ancient and accounts it Heretical and then sure it can be no certain note of Heresie to depart from them who have departed from themselves and prove themselves subject unto error by holding contradictions Fifthly and lastly that out of the Story of the Church it is as manifest as the light at noon that though Iraeneus did esteem the Roman Tradition a great Argument of the Doctrin which he there delivers and defends against the Hereticks of his time viz. that there was one God yet he was very far from thinking that Church was and ever should be a safe keeper and an infallible witness of Tradition in general Inasmuch as in his own life his action proclaimed the contrary For when Victor Bishop of Rome obtruded the Roman Tradition touching the time of Easter upon the Asian Bishops under the pain of Excommunication and damnation Iraeneus and all the other Western Bishops though agreeing with him in his observation yet sharply reprehended him for Excommunicating the Asian Bishops for their disagreeing plainly shewing that they esteemed that not a necessary doctrin and a sufficient ground of excommunication which the Bishop of Rome and his adherents did so account of For otherwise how could they have reprehended him for excommunicating them had they conceived the cause of his excommunication just and sufficient And besides evidently declaring that they esteemed not separation from the Roman Church a certain mark of Heresie seeing they esteemed not them Hereticks though separated and cut off from the Roman Church 31. Obj. S. Austin saith in Psalm cont partem Donati It grieves us to see you so to lie cut off Number the Priests even from the Sea of Peter and consider in that order of Fathers who succeeded to whom she is the Rock which the proud gates of Hell do not overcome Where he seems to say that the Succession in the Sea of Peter was the Rock which our Saviour means when he said upon this Rock will I build my Church Ans I answer First We have no reason to be confident of the truth hereof because S. Austin himself was not but retracts it as uncertain and leaves to the Reader whether he will think that or another more probable Retr l. 1. c. 26. Secondly what he says of the Succession in the Roman Church in this place he says it elsewhere of all the Successions in all other Apostolick Churches Thirdly that as in this place he urgeth the Donatists with separation from the Roman Church as an argument of their Error So elsewhere he presseth them with their Separation from other Apostolick Churches nay more from these than from that because in Rome the Donatists had a Bishop though not a perpetual Succession of them but in other Apostolick Churches they wanted both These scattered men saith he of the Donatists Epist 165. read in the holy Books the Churches to which the Apostles wrote and have no Bishop in them But what is more perverse and
will not deny but that these Bishops may refuse to do what he requires to be done lawfully if the person be unworthy if worthy unlawfully indeed but yet de facto they may refuse and in case they should do so whether justly or unjustly neither the King himself nor any Body else would esteem the person Bishop upon the Kings designation Whether many Popes though they were not Consecrated Bishops by any temporal Prince yet might not or did not receive authority from the Emperor to exercise their Episcopal function in this or that place And whether the Emperors had not authority upon their desert to deprive them of their jurisdiction by imprisonment or banishment Whether Protestants do indeed pretend that their Reformation is Universal Whether in saying the Donatists Sect was confined to Africa you do not forget your self and contradict what you said above in § 17. of this Chapter where you tell us they had some of their Sect residing in Rome Whether it be certain that none can admit of Bishops willingly but those that hold them of Divine institution Whether they may not be willing to have them conceiving that way of Government the best though not absolutely necessary Whether all those Protestants that conceive the distinction between Priests and Bishops not to be of Divine institution be Schismatical and Heretical for thinking so Whether your form of ordaining Bishops and Priests be essential to the constitution of a true Church Whether the forms of the Church of England differ essentially from your forms Whether in saying that the true Church cannot subsist without undoubted true Bishops and Priests you have not overthrown the truth of your own Church wherein I have proved it plainly impossible that any man should be so much as morally certain either of his own Priesthood or any other mans Lastly whether any one kind of these external Forms and Orders and Government be so necessary to the being of a Church but that they may not be diverse in diverse places and that a good and peaceable Christian may and ought to submit himself to the Government of the place where he lives whatsoever it be All these Questions will be necessary to be discussed for the clearing of the truth of the Minor proposition of your former Syllogism and your proofs of it and I will promise to debate them fairly with you if first you will bring some better proof of the Major That want of Succession is a certain note of Heresie which for the present remains both unproved and unprobable 40. Obj. You say The Fathers assign Succession as one mark of the true Church Answ I confess they did urge Tradition as an Argument of the Truth of their Doctrine and of the falshood of the contrary and thus far they agree with you But now see the difference They urged it not against all Hereticks that ever should be but against them who rejected a great part of the Scripture for no other reason but because it was repugnant to their Doctrine and corrupted other parts with their additions and detractions and perverted the remainder with divers absurd interpretations So Tertullian not a leaf before the words by you cited Nay they urged it against them who when they were confuted out of Scripture fell to accuse the Scriptures themselves as if they were not right and came not from good authority as if they were various one from another and as if truth could not be found out of them by those who know not Tradition for that it was not delivered in writing they did mean wholly but by word of mouth And that thereupon Paul also said we speak wisdom amongst the perfect So Irenaeus in the very next Chapter before that which you alledge Against these men being thus necessitated to do so they did urge Tradition but what or whose Tradition was it Certainly no other but the joynt Tradition of all the Apostolick Churches with one Mouth and one Voice teaching the same Doctrine Or if for brevity sake they produce the Tradition of any one Church yet is it apparent that that one was then in conjunction with all the rest Irenaeus Tertullian Origen testifie as much in the words cited and S. Austin in the place before alledged by me This Tradition they did urge against these men and in a time in comparison of ours almost contiguous to the Apostles So near that one them Irenaeus was Scholar to one who was Scholar to S. John the Apostle Tertullian and Origen were not an Age removed from him and the last of them all little more than an Age from them Yet after all this they urged it not as a demonstration but only as a very probable argument far greater than any their Adversaries could oppose against it So Tertullian in the place above quoted § 5. How is it likely that so many and so great Churches should Err in one Faith it should be should have Erred into one Faith And this was the condition of this Argument as the Fathers urged it Now if you having to deal with us who question no Book of Scripture which was not Anciently questioned by some whom you your selves esteem good Catholicks nay who refuse not to be tried by your own Canons your own Translations who in interpreting Scriptures are content to allow of all those rules which you propose only except that we will not allow you to be our Judges if you will come fifteen hundred years after the Apostles a fair time for the purest Church to gather much dross and corruptions and for the mystery af iniquity to bring its work to some perfection which in the Apostles time began to work If I say you will come thus long after and urge us with the single Tradition of one of these Churches being now Catholick to it self alone and Heretical to all the rest nay not only with her Ancient Original Traditions but also with her post-nate and introduced Definitions and these as we pretend repugnant to Scripture and Ancient Tradition and all this to decline an indifferent Trial by Scripture under pretence wherein also you agree with the calumny of the Old Hereticks that all necessary truth cannot be found in them without recourse to Tradition If I say notwithstanding all these differences you will still be urging us with this argument as the very same and of the same force with that wherewith the fore-mentioned Fathers urged the Old Hereticks certainly this must needs proceed from a confidence you have not only that we have no School-Divinity nor Metaphysicks but no Logick or common sense that we are but Pictures of men and have the definition of rational creatures given us in vain 41. But now suppose I should be liberal to you and grant what you cannot prove that the Fathers make Succession a certain and perpetual mark of the true Church I beseech you what will come of it What that want of Succession is a certain sign of an Heretical company Truly
foolish as to believe your Church exempted from Error upon less evidence rather than subject to the common condition of mankind upon greater evidence Now if I take the Scripture only for my Guide I shall not need to do any thing so unreasonable 64. If I will follow your Church I must believe impossibilities and that with an absolute certainty upon motives which are confessed to be but only Prudential and probable That is with a weak Foundation I must firmly support a heavy a monstrous heavy building Now following the Scripture I shall have no necessity to undergo any such difficulties 65. Following your Church I must be servant of Christ and a Subject of the King but only Ad placitum Papae I must be prepared in mind to renounce my allegiance to the King when the Pope shall declare him an Heretick and command me not to obey him And I must be prepared in mind to esteem Vertue Vice and Vice Vertue if the Pope shall so determine Indeed you say it is impossible he should do the latter but that you know is a great question neither is it fit my obedience to God and the King should depend upon a questionable Foundation And howsoever you must grant that if by an impossible supposition the Popes commands should be contrary to the law of Christ that they of your Religion must resolve to obey rather the commands of the Pope than the law of Christ Whereas if I follow the Scripture I may nay I must obey my Sovereign in lawful things though an Heretick though a Tyrant and though I do not say the Pope but the Apostles themselves nay an Angel from Heaven should teach any thing against the Gospel of Christ I may nay I must denounce Anathema to him 66. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion which being contrary to Flesh and Blood without any assistance from worldly power wit or policy nay against all the power and policy of the World prevailed and enlarged it self in a very short time all the World over Whereas it is too too apparent that your Church hath got and still maintains her authority over mens Consciences by counterfeiting false miracles forging false stories by obtruding on the World suppositious writings by corrupting the monuments of former times and defacing out of them all which any way makes against you by Wars by persecutions by Massacres by Treasons by Rebellions in short by all manner of Carnal means whether violent or fraudulent 67. Following the Scripture I shall believe a Religion the first Preachers of Professors whereof it is most certain they could have no worldly ends upon the World that they could not project to themselves by it any of the profits or honours or pleasures of this World but rather were to expect the contrary even all the miseries which the World could lay upon them On the other side the Head of your Church the pretended Successor of the Apostles and Guide of Faith it is even palpable that he makes your Religion the instrument of his ambition and by it seeks to entitle himself directly or indirectly to the Monarchy of the World And besides it is evident to any man that has but half an eye that most of those Doctrines which you add to the Scripture do make one way or other for the honour or temporal profit of the Teachers of them 68. Following the Scripture only I shall embrace a Religion of admirable simplicity consisting in a manner wholly in the worship of God in Spirit and Truth Whereas your Church and Doctrine is even loaded with an infinity of weak childish ridiculous unsavoury superstitions and ceremonies and full of that righteousness for which Christ shall Judge the World 69. Following the Scripture I shall believe that which Universal never-failing Tradition assures me that it was by the admirable supernatural Work of God confirmed to be the Word of God whereas never any miracle was wrought never so much as a lame Horse cured in confirmation of your Churches authority and infallibility And if any strange things have been done which may seem to give attestation to some parts of your Doctrine yet this proves nothing but the truth of the Scripture which foretold that Gods providence permitting it and the wickedness of the World deserving it strange signs and wonders should be wrought to confirm false Doctrine that they which love not the Truth may be given over to strange delusions Neither does it seem to me any strange thing that God should permit some true wonders to be done to delude them who have forged so many to deceive the World 70. If I follow the Scripture I must not promise my self Salvation without effectual dereliction and mortification of all Vices and the effectual Practice of all Christian Vertues But your Church opens an easier and a broader way to Heaven and though I continue all my life long in a course of sin and without the Practice of any Vertue yet gives me assurance that I may be let into Heaven at a Postern-gate even by any Act of Attrition at the hour of Death if it be joyned with confession or by an Act of Contrition without confession 71. Admirable are the Precepts of piety and humility of innocence and patience of liberality frugality temperance sobriety justice meekness fortitude constancy and gravity contempt of the World love of God and the love of mankind In a Word of all Vertues and against all vice which the Scriptures impose upon us to be obeyed under pain of damnation The sum whereof is in manner comprised in our Saviours Sermon upon the Mount recorded in the 5 6 and 7. of S. Matthew which if they were generally obeyed could not but make the world generally happy and the goodness of them alone were sufficient to make any wise and good man believe that this Religion rather than any other came from God the fountain of all goodness And that they may be generally obeyed our Saviour hath ratified them all in the close of his Sermon with these universal Sanctions Not every one that saith Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom but he that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven and again whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them not shall be likned unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand and the rain descended and the flood came and the winds blew and it fell and great was the fall thereof Now your Church notwithstanding all this enervates and in a manner dissolves and abrogates many of these precepts teaching men that they are not Laws for all Christians but Counsels of perfection and matters of Supererrogation that a man shall do well if he do observe them but he shall not sin if he observe them not that they are for them who aim at high places in heaven who aspire with the two sons of Zebede to the right hand or to the left hand of Christ But if a man will be content
chargeable for forsaking that guide which God has appointed me to follow But what if I forsook it because I thought I had reason to fear it was one of those blind guides which whosoever blindly follows is threatned by our Saviour that both he and his guide shall fall into the Ditch then I hope you will grant it was not pride but Conscience that moved me to do so for as it is wise humility to obey those whom God hath set over me so it is sinful credulity to follow every man or every Church that without warrant will take upon them to guide me shew me then some good and evident title which the Church of Rome has to this office produce but one reason for it which upon trial will not finally be resolved and vanish into uncertainties and if I yield not unto it say if you please I am as proud as Lucifer in the mean time give me leave to think it strange and not far from a Prodigee that this Doctrin of the Roman Churches being the guide of faith if it be true doctrin should either not be known to the four Evangelists or if it were known to them that being wise and good men they should either be so envious of the Churches happiness or so forgetful of the work they took in hand which was to write the Gospel of Christ as that not so much as one of them should mention so much as once this so necessary part of the Gospel without the belief whereof there is no salvation and with the belief whereof unless men be snatcht away by sudden death there is hardly any damnation It is evident they do all of them with one consent speak very plainly of many things of no importance in comparison hereof and is it credible or indeed possible that with one consent or rather conspiracy they should be so deeply silent concerning this unum necessarium You may believe it if you can for my part I cannot unless I see demonstration for it for if you say they send us to the Church and consequently to the Church of Rome this is to suppose that which can never be proved that the Church of Rome is the only Church and without this supposal upon Division of the Church I am as far to seek for a guide of my Faith as ever As for example In that great division of the Church when the whole world wondred saith Saint Hierom that it was become Arrian when Liberius Bishop of Rome as S. Athanasius and S. Hilary testifie subscribed their Heresie and joyned in Communion with them Or in the division between the Greek and the Roman Church about the procession of the Holy Ghost when either side was the Church to it self and each part Heretical and Schismatical to the other what direction could I then an ignorant man have found from that Text of Scripture Unless he hear the Church let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican or Upon this Rock will I build my Church and the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Again give me leave to wonder that neither S. Paul writing to the Romans should so much as intimate this their priviledge of Infallibility but rather on the contrary put them in fear in the eleventh Chapter that they as well as the Jews were in danger of falling away That Saint Peter the pretended Bishop of Rome writing two Catholick Epistles mentioning his departure should not once acquaint the Christians whom he writes to what guide they were to follow after he was taken from them That the writers of the New Testament should so frequently forewarn men of Hereticks false Christs false prophets and not once arm them against them with letting them know this onely sure means of avoiding their danger That so great a part of the New Testament should be imployed about Antichrist and so little or indeed none at all about the Vicar of Christ and the guide of the faithful That our Saviour should leave this onely means for the ending of Controversies and yet speak so obscurely and ambiguously of it that now our Judge is the greatest Controversie and the greatest hinderance of ending them That there should be better evidence in the Scripture to intitle the King to this Office who disclaims it than the Pope who pretends it That S. Peter should not ever exercise over the Apostles any one act of Jurisdiction nor they ever give him any one Title of Authority over them That if the Apostles did know S. Peter was made head over them when our Saviour said Thou art Peter c. they should still contend who should be the first and that our Saviour should never tell them S. Peter was the man That S. Paul should say he was in nothing inferiour to the very chief Apostles That the Catechumenists in the primitive Church should never be taught this foundation of their Faith that the Church of Rome was Guide of their Faith That the Fathers Tertullian S. Hierom and Optatus when they flew highest in commendation of the Roman Church should attribute no more to her than to all other Apostolical Churches That in the Controversie about Easter the Bishops and Churches of Asia should be so ill Catechised as not to know this Principle of Christian Religion The necessity of Conformity in Doctrin with the Church of Rome That they should never be pressed with any such necessity of conformity in all things but onely with the Tradition of the Western Churches in that point That Irenaeus and many other Bishops notwithstanding ad hanc Ecclesiam necesse est omnem convenire Ecclesiam should not yet think that a necessary Doctrin nor a sufficient ground of Excommunication which the Church of Rome though to be so That S. Cyprian and the Bishops of Africk should be so ill instructed in their Faith as not to know this foundation of it That they likewise were never urged with any such necessity of Conformity with the Church of Rome nor ever charged with heresie or error for denying it That when Liberius joyned in Communion with the Arrians and subscribed their heresie the Arrians then should not be the Church and the Guide of Faith That never any Hereticks for three Ages after Christ were pressed with this Argument of the Infallibility of the present Church of Rome or charged with denyal of it as a distinct Heresie so that Aeneas Sylvius should have cause to say Ante tempora Concilii Niceni quisque sibi vivebat parvus respectus habebatur ad Ecclesiam Romanam That the Ecclesiastical Story of those times mentions no Acts of Authority of the Church of Rome over other Churches as if there should be a Monarchy and the Kings for some Ages together should exercise no act of Jurisdiction in it That to supply this defect the Decretal Epistles should be so impudently forged which in a manner speak nothing else but Reges Monarchas I mean the Popes making Laws for exercising authority
over all other Churches That the African Churches in S. Austins time should be ignorant that the Pope was Head of the Church and Judge of Appeals jure divino and that there was a necessity of Conformity with the Church in this and all other points of Doctrin Nay that the Popes themselves should be so ignorant of the true ground of this their Authority as to pretend to it not upon Scripture or universal Tradition but upon an imaginary pretended none-such Canon of the Council of Nice That Vincentius Lirinensis seeking for a guide of his Faith and a preservative from Heresie should be ignorant of this so ready one The Infallibility of the Church of Rome All these things and many more are very strange to me if the Infallibility of the Roman Church be indeed and were always by Christians acknowledged the foundation of our Faith And therefore I beseech you pardon me if I choose to build mine upon one that is much firmer and safer and lies open to none of these objections which is Scripture and universal Tradition and if one that is of this Faith may have leave to do so I will subscribe with hand and heart Your very loving and true Friend W. C. A TABLE OF Contents Note that the first Figure refers to the Chapter the other to the divisions of each Chapter A. PRotestants agree in more things than they differ in by believing the Scripture chap. 4. div 49.50 We have as many rational means of Agreement as the Papists c. 3.7 8. Papists pretend to means of agreement and do not agree c. 3.3 4 5 6. Not necessary to find a Church agreeing with Protestants in all points Ans pref 19. c. 5.27 Antiquity vainly pleaded for Romish Doctrins and Practices since many Errors are more ancient than some of their Doctrins c. 5.91 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort being present to us by her Writings c. 3.69 80. That the Church has power to make new Articles of Faith asserted by the Romish Doctors c. 4.18 This one Article I believe the Roman Catholick Church to be Infallible if their Doctrin were true would secure against heresie more than the whole Creed c. 4.77 78 79 83. Christs assistance promised to the Church to lead her into more than necessary truths c. 5.61 62. Atheism and irreligion springs easily from some Romish Doctrins and Practices Pref. 7 8. S. Austins saying Evangelio non crederem c. how to be understood c. 2.54 97 98 99. S. Austins Testimony against the Donatists not cogent against Protestants c. 2.163 S. Austins words No necessity to divide unity explained c. 5.10 The Authors vindication from suspition of Heresiâ— Pref. 28. The Authors motives to turn a Papist with answerâ— to them Pref. 42.43 B. The Bible which is the Religion of Protestants to be preferred before the way of Romish Religion shewed at large c. 6. from 56. to 72. Inclusive C. The Calvinists rigid Doctrin of Predetermination unjustly reproached by Papists who communicate with those that hold the same c. 7.30 To give a Catalogue of our Fundamentals not necessary nor possible Ans Pref. 27. c. 3.13 53. Want of such a Catalogue leaves us not uncertain in our Faith c. 3.14 Papists as much bound to give a Catalogue of the Churches proposals which are their Fundamentals and yet do it not c. 3.53 Our general Catalogue of Fundamentals as good as theirs c. 4.12 c. 7.35 Moral certainty a sufficient Foundation of Faith c. 2.154 A Protestant may have certainty though disagreeing Protestants all pretend to like certainty c. 7.13 What Charity Papists allow to us Protestants and we to them c. 1.1 3 4 5. A Charitable judgment should be made of such as err but lead good lives c. 7.33 Protestant Charity to Ignorant Papists no comfort to them that will not see their errors c. 5.76 The Church how furnished with means to determin Controversies c. 1.7 11. Commands in Scripture to hear the Church and obey it suppose it not infallible c. 3.41 We may be a true Church though deriving Ordination and receiving Scripture from a false one c. 6.54 Common truths believed may preserve them good that otherwise err c. 7.33 Conscience in some cases will justifie separation though every pretence of it will not c. 5.108 Concord in damned errors worse than disagreement in controverted points c. 5.72 The Consequences of mens Opinions may be unjustly charged upon them c. 1.12 c. 7.30 What Contradictions Papists believe who hold Transubstantiation c. 4.46 All Controversies in Religion not necessary to be determined c. 1.7 156. c. 3.88 How Controversies about Scripture it self are to be decided c. 2.27 Controversies not necessary to be decided by a Judicial sentence without any appeal c. 2.85 That the Creed contains all necessary points and how to be understood c. 4.23 73 74. Not necessary that our Creed should be larger than that of the Apostles c. 4.67 70 71 72. Whether it be contrary to the Creed to say the Church may fail c. 5.31 D. S Dennis of Alexandria's saying explained about not dividing the Church c. 5.12 To deny a Truth witnessed by God whether always damnable Ans Pref. 9. The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church no argument that she should always keep it sincere and intire c. 2.148 Of Disagreeing Protestants though one side must err yet both may hope for salvation Ans Pref. 22. c. 1.10 13 17. Two may disagree in a matter of faith and yet neither be chargeable with denying a declared Truth of Gods Ans Pref. 10. Differences among Protestants vainly objected against them c. 3.2 3 5. c. 5.72 No reason to reproach them for their differences about necessary Truths and damuable Errors c. 3.52 What is requisite to convince a man that a Doctrin comes from God Ans Pref. 8. Believing the Doctrin of Scripture a man may be saved though he did not believe it to be the word of God c. 2.159 The Donatists error about the Catholick Church what it was and was not c. 3.64 The Donatists case and ours not alike c. 5.103 The Roman Church guilty of the Donatists Error in perswading men as good not to be Christians as not Roman Catholicks c. 3.64 Papists liker to the Donatists than we by their uncharitable denying salvation out of their Church c. 7.21 22 27. E. English Divines vindicated from inclining to Popery and for want of skill in School-Divinity Pref. 19. How Errors may be damnable Ans Pref. 22. In what case Errors damnable may not damn those that hold them c. 5.58 c. 6.14 In what case Errors not damnable may be damnable to those that hold them c. 5.66 No man to be reproached for quitting his Errors c. 5.103 Though we may pardon the Roman Church for her Errors yet we may not sin with it c. 5.70 Errors of the Roman Church that endanger salvation to be forsaken though they are not destructive of it c. 7.6
Erring persons that lead good lives should be judged of charitably c. 7.33 A man may learn of the Church to confute its Errors c. 3.40 We did well to forsake the Roman Church for her Errors though we afterwards may err out of it c. 5.63 64 65 67 87 92. We must not adhere to a Church in professing the least Errors lest we should not profess with her necessary Doctrin c. 3.56 The Examples of those that forsaking Popish Errors have denied necessary Truths no Argument against Protestants c. 3.63 External Communion of a Church may be left without leaving a Church c. 5.32 45 47. F. Whether Faith be destroyed by denying a Truth testified by God Ans Pref. 25. c. 6.49 c. 7.19 The Objects of Faith of two sorts essential and occasional c. 4.3 Certainty of Faith less than the highest degree may please God and save a man c. 1.8 6.3 4 5. Faith less than infallibly certain may resist temptations difficulties c. 6.5 There may be Faith where the Church and its infallibility begets it not c. 2.49 Faith does not go before Scripture but follows its efficacy c. 2.48 Protestants have sufficient means to know the certainty of their Faith c. 2.152 In the Roman Church the last resolution of Faith is into Motives of Credibility c. 2.154 The Fathers declared their Judgment of Articles but did not require their declarations to be received under Anathema c. 4.18 Protestants did not forsake the Church though they forksook its errors c. 3.11 Sufficient Foundation for faith without infallible certainty c. 6.6 45. What Protestants mean by Fundamental Doctrins c. 4.52 In what sense the Church of Rome errs not Fundamentally Ans Pref. 20. To be unerring in Fundamentals can be said of no Church of one denomination c. 3.55 To say that there shall be always a Church not erring in Fundamentals is to say that there shall be always a Church c. 3.55 A Church is not safe though retaining Fundamentals when it builds hay and stubble on the foundation and neglects to reform her Errors c. 5.61 Ignorance of what points in particular are fundamental does not make it uncertain whether we do not err fundamentally or differ in fundamentals among our selves c. 7.14 G. The four Gospels contain all necessary Doctrins c. 4.40 41 42 43. An Infallible Guide not necessary for avoiding Heresie c. 2.127 The Apostolick Church an Infallible Guide to which we may resort c. 3.69 The Church may not be an Infallible Guide in fundamentals though it be infallible in fundamentals c. 3.39 That the Roman Church should be the only infallible Guide of Faith and the Scriptures say nothing concerning it is incredible c. 6.20 H. The difference betwixt Heresie and Schism c. 5.51 There are no New Heresies no more than new Articles of Faith c. 4.18 37 38. Separation from the Church of Rome no mark of Heresie by the Fathers whose Citations are answered c. 6.22 23 24 25 26 27 2â— 30 31 33 34. No mark of Heresie to want succession of Bishops holding the same Doctrin c. 6.18 41. We are not Hereticks for opposing things propounded by the Church of Rome for divine Truth c. 6.11 12. Whether Protestants Schismatically cut off the Roman Church from hopes of salvation c. 5.38 I. The Jewish Church had no Infallibility annexed to it and if it had there is no necessity that the Christian Church should have it c. 2.141 The Imposing a necessity of professing known errors and practising known corruptions is a just cause of separating from a Church c. 5.31 36 40 50 59 60 68 69. Indifferency to all Religions falsely charged upon Protestants Ans Pref. 3. c. 3.12 The belief of the Churches Infallibility makes way for Heresie Pref. 10. An Infallible Guide not needful for avoiding Heresies c. 2.127 The Churches Infallibility has not the same Evidence as there is for the Scriptures c. 3.30 31. The Churches Infallibility can no way be better assured to us than the Scriptures incorruption c. 2.25 c. 3.27 The Churches Infallibility is not proved from the promise that the Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it c. 3.70 Nor from the promise of the Spirits leading into all Truth which was made onely to the Apostles c. 3.71 72. The Churches infallibility not proved from Ephes c. 11 12 13. He gave some Apostles c. till we all come in the Vnity of the Faith c. c. 3.79 80. That God has appointed an Infallible Judge of Controversies because such a one is desirable and useful is a weak conclusion c. 2. from 128. to 136. inclusive Infallibility in fundamentals no warrant to adhere to a Church in all that she proposes c. 3.57 Infallible interpretations of Scripture vainly boasted of by the Roman Church c. 2.93 94 95. Whether the denial of the Churches Infallibility leaves men to their private spirit reason and discourse and what is the harm of it Pref. 12.13 c. 2.110 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved c. 2.10 Interprecations of Scripture which private men make for themselves not pretending to prescribe their sense to others though false or seditious endanger only themselves c. 2.122 Allow the Pope or Roman Church to be a decisive Interpreter of Christs Laws and she can evacuate them and make what Laws she pleases Pref. 10.11 c. 2.1 S. Irenaeus's account of Tradition favours not Popery c. 2.144 145 146. His saying that no Reformation can countervail the danger of a Schism explained c. 5.11 A living Judge to end Controversies about the sense of Scripture not necessary c. 2.12 13. If Christ had intended such a Judge in Religion he would have named him which he has not done c. 2.23 c. 3.69 c. 6.20 Though a living Judge be necessary to determin Civil causes yet not necessary for Religious causes c. 2. from 14. to 22. inclus If there be a Judge of Controversies no necessity it should be the Roman Church c. 3.69 Roman Catholicks set up as many Judges in Religion as Protestants c. 2.116 118 153. A Judgment of discretion must be allowed to every man for himself about Religion c. 2.11 The Protestant Doctrin of Justification taken altogether not a licentious doctrin c. 7.30 When they say they are justified by faith alone yet they make good works necessary to salvation c. 7.30 K. Our obligation to know any divine truth arises from Gods manifest revealing it c. 3.19 L. How we are assured in what Language the Scripture is uncorrupted c. 2.55 56 57. To leave a Church and to leave the external Communion of a Church is not the same thing c. 5.32 45 47. Luthers separation not like that of the Donatists and why c. 5.33.101 Luther and his followers did not divide from the whole Church being a part of it but onely reformed themselves forsaking the corrupt part c. 5.56 Luthers opposing himself to all in his reformation no objection against him c. 5.89 90. We are not bound to justifie all that Luther said
is easier to know the Scripture and its sense than for the ignorant in the Roman Church which is the Church and what are her decrees and the sense of them c. 2.107 108 109. In what Language the Scripture is incorrupted and the assurance of it c. 2.55 56 57. The Scripture is capable of the properties of a perfect Rule c. 2.7 In what sense we say the Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith c. 2.8 The Scripture not properly a judge of Controversies but a Rule to judge by c. 2.11 104 155. The Scriptures incorruption more secured by providence than the Roman Churches vigilancy c. 2.24 When Scripture is made the Rule of Controversies those that concern it self are to be excepted c. 2.8 27 156. The Scripture contains all necessary material objects of Faith of which the Scripture it self is none but the means of conveying them to us c. 2.32.159 The Scripture must determine some Controversies else those about the Church and its Notes are undeterminable c. 2.3 The Scripture unjustly charged with increasing Controversies and Contentions c. 2.4 The Scripture is a sufficient means for discovering Heresies c. 2.127 When Controversies are referred to Scripture it is not referring them to the private spirit understanding it of a perswasion pretending to come from the Spirit of God c. 2.110 Protestants that believe Scripture agree in more things than they differ in and their differences are not material c. 4.49 50. Private men if they interpret Scriptures amiss and to ill purposes endanger only themselves when they do not pretend to prescribe to others c. 2.122 The Protestants Security of the way to happiness c. 2.53 Want of Skill in School-Divinity foolishly objected against English Divines Pref. 19. The Principles of the Church of Englands separating from Rome will not serve to justifie Schismaticks c. 5.71 74 80 81 82 85 86. Socinianism and other Heresies countenanced by Romish Writers who have undermined the Doctrin of the Trinity Pref. 17.18 The promise of the Spirits leading into all truth proves not Infallibility c. 3.71 The promise of the Spirits abiding with them for ever may be personal c. 3.74 And it being a conditional promise cuts off the Roman Churches pretence to infallibility c. 3.75 Want of Succession of Bishops holding always the same Doctrin is not a mark of Heresie c. 6.38 41. In what sense Succession is by the Fathers made a mark of the true Church c. 6.40 Papists cannot prove a perpetual Succession of Professors of their Doctrin c. 6.41 T. Tradition proves the Books of Scripture to be Canonical not the Authority of the present Church c. 2.25 53 90 91 92. c. 3.27 Traditional Interpretations of Scripture how ill preserved by the Roman Church c. 2.10 c. 3.46 No Traditional Interpretations of Scripture though if there were any remaining we are ready to receive them c. 2.88 89 c. 3.46 The Traditions distinct from Scripture which Iraeneus mentions do not favour Popery c. 2.144 145 146. The asserting unwritten Traditions though not inconsistent with the truth of Scripture yet disparages it as a perfect Rule c. 2.10 Though our Translations of the Bible are subject to error yet our salvation is not thereby made uncertain c. 2.68 73. Different Translations of Scripture may as well be objected to the Ancient Church as to Protestants c. 2.58 59. The Vulgar Translation is not pure and uncorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. To believe Transubstantiation how many contradictions one must believe c. 4.46 The Doctrin of the Trinity undermined by Roman Doctors Pref. 17 18. The Church may tolerate many things which she does not allow c. 3.47 Gods Truth not questioned by Protestants though they deny points professed by the Church c. 1.12 Protestants question not Gods Truth though denying some truth revealed by him if they know it not to be so revealed c. 3.16 The Truth of the present Church depends not upon the visibility or perpetuity of the Church in all Ages c. 5.21 c. 7.20 The Apostles depositing Truth with the Church is no argument that she should always keep it intire and sincere c. 2.148 The promise of being led into all truth agrees not equally to the Apostles and to the Church c. 3.34 A Tryal of Religion by Scripture may well be refused by Papists c. 2 3. U. Violence and force to introduce Religion is against the nature of Religion and unjustly charged upon Protestants c. 5.96 What Visible Church was before Luther disagreeing from the Roman Ans Pref. 19. c. 5.27 That there should be always a visible unerring Church of one denomination is not necessary c. 5.27 The Visible Church may not cease though it may cease to be visible c. 5.13 14 41. The Church may not be Visible in the Popish sense and yet may not dissemble but profess her faith c. 5.18 The great uncertainties salvation in the Roman Church depends on c. 2.63 to 73. inclusive Their uncertainty of the right administration of Sacraments c. 2.63 to 68. inclusive The Churches Vnity by what means best preserved c. 3.81 c. 4.13 17 40. Pretence of Infallibility a ridiculous means to Vnity when that is the chief question to be determined c. 3.89 Vnity of Communion how to be obtained c. 4.39 40. Vnity of external Communion not necessary to the being a Member of the Catholick Church c. 5.9 Vniversality of a Doctrin no certain sign that it came from the Apostles c. 3.44 Want of Vniversality of place proves not Protestants to be Hereticks and may as well be objected against the Roman Church c. 6.42 55. We would receive unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles if we knew what they were c. 3.46 The Vulgar Translation not pure and incorrupted c. 2.75 76 77 78 79 80. W. The whole Doctrin of Christ was taught by the Apostles and an Anathema denounced against any that should bring in new doctrins c. 4.18 The wisdom of Protestants justified in forsaking the errors of the Roman Church c. 6.53 54. The wisdom of Protestants shewed at large against the Papists in making the Bible their Religion c. 6. from 56. to 72. inclusive FINIS ADDITIONAL DISCOURSES OF Mr. Chillingworth NEVER BEFORE PRINTED Imprimatur Ex Aedib Lambeth Jun. 14. 1686. GUIL NEEDHAM RR. in Christo P. ac D. D. Wilhelmo Archiep. Cant. Ã Sacr. Domesticis LONDON Printed for Richard Chiswell at the Rose and Crown in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. CONTENTS I. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar whether the Roman Church be the Catholick-Church and all out of her Communion Hereticks or Schismaticks p. 1. II. A Discourse against the Infallibility of the Roman Church with an Answer to all those Texts of Scripture that are alledged to prove it p. 26. III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshiping the Blessed Virgin or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks p. 41. IV. An
Argument drawn from Communicating of Infants as without which they could not be saved against the Churches Infallibility p. 68. V. An Argument against Infallibility drawn from the Doctrin of the Millenaries p. 80. VI. A Letter relating to the same subject p. 89. VII An Argument against the Roman Churches Infallibility taken from the Contradictions in their Doctrin of Transubstantiation p. 91. VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto p. 94. IX A Discourse concerning Tradition p. 103. The Reader is desired to take notice of a great mistake of the Printer and to Correct it That he has made this the running Title over most of the Additional Pieces viz. A Conference betwixt Mr. Chillingworth and Mr. Lewgar which should only have been set over the first there are also some literal mistakes as pag. 65. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 twice for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and such like not to be imputed to the Author A CONFERENCE BETWIXT Mr. CHILLINGWORTH AND Mr. LEWGAR Thesis THE Church of Rome taken diffusively for all Christians communicating with the Bishop of Rome was the Judge of Controversies at that time when the Church of England made an alteration in her Tenents Argu. She was the Judge of Controversies at that time which had an Authority of deciding them But the Church of Rome at that time had the Authority of deciding them Ergo. Answ A limited Authority to decide Controversies according to the Rule of Scripture and Universal Tradition and to oblige her own Members so long as she evidently contradicted not that Rule to obedience I grant she had but an unlimited an infallible Authority or such as could not but proceed according to that Rule and such as should bind all the Churches in the World to Obedience as the Greek Church I say she had not Quest When your Church hath decided a Controversie I desire to know whether any particular Church or person hath Authority to reexamine her decision whether she hath observed her Rule or no and free himself from the obedience of it by his or her particular judgment Answ If you understand by your Church the Church Catholick probably I should answer no but if you understand by your Church that only which is in Subordination to the See of Rome or if you understand a Council of this Church I answer yea Arg. That was the Catholick Church which did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity But the Church of Rome at that time was the only Church that did abide in the Root of Apostolick Unity Ergo. Quest What mean you by Apostolick Unity Answ I mean the Unity of that Fellowship wherein the Apostles Lived and Died. Quest Wherein was this Unity Answ Herein it consisted that they all professed one Faith obeyed one Supream Tribunal and communicated together in the same Prayers and Sacraments Solut. Then the Church of Rome continued not in this Apostolick Unity for it continued not in the same Faith wherein the Apostles Lived and Died for though it retained so much in my judgment as was essential to the being of a Church yet it degenerated from the Church of the Apostles times in many things which were very profitable as in Latin Service and Communion in one kind Argu. Some Church did continue in the same Faith wherein the Apostles lived and died But there was no Church at that time which did continue in the Apostles Faith besides the Roman Church Ergo. Answ That some Church did continue in the Apostles Faith in all things necessary I grant it that any did continue in the Integrity of it and in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable I deny it Quest Is it not necessary to a Churches continuing in the Apostles Faith that she continue in a perfect conformity with it in all things expedient and profitable Answ A perfect conformity in all things is necessary to a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith but to an imperfect continuance an imperfect conformity is sufficient and such I grant the Roman Church had Quest Is not a perfect continuance in the Apostles Faith necessary to a Churches continuance in Apostolick Unity Asw It is necessary to a perfect continuance in Apostolick Unity Argu. There was some one company of Christians at the time of Luthers rising which was the Catholick Church But there was no other company at that time besides the Roman Ergo the Roman at that time was the Catholick Church Answ There was no one company of Christians which in opposition to and Exclusion of all other companies of Christians was the Catholick Church Argu. If the Catholick Church be some one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies then if there was some one company she was one in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies But the Catholick Church is one company of Christians in opposition to and exclusion of c. Ergo There was then some one company which was the Catholick Church in opposition to and exclusion of all other companies The Minor proved by the Testimonies of the Fathers both Greek and Latin testifying that they understood the Church to be one in the sense alledged 1. If this Unity which cannot be separated at all or divided is also among Hereticks what contend we farther Why call we them Hereticks S. Cypr. Epist 75. 2. But if there be but one Flock how can he be accounted of the Flock which is not within the number of it Id Ibid. 3. When Parmenian commends one Church he condemns all the rest for besides one which is the true Catholick other Churches are esteemed to be among Hereticks but are not S. Optat. lib. 1. 4. The Church therefore is but one this cannot be among all Hereticks and Schismaticks Ibid. 5. You say you offer for the Church which is one this very thing is part of a lie to call it one which you have divided into two Id Ibid. 6. The Church is one which cannot be amongst us and amongst you it remains then that it be in one only place Id Ibid. 7. Although there be many Heresies of Christians and that all would be called Catholicks yet there is always one Church c. S. August de util credend c. 7. 8. The question between us is where the Church is whether with us or with them for she is but one Id de unitat c. 2. 9. The proofs of the Catholick prevailed whereby they evicted the Body of Christ to be with them and by consequence not to be with the Donatists for it is manifest that she is one alone Id. Collat. Carthag lib. 3. 10. In illud cantic 6.7 There are 60 Queens and 80 Concubines and Damosels without number but my Dove is one c. He said not my Queens are 60 and my Concubines c. but he said my Dove is but one because all the Sects of
Philosophers and Heresies of Christians are none of his his is but one to wit the Catholick Church c. S. Epiphan in fine Panar 11. A man may not call the Conventicles of Hereticks I mean Marcionites Manichees and the rest Churches therefore the Tradition appoints you to say I believe one Holy Catholick Church c. S. Cyrill Catech. 18. And these Testimonies I think are sufficient to shew the judgment of the Ancient Church that this Title of the Church one is directly and properly exclusive to all companies besides one to wit that where there are diverse professions of Faith or diverse Communions there is but one of these which can be the Catholick Church Upon this ground I desire some company of Christians to be named professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Roman which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and if no other in this sense can be named than was she the Catholick Church at that time and therefore her judgment to be rested in and her Communion to be embraced upon peril of Schism and Heresie Mr. Chillingworths Answer Upon the same ground if you pleased you might desire a Protestant to name some Company of Christians professing a diverse Faith and holding a diverse Communion from the Greek Church which was the Catholick Church at the time of Luthers rising and seeing he could name no other in this sense concludes that the Greek Church was the Catholick Church at that time Upon the very same ground you might have concluded for the Church of the Abyssines or Armenians or any other society of Christians extant before Luthers time And seeing this is so thus I argue against your ground 1. That ground which concludes indifferently for both parts of a contradiction must needs be false and deceitful and conclude for neither part But this ground concludes indifferently both parts of a contradiction viz. That the Greek Church is the Catholick Church and not the Roman as well as That the Roman is the Catholick Church and not the Greek Therefore the ground is false and deceitful seem it never so plausible 2. I answer Secondly that you should have taken notice of my Answer which I then gave you which was that your major as you then framed your Argument but as now your minor is not always true if by one you understand one in external Communion seeing nothing hindred in my Judgment but that one Church excommunicated by another upon an insufficient cause might yet remain a true member of the Catholick Church and that Church which upon the overvaluing this cause doth excommunicate the other though in fault may yet remain a member of the Catholick Church which is evident from the difference about Easter-day between the Church of Rome and the Churches of Asia for which vain matter Victor Bishop of Rome excommunicated the Churches of Asia And yet I believe you will not say that either the Church excommunicating or the Church excommunicated ceased to be a true member of the Church Catholick The case is the same between the Greek and the Roman Church for though the difference between them be greater yet it is not so great as to be a sufficient ground of excommunication and therefore the excommunication was causeless and consequently Brutum fulmen and not ratified or confirmed by God in Heaven and therefore the Church of Greece at Luthers rising might be and was a true member of the Catholick Church As concerning the places of Fathers which you alledge I demand 1. If I can produce you an equal or greater number of Fathers or more ancient than these not contradicted by any that lived with them or before them for some doctrin condemned by the Roman Church whether you will subscribe it If not with what face or conscience can you make use of and build your whole Faith upon the Authority of Fathers in some things and reject the same authority in others 2. Secondly because you urge S. Cyprians Authority I desire you to tell me whether this Argument in his time would have concluded a necessity of resting in the Judgement of the Roman Church or no If not how should it come to pass that it should serve now and not then fit this time and not that as if it were like an Almanack that would not serve for all Meridians If it would why was it not urged by others upon S. Cyprian or represented by S. Cyprian to himself for his direction when he differed from the Roman Church and all other that herein conformed unto her touching the point of Re-baptizing Hereticks which the Roman Church held unlawful and damnable S. Cyprian not only lawful but necessary so well did he rest in the Judgment of that Church Quid verba audiam cùm facta videam says he in the Comedy And Cardinal Perron tells you in his Epistle to Casaubon that nothing is more unreasonable than to draw consequences from the words of Fathers against their lively and actual practice The same may be said in refutation of the places out of S. Austin who was so far from concluding from them or any other a necessity of resting in the Judgment of the Roman Church that he himself as your Authors testifie lived and died in opposition of it even in that main fundamental point upon which Mr. Lewgar hath built the necessity of his departure from the Church of England and embracing the Communion of the Roman Church that is The Supream Authority of that Church over other Churches and the power of receiving Appeals from them Mr. Lewgar I know cannot be ignorant of these things and therefore I wonder with what conscience he can produce their words against us whose Actions are for us If it be said that S. Cyprian and S. Austin were Schismaticks for doing so it seems then Schismaticks may not only be members of the Church against Mr. Lewgars main conclusion but Canoniz'd Saints of it or else S. Austin and S. Cyprian should be rased out of the Roman Kalendar If it be said that the point of Re-baptization was not defined in S. Cyprians time I say that in the Judgment of the Bishop and Church of Rome and their adherents it was For they urged it as an Original and Apostolick Tradition and consequently at least of as great force as any Church definition They excommunicated Firmilianus and condemned S. Cyprian as a false Christ and a false Apostle for holding the contrary and urged him Tyrannico terrore to conform his judgment to theirs as he himself clearly intimates If it be said they differed only from the particular Church of Rome and not from the Roman Church taking it for the universal society of Christians in Communion with that Church I Answer 1. They know no such sense of the word I am sure never used it in any such which whether it had been possible if the Church of Rome had been in their judgment to other Churches in
shall see what will come of it Assure your self you have a Wolf by the Ears If you say they were you overthrow your own conclusions and say that Churches divided in Communion may both be members of the Catholick If they were not then shall we have Saints and Martyrs in Heaven which were no members of the Catholick Roman Church As for Irenaeus his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Ruffinus his Abscindere ab unitate corporis they imply no more but this at the most That Victor quantum in se fuit did cut them off from the External Communion of the Catholick Church supposing that for their Obstinacy in their Tradition they had cut themselves off from the internal Communion of it but that this sentence of Victors was ratified in Heaven and that they were indeed cut off from the mystical Body of Christ so far was Irenaeus from thinking that he and in a manner all the other Bishops reprehended Victor for pronouncing this Sentence on them upon a cause so insufficient which how they could say or possibly think of a Sentence ratified by God in Heaven and not reprehend God himself I desire you to inform me and if they did not intend to reprehend the Sentence of God himself together with Victors then I believe it will follow unavoidably that they did not conceive nor believe Victors Sentence to be ratified by God and consequently did not believe that these excommunicated Churches were not in Gods account true members of the Body of Christ Ad § 4. And here again we have another subterfuge by a Verbal distinction between Excommunication and voluntary separation As if the separation which the Church of Rome made in Victors time from the Asian Churches were not a voluntary separation or as if the Churches of Asia did not voluntarily do that which was the cause of their separation or as if though they sepated not themselves indeed conceiving the cause to be insufficient they did not yet remain voluntarily separated rather than conform themselves to the Church of Rome Or lastly as if the Grecians of Old or the Protestants of Late might not pretend as justly as the Asian Churches that their Separation too was not voluntarily but of necessity for that the Church of Rome required of them under pain of Excommunication such conditions of her Communion as were neither necessary nor lawful to be performed Ad § 5. And here again the matter is streightned by another limitation Both sides say you must claim to be the Church but what then if one of them only claim though vainly to be the Church and the other content it self with being a part of it These then it seems for any thing you have said to the contrary may be both members of the Catholick Church And certainly this is the case now between the Church of England and the Church of Rome and for ought I know was between the Church of Rome and the Church of Greece For I believe it will hardly be proved that the Excommunication between them was mutual nor that the Church of Greece esteems it self the whole Church and the Church of Rome no Church but it self a sound member of the Church and that a corrupted one Again whereas you say the Fathers speak of a voluntary separation certainly they speak of any Separation by Hereticks and such were in Victors judgment the Churches of Asia for holding an opinion contrary to the Faith as he esteemed Or if he did not why did he cut them from the Communion of the Church But the true difference is The Fathers speak of those which by your Church are esteemed Hereticks and are so whereas the Asian Churches were by Victor esteemed Hereticks but were not so Ad § 6. But their Authorities produced shew no more than what I have shewed that the Church is â—ut one in exclusion of Hereticks and Schismaticks and not that two particular Churches divided by mistake upon some overvalued difference may not be both parts of the Catholick Ad § 7. But I desire you to tell me whether you will do this if the Doctrines produced and confirmed by such a consent of Fathers happen to be in the judgment of the Church of Rome either not Catholick or absolutely Heretical If you will undertake this you shall hear farther from me But if when their places are produced you will pretend as some of your side do that surely they are corrupted having neither reason nor shew of reason for it unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce that they are against your Doctrine or if you will say they are to be interpreted according to the pleasure of your Church whether their words will bear it or no then I shall but lose my Labour for this is not to try your Church by the Fathers but the Fathers by your Church The Doctrines which I undertake to justifie by a greater consent of Fathers than here you produce for instance shall be these 1. That Gods Election supposeth prescience of mans Faith and perseverance 2. That God doth not predetermine men to all their Actions 3. That the Pope hath no power in temporalties over Kings either directly or indirectly 4. That the Bishop of Rome may Err in his publick determinations of matters of Faith 5. That the B. Virgin was guilty of Original sin 6. That the B. Virgin was guilty of actual sin 7. That the Communion was to be administred to the Laity in both kinds 8. That the reading of the Scripture was to be denied to no man 9. That the Opinion of the Millenaries is true 10. That the Eucharist is to be administred to Infants 11. That the substance of Bread and Wine remains in the Euchâ—â—â—st of her Consecration 12. That the Souls of the Saints departed enjoy not the Vision of God before the Last day 13. That at the day of judgment all the Saints shall past through a purging fire All these propositions are held by your Church either Heretical or at least not Catholical and yet in this promise of yours you have undertaken to believe them as firmly as you now do this That two divided Societies cannot be both members of the Catholick Church Ad § 8. Is it not then the Answerers part to shew that the proofs pretended are indeed no proofs and doth not he prove no proofs at least in your mouth who undertakes to shew that an equal or greater number of the very same witnesses is rejected by your selves in many other things Either the consent of the Fathers in any Age or Ages is infallible and then you are to reject it in nothing or it is not so and then you are not to urge it in any thing As if the Fathers Testimonies against us were Swords and Spears and against you bulrushes Ad § 9. In effect as if you should say If you answer not as I please I will dispute no longer But you remember the proverb will think
heareth Christ and he that despiseth him despiseth Christ They urge out of John 14. ver 15 16. I will ask my Father and he will give you another Paraclete that he may abide with you for ever even the Spirit of Truth But here also what warrant have we by you to understand the Church of Rome whereas he that compares v. 26. with this shall easily perceive that our Saviour speaks only of the Apostles in their own persons for there he says going on in the same discourse The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said to you which cannot agree but to the Apostles themselves in person and not to their Successors who had not yet been taught and therefore not forgotten any thing and therefore could not have them brought to their remembrance But what if it had been promised to them and their Successors had they no Successors but them of the Roman Church this indeed is pretended and cried up but for proofs of it desiderantur Again I would fain know whether there be any certainty that every Pope is a good Christian or whether he may not be in the sence of the Scripture of the World If not how was it that Bellarmine should have cause to think that such a rank of them went successively to the Devil III. A Conference concerning the Infallibility of the Roman Church Proving that the present Church of Rome either errs in her worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary or that the Ancient Church did err in condemning the Collyridians as Hereticks 1. Demand WHether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not the foundation of their Faith which are members of that Church Answ The Infallibility of the Church is not the foundation but a part of their Faith who are members of the Church And the Roman Church is held to be the Church by all those who are members of it Reply That which is the last Reason why you believe the Scripture to be the written Word of God and unwritten Traditions his unwritten word and this or that to be the true sense of Scripture that is to you the foundation of your Faith and such unto you is the Infallible Authority of the Roman Church Therefore unto you it is not only a part of your faith but also such a part as is the foundation of all other parts Therefore you are deceived if you think there is any more opposition between being a part of the faith and the foundation of other parts of it than there is between being a part of a house and the foundation of it But whether you will have it the foundation of your faith or only a part of it for the present purpose it is all one 2. Demand Whether the Infallibility of the Roman Church be not absolutely overthrown by proving the present Roman Church is in error or that the Ancient was Answ It is if the Error be in those things wherein she is affirmed to be infallible viz. in points of Faith Reply And this here spoken of whether it be lawful to offer Tapers and Incense to the honour of the Blessed Virgin is I hope a Question concerning a point of Faith 3. Demand Whether offering a Cake to the Virgin Mary be not as lawful as to offer Incense and Tapers and divers other oblations to the same Virgin Answ It is as lawful to offer a Cake to her honour as Wax-Tapers but neither the one nor the other may be offered to her or her honour as the term or object of the Action For to speak properly nothing is offered to her or to her honour but to God in the honour of the Blessed Virgin For Incense it is a foul slander that it is offered any way to the Blessed Virgin for that incensing which is used in the time of Mass is ever understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God only Reply If any thing be offered to her she is the Object of that oblation as if I see water and through water something else the water is the object of my sight though not the last object If I honour the Kings Deputy and by him the King the Deputy is the object of my action though not the final object And to say these things may be offered to her but not as to the object of the action is to say they may be offered to her but not to her For what else is meant by the object of an action but that thing on which the action is imployed and to which it is directed If you say that by the object of the action you mean the final object only wherewith the action is terminated you should then have spoken more properly and distinctly and not have denied her simply to be the object of this action when you mean only she is not such a kind of object no more than you may deny a man to be a living creature meaning only that he is not a horse Secondly I say it is not required of Roman Catholicks when they offer Tapers to the Saints that by an actual intention they direct their action actually to God but it is held sufficient that they know and believe that the Saints are in Subordination and near Relation to God and that they give this honour to the Saints because of this relation And to God himself rather habitually and interpretative than actually expresly and formally As many men honour the Kings Deputy without having any present thought of the King and yet their action may be interpreted an honour to the King being given to his Deputy only because he is his Deputy and for his relation to the King Thirdly I say there is no reason or ground in the world for any man to think that the Collyridians did not chuse the Virgin Mary for the object of their worship rather than any other Woman or any other Creature meerly for her relation to Christ and by consequence there is no ground to imagine but that at least habitually and interpretative they directed their action unto Christ if not actually and formally And Ergo if that be a sufficient defence for the Papists that they make not the Blessed Virgin the final object of their worship but worship her not for her own sake but for her relation unto Christ Epiphanius surely did ill to charge the Collyridians with Heresie having nothing to impute to them but only that he was informed that they offered a Cake to the honour of the Blessed Virgin which honour yet they might and without question did give unto her for her relation unto Christ and so made her not the last object and term of their worship and from hence it is evident that he conceived the very action it self substantially and intrinsically malitious i. e. he believed it a sin that they offered to her at all and so by their action put her in the
lib. 10. in Joan. c. 13. lib. 11. c. 27. This corruptible nature of our body could not otherwise be brought to life and immortality unless this body of natural life were conjoyned unto it The very same things saith Gregory Nyssen Orat. Catech. c. 37. And that they both speak of our conjunction with Christ by the Eucharist the Antecedents and Consequents do fully manifest and it is a thing confessed by learned Catholicks Cyprian de coena Domini and Tertullian de resur carnis speak to the same purpose But I have not their Books by me and therefore cannot set down their words S. Chrysostom Hom. 47. in Joh. on these words nisi manducaveritis has many pregnant and plain speeches to our purpose As the words here spoken are very terrible verily saith he if a man eat not my flesh and drink not my blood he hath no life in him for whereas they said before this could not be done he shews it not only not impossible but also very necessary And a little after he often iterates his speech concerning the holy mysteries shewing the necessity of the thing and that by all means it must be done And again what means that which he says my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed either that this is the true meat that saves the soul or to confirm them in the faith of what he had spoken that they should not think he spoke Enigmatically or parabolically but knew that by all means they must eat his body But most clear and unanswerable is that place lib. 3. de Sacerdotio where he saith If a man cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven unless he be born again of water and the holy spirit and if he which eats not the flesh of our Lord and drinks not his blood is cast out of eternal life And all these things cannot be done by any other but only by those holy hands the hands I say of the Priest how then without their help can any man either avoid the fire of hell or obtain the Crowns laid up for us Theophylact. in 6. Joan. when therefore we hear that unless we eat the flesh of the Son of man we cannot have life we must have faith without doubting in the receiving of the divine mysteries and never inquire how for the natural man that is he which followeth humane that is natural reasons receives not the things which are above nature and spiritual as also he understands not the spiritual meat of the flesh of our Lord which they that receive not shall not be partakers of eternal life as not receiving Jesus who is the true life S. Austin de pec mer. Remis c. 24. Very well do the puny Christians call Baptism nothing else but salvation and the Sacrament of Christs Body nothing else but Life from whence should this be but as I believe from the Ancient and Apostolical Tradition by which this Doctrin is implanted into the Churches of Christ that but by Baptism and the participation of the Lords Table not any man can attain neither to the Kingdom of God nor to salvation and eternal life Now we are taught by the learned Cardinal that when the Fathers speak not as Doctors but as witnesses of the Customs of the Church of their times and do not say I believe this should be so holden or so understood or so observed but that the Church from one end of the earth to the other believes it so or observes it so then we no longer hold what they say for a thing said by them but as a thing said by the whole Church and principally when it is in points whereof they could not be ignorant either because of the condition of the things as in matters of fact or because of the sufficiency of the persons and in this case we argue no more upon their words probably as we do when they speak in the quality of particular Doctors but we argue thereupon demonstratively I subsume But S. Austin the sufficientest person which the Church of his time had speaking of a point wherein he could not be ignorant says not that I believe the Eucharist to be necessary to salvation but the Churches of Christ believe so and have received this doctrin from Apostolical Tradition Therefore I argue upon his words not probably but demonstratively that this was the Catholick doctrin of the Church of his time And thus much for the Thesis That the Eucharist was held generally necessary for all Now for the Hypothesis That the Eucharist was held necessary for Infants in particular Witnesses hereof are S. Cyprian Pope Innocentius I. and Eusebius Emissenus with S. Austin together with the Author of the Book intituled Hypognostica Cyprian indeed does not in terms affirm it but we have a very clear intimation of it in his Epistle to Fidus. For whereas he and a Council of Bishops together with him had ordered that Infants might be baptized and sacrificed that is communicated before the eighth day though that were the day appointed for Circumcision by the old Law There he sets down this as the reason of their Decree that the mercy and grace of God was to be denied to no man Pope Innocent the first in Ep. ad Epis Conc. Milev quae est inter August 93. concludes against the Pelagians that Infants could not attain eternal life without Baptism because without Baptism they were uncapable of the Eucharist and without the Eucharist could not have eternal life His words are but that which your Fraternity affirms them to Preach that Infants without the grace of Baptism may have the rewards of eternal life is certainly most foolish for unless they eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood they shall have no life in them Now that this sense which I have given his words is indeed the true sense of them and that his judgment upon the point was as I have said it is acknowledged by Maldonate in Joan. 6. v. 54. by Binius upon the Councils Tom. 1. p. 624. by Sanctesius Repet 6. c. 7. and it is affirmed by S. Austin who was his Contemporary held correspondence by Letters with him and therefore in all probability could not be ignorant of his meaning I say he affirms it as a matter out of Question Epist 106. and Cont. Julian lib. 1. c. 4. where he tells that Pelagius in denying this did dispute contra sedis Apostolicae authoritatem against the authority of the Sea Apostolick and after but if they yield to the Sea Apostolick or rather to the Master himself and Lord of the Apostles who says that they shall not have life in them unless they eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood which none may do but those that are baptized then at length they will confess that Infants not baptized cannot have life Now I suppose no man will doubt but the belief of the Apostolick Sea was then as S.
expect from Heaven a Golden Hierusalem according to the Jewish tales which they call Duterossis which also many of our own have followed Especially Tertullian in his Book de spe fidelium and Lactantius in his seventh Book of Institutions and the frequent expositions of Victorinus Pictavionensis and of late Severus in his Dialogue which he calls Gallus and to name the Greeks and to joyn together the first and last Irenaeus and Apollinarius Where we see he acknowledges Irenaeus to be of this opinion but that he was the first that held it I believe that that is more a Christian untruth than Irenaeus his opinion a Judaical Fable For he himself acknowledges in the place above cited that Irenaeus followed Papias and it is certain and confessed that Justin Martyr believed it long before him and Irenaeus himself derives it from Presbyteri qui Johannem discipulum Domini viderunt from Priests which saw John the Disciple of the Lord. Lastly by Pamelius Sixtus Senensis and Faverdentius in the places above quoted Seeing therefore it is certain even to the confession of the Adversaries that Papias Justin Martyr Meleto and Irenaeus the most considerable and eminent men of their Age did believe and teach this Doctrine and seeing it has been proved as evidently as a thing of this nature can be that none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned it It remains according to Cardinal Perrons first rule that this is to be esteemed the Doctrine of the Church of that Age. My second Reason I form thus Whatsoever Doctrine is taught by the Fathers of any Age not as Doctors but as witnesses of the Tradition of the Church that is not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church of their times that is undoubtedly to be so esteemed especially if none contradicted them in it But the Fathers above cited teach this Doctrine not as their own private opinion but as the Christian Tradition and as the Doctrine of the Church neither did any contradict them in it Ergo it is undoubtedly to be so esteemed The Major of this Syllogism is Cardinal Perrons second Rule and way of finding out the Doctrine of the Ancient Church in any Age and if it be not a sure Rule farewel the use of all Antiquity And for the Minor there will be little doubt of it to him that considers that Papias professes himself to have received this Doctrine by unwritten Tradition though not from the Apostles themselves immediately yet from their Scholars as appears by Eusebius in the forecited third Book 33. Chapter That Irenaeus grounding it upon evident Scripture professes that he learnt it whether mediately or immediately I cannot tell from a Presbyteri qui Johannem Discipulum Domini viderunt Priests or Elders who saw John the Lords Disciple and heard of him what our Lord taught of those times of the thousand years and also as he says after from Papias the Auditor of John the Chamber-fellow of Polycarpus an Ancient man who recorded it in writing a Faverdentius his Note upon this place is very Notable Hinc apparet saith he from hence it appears that Irenaeus neither first invented this opinion nor held it as proper to himself but got this blot and blemish from certain Fathers Papias I suppose and some other inglorious fellows the familiar Friends of Irenaeus are here intended I hope then if the Fathers which lived with the Apostles had their blots and blemishes it is no such horrid Crime for Calvin and the Century writers to impute the same to their great Grandchildren Aetas parentum pejor avis progeniem fert vitiosiorem But yet these inglorious Disciples of the Apostles though perhaps not so learned as Faverdentius were yet certainly so honest as not to invent lies and deliver them as Apostolick Tradition or if they were not what confidence can we place in any other unwritten Tradition Lastly that Justin Martyr grounds it upon plain Prophecies of the Old Testament and express words of the New he professeth That he and all other Christians of a right belief in all things believe it joyns them who believe it not with them who deny the Resurrection or else says that none denied this but the same who denied the Resurrection and that indeed they were called Christians but in deed and Truth were none Whosoever I say considers these things will easily grant that they held it not as their own opinion but as the Doctrine of the Church and the Faith of Christians Hereupon I conclude whatsoever they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church that was the Faith of the Church of their time But this Doctrine they held not as their private opinion but as the Faith of the Church Ergo it was and is to be esteemed the Faith of the Church Trypho Do ye confess that before ye expect the coming of Christ this place Hierusalem shall be again restored and that your People shall be congregated and rejoyce together with Christ and the Patriarchs and the Prophets c. Justin Martyr I have confessed to you before that both I and many others do believe as you well know that this shall be but that many again who are not of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you For I have declared unto you that some called Christians but being indeed Atheists and impious Hereticks do generally teach blasphemous and Atheistical and foolish things but that you might know that I speak not this to you only I will make a Book as near as I can of these our disputations where I will profess in writing that which I say before you for I resolve to follow not men and the Doctrines of men but God and the Doctrine of God For although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob which also say there is no Resurrection of the Dead but that as soon as they die their Souls are received into Heaven do not ye yet think them Christians as neither if a man consider rightly will he account the Sadducees and other Sectaries and Hereticks as the Genistae and the Meristae and Galileans and Pharisees and Hellenians and Baptists and other such to be Jews but only that they are called Jews and the Children of Abraham and such as with their lips confess God as God himself cries out but have their Hearts far from him But I and all Christians that in all things believe aright both know that there shall be a Resurrection of the Flesh and a thousand years in Hierusalem restored and adorned and inlarged according as the Prophets Ezekiel and Esay and others do testifie for thus saith Isaiah of the time of this thousand years For there shall be a new Heaven and a new Earth and they shall not remember the former c.
And after A certain man amongst us whose name was John one of the Twelve Apostles of Christ in that Revelation which was exhibited unto him hath foretold That they which believe our Christ shall live in Hierusalem a thousand years and that after the Universal and everlasting Resurrection and Judgment shall be I have presumed in the beginning of Justin Martyrs answer to substitute not instead of also because I am confident that either by chance or the fraud of some ill-willers to the Millinaries opinion the place has been corrupted and turned into not into also For if we retain the usual reading But that many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified unto you then must we conclude that Justin Martyr himself did believe the opinion of them which denied the thousand years to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians and if so why did he not himself believe it nay how could he but believe it to be true professing it as he does if the place be right to be the pure and holy opinion of Christians for how a false Doctrine can be the pure and holy opinion of Christians what Christian can conceive or if it may be so how can the contrary avoid the being untrue unholy and not the opinion of Christians Again if we read the place thus That many who are also of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not acknowledge this I have also signified certainly there wll be neither sense nor reason neither coherence nor consequence in the words following For I have told you of many called Christians but being indeed Atheists and Hereticks that they altogether teach blasphemous and impious and foolish things for how is this a confirmation or reason of or any way pertinent unto what went before if there he speak of none but such as were purae piaeque Christianorum sententiae of the pure and holy opinion of Christians And therefore to disguise this inconsequence the Translator has thought fit to make use of a false Translation and instead of for I have told you to make it besides I have told you of many c. Again if Justin Martyr had thought this the pure and holy opinion of Christians or them good and holy Christians that held it why does he rank them with them that denyed the Resurrection Why does he say afterward Although you chance to meet with some that are called Christians which do not confess this do not ye think them Christians Lastly what sense is there in saying as he does I and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things believe the Doctrine of the thousand years and that the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament teach it and yet say That many of the pure and holy opinion of Christians do not believe it Upon these reasons I suppose it is evident that the place has been corrupted and it is to be corrected according as I have corrected it by substituting in the place of not instead of also Neither need any man think strange that this misfortune of the change of a Syllable should befal this place who considers that in this place Justin Martyr tells us that he had said the same things before whereas nothing to this purpose appears now in him And that in Victorinus comment on the Revelation wherein by S. Hieroms acknowledgment this Doctrine was strongly maintained there now appears nothing at all for it but rather against it And now from the place thus restored these Observations offer themselves unto us 1. That Justin Martyr speaks not as a Doctor but as a witness of the Doctrine of the Church of his time I saith he and all Christians that are of a right belief in all things hold this And therefore from hence according to Cardinal Perrons Rule we are to conclude not probably but demonstratively that this was the Doctrine of the Church of that time 2. That they held it as a necessary matter so far as to hold them no Christians that held the Contrary though you chance to meet with some called Christians that do not confess this but dare to Blaspheme the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob c. Yet do not ye think them Christians Now if Bellarmines Rule be true that Councils then determine any thing as matters of Faith when they pronounce them Hereticks that hold the Contrary then sure Justin Martyr held this Doctrine as a matter of Faith seeing he pronounceth them no Christians that contradict it 3. That the Doctrine is grounded upon the Scripture of the Old and New Testament and the Revelation of S. John and that by a Doctor and Martyr of the Church and such a one as was converted to Christianity within 30 years after the Death of S. John when in all probability there were many alive that had heard him expound his own words and teach this Doctrine and if probabilities will not be admitted this is certain out of the most authentical records of the Church that Papias the Disciple of the Apostles Disciples taught it the Church professing that he had received it from them that learned it from the Apostles and if after all this the Church of those Times might Err in a Doctrine so clearly derived and authentically delivered how without extream impudence can any Church in after times pretend to Infallibility The Millinaries Doctrine was over-born by imputing to them that which they held not by abrogating the Authority of S. John's Revelation as some did or by derogating from it as others ascribing it not to S. John the Apostle but to some other John they know not who which Dionysius the first known adversary of this doctrine and his followers against the Tradition of Irenaeus Justin Martyr and all the Fathers their Antecessors by calling it a Judaical opinion and yet allowing it as probable by corrupting the Authors for it as Justin Victorinus Severus VI. A Letter relating to the same Subject SIR I Pray remember that if a consent of Fathers either constitute or declare a Truth to be necessary or shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then that opinion of the Jesuits concerning Predestination upon prescience which had no opposer before S. Austin must be so and the contrary Heretical of the Dominicans and the present Church differs from the Ancient in not esteeming of it as they did Secondly I pray remember that if the Fathers be infallible when they speak as witnesses of Tradition to shew the opinion of the Church of their Time then the opinion of the Chiliasts which now is a Heresie in the Church of Rome was once Tradition in the Opinion of the Church Thirdly Since S. Austin had an opinion that of whatsoever no beginning was known that came from the Apostles many Fathers might say things to be Tradition upon that ground only but of this Opinion of the Chiliasts one of the ancientest Fathers Irenaeus
external reason why we believe it whereunto the Testimonies of the Jews enemies of Christ add no small moment for the Authority of some part of it That whatsoever stood upon the same ground of Universal Tradition with Scripture might justly challenge belief as well as Scripture but that no Doctrin not written in Scripture could justly pretend to as full Tradition as the Scripture and therefore we had no reason to believe it with that degree of faith wherewith we believe the Scripture That it is unreasonable to think that he that reads the Scripture and uses all means appointed for this purpose with an earnest desire and with no other end but to find the will of God and obey it if he mistake the meaning of some doubtful places and fall unwillingly into some errors unto which no vice or passion betrays him and is willing to hear reason from any man that will undertake to shew him his error I say that it is unreasonable to think that a God of goodness will impute such an error to such a man Against the second it was demonstrated unto me that the place I built on so confidently was no Argument at all for the Infallibility of the Succession of Pastors in the Roman Church but a very strong Argument against it First no Argument for it because it is not certain nor can ever be proved that S. Paul speaks there of any succession Ephes 4.11 12 13. For let that be granted which is desired that in the 13. ver by until we all meet is meant until all the Children of God meet in the Unity of Faith that is unto the Worlds end yet it is not said there that he gave Apostles and Prophets c. which should continue c. until we all meet by connecting the 13. ver to the 11. But he gave then upon his Ascension and miraculously endowed Apostles and Prophets c. for the work of the ministry for the Consummation of the Saints for the Edification of the Body of Christ until we all meet that is if you will unto the Worlds end Neither is there any incongruity but that the Apostles and Prophets c. which lived then may in good sense be said now at this time and ever hereafter to do those things which they are said to do For who can deny but S. Paul the Apostle and Doctor of the Gentiles and S. John the Evangelist and Prophet do at this very time by their writings though not by their persons do the work of the ministry consummate the Saints and Edifie the Body of Christ Secondly it cannot be shewn or proved from hence that there is or was to be any such succession because S. Paul here tells us only that he gave such in the time past not that he promised such in the time to come Thirdly it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise for who is so impudent as to pretend that there are now and have been in all Ages since Christ some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers Especially such as he here speaks of that is endowed with such gifts as Christ gave upon his Ascension of which he speaks in the 8 ver saying He led Captivity Captive and gave gifts unto men And that those gifts were Men endowed with extraordinary Power and Supernatural gifts it is apparent because these Words and he gave some Apostles some Prophets c. are added by way of explication and illustration of that which was said before and he gave gifts unto Men And if any man except hereunto that though the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists were extraordinary and for the Plantation of the Gospel yet Pastors were ordinary and for continuance I answer it is true some Pastors are ordinary and for continuance but not such as are here spoken of not such as are endowed with the strange and heavenly gifts which Christ gave not only to the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists but to the inferior Pastors and Doctors of his Church at the first Plantation of it And therefore S. Paul in the 1st to the Corinth 12.28 to which place we are referred by the Margent of the Vulgar Translation for the explication of this places this gift of teaching amongst and prefers it before many other miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost Pastors there are still in the Church but not such as Titus and Timothy and Apollos and Barnabas not such as can justly pretend to immediate inspiration and illumination of the Holy Ghost And therefore seeing there neither are nor have been for many Ages in the Church such Apostles and Prophets c. as here are spoken of it is certain he promised none or otherwise we must blasphemously charge him with breach of his promise Secondly I answer that if by dedit he gave be meant promisit he promised for ever then all were promised and all should have continued If by dedit be not meant promisit then he promised none such nor may we expect any such by vertue of or warrant from this Text that is here alledged And thus much for the first Assumpt which was that the place was no Argument for an infallible succession in the Church of Rome Now for the second That it is a strong Argument against it thus I make it good The Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists and Pastors which our Saviour gave upon his Ascension were given by him that they might Consummate the Saints do the work of the Ministry Edifie the Body of Christ until we all come into the Unity of Faith that we be not like Children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine The Apostles and Prophets c. that then were do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction do the work of the Ministry to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine therefore they do this some other way Now there is no other way by which they can do it but by their writings and therefore by their writings they do it therefore by their writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of Faith therefore the Scriptures of the Apostles and Prophets and Evangelists are our Guides Therefore not the Church of Rome FINIS AN ANSWER To Some PASSAGES IN Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING At the Third Dialogue Section 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS LONDON Printed for James Adamson at the Angel in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1687. AN ANSWER To some passages in Rushworths Dialogues BEGINNING AT The Third Dialogue §. 12. p. 181. Ed. Paris 1654. ABOUT TRADITIONS Uncle DO you think there is such a City as Rome or Constantinople Nephew That I do I would I knew what I ask as well CHILLINGWORTH First I should have answered that in propriety of Speech I could not say that I
Church which at first perhaps were but wink'd at after tolerated then approved and at length after they had spread themselves into a seeming Generality confirmed for good and Catholick and that therefore there was no certainty that they came from the beginning whose beginning was not known I should have remembred him that even by the acknowledgment of the Council of Trent many corruptions and superstitions had by insensible degrees insinuated themselves into the very Mass and Offices of the Church which they thought fit to cast out and therefore seeing that some abuses have come in God knows how and have been cast out again who can ascertain me that some Errors have not got in and while men slept for it is apparent they did sleep gathered such strength gotten such deep root and so incorporated themselves like Ivy in a Wall in the State and polity of the Roman Church that to pull them up had been to pull them down by rasing the Foundation on which it stands to wit the Churches Infallibility Besides as much water passes under the Mill which the Miller sees not so who can warrant me that some old corruptions might not escape from them and pass for Original and Apostolick Traditions I say might not though they had been as studious to reduce all to the primitive State as they were to preserve them in the present State as diligent to cast out all Postnate and introduct opinions as they were to persuade men that there were none such but all as truly Catholick and Apostolick as they were Roman I should have declared unto him that many things reckoned up in the Roll of Traditions are now grown out of fashion and out of use in the Church of Rome and therefore that either they believed them not whatever they pretended or were not so obedient to the Apostles command as they themselves interpret it Keep the Traditions which ye have received whether by word or by our Epistle And seeing there have been so many vicissitudes and changes in the Roman Church Catholick Doctrines growing exolete and being degraded from their Catholicism and perhaps deprest into the number of Heresies Points of Indifference or at least Aliens from the Faith getting first to be Inmates after procuring to be made Denizons and in process of time necessary members of the Body of the Faith Nay Old Heresies sometimes like old Snakes casting their Skin and their Poyson together and becoming wholsom and Catholick Doctrines I must have desired pardon of my Uncle if I were not so undoubtedly certain what was and what was not Catholick Doctrine in the days of my Fathers Nay perhaps I should have gone further and told him That I was not fully assured what was the Catholick Doctrine in some points no not at this present time For instance to lay the Axe unto the Root of the Tree the infallibility of the present Church of Rome in determining controversies of Faith is esteemed indeed by divers that I have met with not only an Article of Faith but a Foundation of all other Articles But how do I know there are not nay why should I think there are not in the World divers good Catholicks of the same mind touching this matter which Mirandula Panormitan Cusanus Florentinus Clemangis Waldensis Occham and divers others were of who were so far from holding this Doctrine the Foundation of Faith that they would not allow it any place in the Fabrick Now Bellarmine has taught us that no Doctrine is Catholick nor the contrary Heretical that is denied to be so by some good Catholicks From hence I collect that in the time of the forenamed Authors this was not Catholick Doctrine nor the contrary Heretical and being then not so how it could since become so I cannot well understand If it be said that it has since been defined by a General Council I say first This is false no Council has been so foolish as to define that a Council is Infallible for unless it were presumed to be Infallible before who or what could assure us of the Truth of this definition Secondly if it were true it were ridiculous for he that would question the Infallibility of all Councils in all their Decrees would as well question the Infallibility of this Council in this Decree This therefore was not is not nor ever can be an Article of Faith unless God himself would be pleased which is not very likely to make some new Revelation of it from Heaven The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Fountain of the Error in this matter is this That the whole Religion of the Roman Church and every point of it is conceived or pretended to have issued Originally out of the Fountain of Apostolick Tradition either in themselves or in the principles from which they are evidently deducible Whereas it is evident that many of their Doctrines may be Originally derived from the Decrees of Councils many from Papal definitions many from the Authority of some great Man To which purpose it is very remarkable what Gregory Nazianzen says of Athanasius * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat XXI in Laudem Athanasii What pleased him was a law to men what did not please him was as a thing prohibited by Law his Decrees were to them like Moses his Tables and he had a greater veneration paid him than seems to be due from men to Saints And as memorable that in the late great Controversie about Predetermination and Free-will disputed before Pope Clement VII by the Jesuits and Dominicans The Popes resolution was if he had determined the matter to define for that opinion which was most agreeable not to Scripture nor to Apostolick Tradition nor to a consent of Fathers but to the Doctrine of S. Austin so that if the Pope had made an Article of Faith of this Controversie it is evident S. Austin had been the Rule of it Sometimes upon erroneous grounds Customs have been brought in God knows how and after have spread themselves through the whole Church Thus Gordonius Huntleius confesses that because Baptism and the Eucharist had been anciently given both together to men of ripe years when they were converted to Christianity Afterwards by Error when Infants were Baptized they gave the Eucharist also to Infants This Custom in short time grew Universal and in S. Austins time passed currantly for an Apostolick Tradition and the Eucharist was thought as necessary for them as Baptism This Custom the Church of Rome hath again cast out and in so doing profest either her no regard to the traditions of the Apostles or that this was none of that number But yet she cannot possibly avoid but that this example is a proof sufficient that many things may get in by Error into the Church and by degrees obtain the esteem and place of Apostolick Traditions which yet are not so The Custom of denying the Laity the Sacramental Cup and the Doctrine that it is lawful to do so who can
pretend to derive from Apostolick Tradition Especially when the * Sess XIII Council of Constance the Patron of it confesses that Christs institution was under both kinds and that the faithful in the Primitive Church received it in both Licet Christ us c. Although Christ after his Supper instituted and administred this venerable Sacrament under both kinds Although in the Primitive Church this Sacrament were received by the faithful under both kinds Non obstante c. Yet all this notwithstanding this Custom for the avoiding of Scandals to which the Primitive Church was as obnoxious as the present is was upon just reason brought in that Laicks should receive only under one kind Brought in therefore it was and so is one of those Doctrines which Lerinensis calls inducta non tradita inventa non accepta c. therefore all the Doctrine of the Roman Church does not descend from Apostolick Tradition But if this Custom came not from the Apostles from what Original may we think that it descended Certaintainly from no other than from the belief of the substantial presence of whole Christ under either kind For this opinion being once setled in the Peoples minds that they had as much by one kind as by both both Priest and People quickly began to think it superfluous to do the same thing twice at the same time and thereupon being as I suppose the Custom required that the Bread should be received first having received that they were contented that the Priest should save the pains and the Parish the charge of unnecessary reiteration This is my Conjecture which I submit to better judgments but whether it be true or false one thing from hence is certain That immemorial Customs may by degrees prevail upon the Church such as have no known beginning nor Author of which yet this may be evidently known that their beginning whensoever it was was many years nay many Ages after the Apostles * S. Paul commands that nothing be done in the Church but for edification 1 Cor. 14.26 He says and if that be not enough he proves in the same place that it is not for edification that either Publick Prayers Thanksgiving and Hymns to God or Doctrine to the People should be in any Language which the Assistants generally understand not 27 28. and thereupon forbids any such practice though it were in a Language miraculously infused into the speaker by the Holy Ghost unless he himself or some other present could and would interpret He tells us that to do otherwise is to speak into the Air 9.11 That it is to play the Barbarians to one another That to such Blessings and Thanksgivings the ignorant for want of understanding cannot say Amen He clearly intimates that to think otherwise is to be Children in understanding Lastly in the end of the Chapter he tells all that were Prophets and Spiritual among the Corinthians That the things written by him are the Commandments of God Hereupon Lyranus upon the place acknowledgeth that in the Primitive Church Blessings and all other Services were done in the Vulgar Tongue Cardinal Cajeton likewise upon the place tells us that out of this Doctrine of S. Paul it is consequent That it were better for the Edification of the Church that the publick Prayers which are said in the Peoples hearing should be delivered in a Language common both to the Clergy and the People And I am confident that the Learnedst Antiquary in the Roman Church cannot nay that Baronius himself were he alive again could not produce so much as one example of any one Church one City one Parish in all the Christian World for five hundred years after Christ where the Sermons to the People were in one Language and the Service in another Now it is confest on all hands to be against sense and reason that Sermons should be made to the People in any Language not understood by them and therefore it follows of necessity that their Service likewise was in those Tongues which the People of the place understood But what talk we of 500. years after Christ when even the Lateran Council held in the year 1215. makes this Decree Quoniam in plerisque Because in many parts within the same City and Diocess People are mixed of divers Languages having under one Faith divers rites and fashions we strictly command that the Bishops of the said Cities or Dioceses provide fit and able men who according to the diversities of their Rites and Languages may celebrate Divine Services and administer the Sacraments of the Church instructing them both in word and example Now after all this if any man will still maintain that the Divine Service in unknown Tongues is a matter of Apostolick Tradition I must needs think the World is grown very impudent There are divers Doctrines in the Roman Church which have not yet arrived to the honour to be Donatae civitate to be received into the number of Articles of Faith which yet press very hard for it and through the importunity and multitude of their Attorneys that plead for them in process of time may very probably be admitted Of this rank are the Blessed Virgins Immaculate conception The Popes Infallibility in determining Controversies His superiority to Councils His indirect Power over Princes in Temporalties c. Now as these are not yet matters of Faith and Apostolick Traditions yet in after Ages in the days of our great Grandchildren may very probably become so so why should we not fear and suspect that many things now pass currantly as points of Faith which Ecclesia ab Apostolis Apostoli à Christo Christus à Deo recepit which perhaps in the days of our great Grandfathers had no such reputation Cardinal Perron teaches us two Rules whereby to know the Doctrine of the Church in any Age. The first is when the most eminent Fathers of any Age agree in the affirmation of any Doctrine and none of their Contemporaries oppose or condemn them that is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church The second when one or more of these Eminent Fathers speak of any Doctrine not as Doctors but as witnesses and say not I think so or hold so but the Church holds and believes this to be Truth This is to be accounted the Doctrine of the Church Now if neither of these Rules be good and certain then are we destitute of all means to know what was the publick Doctrine of the Church in the days of our Fathers But on the other side if either of them be true we run into a worse inconvenience for then surely the Doctrine of the Millinaries must be acknowledged to have been the Doctrine of the Church in the very next Age after the Apostles For both the most eminent Fathers of that time and even all whose Monuments are extant or mention made of them viz. Justin Martyr Irenaeus Tertullian Melito Sardensis agree in the affirmation of this point and none of their
employ their time and wits and tongues and pens in the maintenance and propagation of it Thus Paul V. and Gregory XV. Yet this is not all For Thirdly You bind men by Oaths to defend the new opinion and to oppose the ancient So the University of Paris Yet still you proceed further For Fourthly By your General Councils confirmed by your Popes you have declared and defined that this new invention is agreeable and consequently that the ancient Doctrin is repugnant to the Catholick Faith to Reason to the Holy Scripture So the Council of Basil These things I entreat you weigh well in your Consideration and put not into the Scale above a just allowance not above three grains of partiality and then tell me whether you can with reason or with modesty suppose or desire that we should believe or think that you believe that all the points of Doctrin which you contest against us were delivered at first by Christ and his Apostles and have ever since by the Succession of Bishops and Pastors been preserved inviolate and propagated unto you The Patrons I confess of this new Invention set not much by the Decree of the Council of Basil for it but plead very hard for a full and final definition of it from the Sea Apostolick and finding the conspiring opposition of the ancient Fathers to be the main impediment of their purpose it is strange to see how confidently they ride over them First Says * Disp 51. in Epist ad Rom. Salmeron in the place forecited they press us with multitude of Doctors of whom we must not say that they err in a matter of such moment We answer says he out of †De moribus Eeclesia lib 1. cap. 2. S. Austin and the Doctrin of S. Thomas That the argument drawn from Authority is weak Then to that multitude of Doctros we oppose another multitude Thirdly We object to the contrary the efficacy of reasons which are more excellent than any Authority Some of them reckon two hundred Fathers other as Bandellus almost three hundred Cajetan fifteen but those as he says irrefragable But as a wise Shepheard said pauperis est numerare pecus Some of those whom they produce are of an exolete Authority and scarce worthy of memory Lastly Against this objected multitude we answer with the word of God * Exod. 23.2 Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil Neither shalt thou in judgment yield to the sentence of many to depart from the truth For when the Donatists gloried in the multitude of their Authors S. Austin answered it was a sign of a cause destitute of truth to rely only upon the Authority of many men which may err It falls out sometimes also that from some one Doctor especially if he be famous proceeds a multitude of followers of his Opinion and some taken with an humble and pious fear choose rather to follow the Opinion of another against their mind than to bring out of their own wit any thing new lest they should so bring any new thing into the Church Whose humility as it is to be praised so the confidence of others is not to be condemned who for the love of truth fear not to bring in better things Thus S. Hierome in his Sermon of the Assumption if it be his fears to affirm that the Virgin Mary is assumed into Heaven and thinks it rather to be piously desired than rashly defined But * In the Margint here he says The Doctrin of S. Austin alone hath brought into the Church the Worship of the blessed Virgins Assumption S. Austin more happily dared to affirm it and settle it with many argument by which adventure this the Church hath gained that perswaded by his reasons she hath believed it and celebrates it in her worship But they fetch their arguments from the Antiquity of the Doctors to which always greater honour was given than to Novelties But I answer old men are praisers of ancient times but we affirm the younger the Doctors are the more perspicacious Moreover we say that although they were ancient yet they were men and themselves held under the darkness of Original sin and might err But go to who are these Ancients are they Apostles are they Ambrose or Hierom or Austin but none of them discuss'd this Controversie on purpose Chrysostom is opposed in his Commentary on S. Matthew where he saith though Christ were not a sinner yet he has humane Nature from a sinner Understand says Salmeron from her who of her self and according to the condition of nature was a sinner Thomas says that Chrysostom speaks exorbitantly for he constitutes the Virgin under actual sin Or that the Commentaries which go up and down under his name ane not his Or that these passages are adjectitious Or if they be indeed his with the good leave and favour of so great a man they are to be rejected Neither ought any man to marvel that he Bernard and Thomas and Bonaventure and Alexander of Ales and Albert and Durand and Egidius and Lastly The greater part followed that opinion both because they were men and because in progress of time new mysteries are revealed which before were unknown For as holiness of life purgeth no man from sin so it frees no man from danger of error Every age finds out some verities proper to it self which the former ages were ignorant of and there in the Margin Every age hath its peculiar divine revelations Thus far Salmeron by whom we may see That Protestants are not the only men who say that the Fathers may err but that Roman Catholicks too can and dare valiantly break through and tread under their feet though perhaps with cap in hand and some shew of reverence and even ride over whole bands of Fathers when they stand in their way Another great Achilles for the same opinion is one Joannes Baptista Poza a Jesuite and Professor of Divinity at Complutum He in his fourth Book of his Elacidarium Deiparae pleads very earnestly to have it defined and labours very lustily to remove all exceptions to the contrary but above all those many ones That there is no Tradition for it That the stream of Ancient Tradition is against and therefore well and worthily may it be condemned for an Heresie but to be Canonized among the Articles of Faith it can with no reason expect To the Second exception he brings two answers which Salmeron it seems forgot in the prosecution whereof he hath many excellent passages which I have thought good to cull out of him to evidence the wonderful reverence and constant regard of the present Church of Rome to the Tradition of the Ancient The first That it is possible the Writings of the Fathers out of which these Testimonies against the Immaculate conception are taken may be corrupted But to shew it probable they are so in these places he speaks not one word of sense nor so much as any colourable reason
unless this may pass for one as perhaps it may where reasons are scarce No proposition which contradicts the common judgment of the Fathers can be probable * I should rather subsume but this does so Therefore not probable But it is de fide that our opinion is probable for the Council of Trent hath made it so by giving liberty to all to hold it Therefore without doubt we must hold that it is not whatsoever it seems against the common judgment of the Fathers This argument saith he doth most illustriously convince the followers of the contrary opinion that they ought not to dare affirm hereafter that their opinion flowes from the common judgment and writings of the ancient Doctors His second answer is That whereas Bandillus and Cajetan c. produce general sayings of Irenaeus Origen Athanasius Theophilus Alexandrinus Greg. Nyssen Basil Greg. Naz. Cyprian Hierom Fulgentius and in a manner of all the ancient Fathers exempting Christ alone from and consequently concluding the Virgin Mary under Original sin which Argument must needs conclude if the Virgin Mary be not Christ His answer I say is These Testimonies have little or no strength for did they conclude we must then let us in Gods name say that the Virgin Mary committed also many venial sins For the Scriptures Fathers and Councils set forth in propositions as Universal That there is no man but Christ who is not often defiled at least with smaller sins and who may not justly say that Petition of our Lords Prayer Demitte nobis debita nostra An answer I confess as fit as a Napkin to stop the mouths of his domestick adversaries though no way fit to satisfie their reason But this man little thought there were Protestants in the world as well as Dominicans who will not much be troubled by thieves falling out to recover more of their goods than they expected and to see a prevaricating Jesuit instead of stopping one breach in their ruinous cause to make two For whereas this man argues from the destruction of the Consequent to the destruction of the Antecedent thus If these testimonies were good and concluding then the Virgin Mary should have been guilty not only of Original but also of actual sin But the Consequent is false and blasphemous Therefore the Antecedent is not true They on the others side argue and sure with much more reason and much more conformity to the Ancient Tradition From the Assertion of the Antecedent to the Assertion of the Consequent thus If these testimonies be good and concluding then the Blessed Virgin was guilty both of Original sin and Actual but the Testimonies are good and concluding therefore she was guilty even of actual sins and therefore much more of Original His Third Answer is That their Church hath or may define many other things against which if their works be not depraved there lies a greater consent of Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and therefore why not this The Instances he gives are four 1. That the Blessed Virgin committed no actual sin 2. That the Angels were not created before the visible world 3. That Angels are Incorporeal 4. That the Souls of Saints departed are made happy by the Vision of God before the day of Judgment Against the first Opinion he alledges direct places out of Origen which he says admit no exposition though Pamelius upon Tertullian and Sixtus Senensis labour in vain to put a good sense on them Out of Euthymias and Theophylact Out of S. Chrysostom divers pregnant testimonies and S. Thomas his confession touching one of them out of the Author of the Questions of the New and Old Testament in S. Austin cap. 75. Out of S. Hilary upon Psa 118. which words yet says he Tolet has drawn to a good construction yet so much difficulty still remains in them Out of Tertullian de carne Christi cap. 7. which he tells us will not be salved by Pamelius his gloss Out of Athanafius out of Irenaeus III. 18. out of S. Austin lib. 2. de Symbolo ad Catech. cap. 5. Whose words yet because they admit says Poza some exposition I thought fit to suppress though some think they are very hard to be avoided Out of Greg. Nyss out of S. Cyprian in his Sermon on the Passion Whose words says he though they may by some means be eluded yet will always be very difficult if we examin the Antecedents and Consequents out of Anselm Rich. de S. Victor S. Ambrose S. Andrew of Hierusalem and S. Bede and then tells us there are many other Testimonies much resembling these and besides many Fathers and Texts of Scripture which exempt Christ only from actual sin and lastly many suspicious sayings against her Immunity in them who use to say that at the Angels Annunciation she was cleansed and purged and expiated from all faults committed by her freewill which saith he though Canisius and others explicate in a pious sense yet at least they shew that either those alledged against the Imaculate conception are as favourable to be expounded Or we must say that a verity may be defined by the See Apostolick against the judgment of some Fathers From these things says he is drawn an unanswerable reason That for the defining the purity of the conception nothing now is wanting For seeing notwithstanding more and more convincing testimonies of Fathers who either did or did seem to ascribe actual sin to the Blessed Virgin notwithstanding the Universal sayings of Scripture and Councils bringing all except Christ under sin Lastly notwithstanding the silence of the Scriptures and Councils touching her Immunity from actual sin seeing notwithstanding all this the Council of Trent hath either decreed Seff VI. c. 23. de Justifical or hath confirmed it being before decreed by the consent of the faithful that the Blessed Virgin never was guilty of any voluntary no not the least sin It follows certainly that the Apostolick See hath as good nay better ground to enrol amongst her Articles the Virgins Immaculate conception The reason is clear for neither are there so many nor so evident sentences of Fathers which impute any fault or blemish to the Conception of the Mother of God as there are in appearance to charge her with actual offences Neither are there fewer Universal propositions in Scripture by which it may be proved that only Jesus was free from actual sin and therefore that the Virgin Mary fell into it Neither can there at this time be desired a greater consent of the faithful nor a more ardent desire than there now is that this verity should be defined and that the contrary Opinion should be Anathematized for Erroneous and Heretical The words of the Council of Trent on which this reason is grounded are these If any man say That a man all his life long may avoid all even venial sins unless by special priviledge from God as the Church holds of the Blessed Virgin let him be Anathema But if the consent of the Church hath prevailed against more clear Testimonies of ancient Fathers even for that which is favoured with no express authority of Scriptures or Councils And if the Council of Trent upon this consent of the faithful hath either defined this Immunity of the Virgin from all actual sin or declared it to be defined Who then can deny but that the Church hath immediate power to define among the Articles of Faith the pious Opinion of the Immaculate Conception His second Example by which he declares the power of their Church to define Articles against a multitude of Fathers and consequently not only without but against Tradition is the opinion that Angels were not created before the Corporeal world was created which saith he is or may be defined though there were more Testimonies of Fathers against it than against the Immaculate Conception So he says in the Argument of his Fifth Chapter and in the end of the same Chapter The Council of Lateran hath defined this against the express judgment of twenty Fathers of which Nazianzen Basil Chrysostome Cyrill Hierom Ambrose and Hillary are part His third Example to the same purpose is the opinion that Angels are Incorporeal against which saith he in the Argument of his sixth Chapter there are more Testimonies of the Fathers than against the Immaculate Conception and yet it is or at least may be defined by the Church and in the end of the Chapter I have for this Opinion cited twenty three Fathers which as most men think is now condemned in the * Firm de summâ Trinitate Lateran Council or at least as †De Angelis lib. 6. Suarez proves is to be rejected as manifestly temerarious His fourth and last Example to the same purpose is The Opinion that the Souls of Saints departed enjoy the Vision of God before the Resurrection Against which he tells us in the first place was the Judgment of Pope John XXI though not as a Pope but as a private Doctor Then he musters up against it a great multitude of Greek and Latin Fathers touching which he says All these Testimonies when * 1. 2. D. 29. cap. 1. Vasquez has related at length he †cap. 3. answers that they might be so explained as to say nothing against the true and Catholick Doctrin Yet if they could not be so explained their Authority ought not to hinder us from embracing that which the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The same argument I make says Peâ—â— The Fathers and ancient Doctors which are objected against the pious opinion of the Conception of the Virgin may be commodiously explicated or at least so handled that they shall not hurt Notwithstanding though they cannot be explicated some of them that their Testimonies ought not to hinder but that the Sea Apostolick may define the Blessed Virgins preservation from Original sin In fine for the close of this Argument he adds Nolo per plura I will not run through more Examples These that I have reckoned are sufficient and admonishes learned men to bring together other like proofs whereby they may promote the desired Determination FINIS
from the Act and Object in general if the Habit be special from the Act and Object in special Then for the motive to a thing that it cannot be of the Essence of the thing to which it moves who can doubt that knows that a motive is an efficient cause and that the efficient is always extrinsecal to the effect For the fourth that Gods Revelation is alike for all Objects It is ambiguous and if the sense of it be that his Revelation is an equal Motive to induce us to believe all objects revealed by him it is true but impertinent If the sense of it be that all objects revealed by God are alike that is alike plainly and undoubtedly revealed by him it is pertinent but most untrue Witness the great diversity of Texts of Scripture whereof some are so plain and evident that no man of ordinary sense can mistake the sense of them Some are so obscure and ambiguous that to say this or this is the certain sense of them were high presumption For the 5. Protestants disagree in things equally revealed by God! In themselves perhaps but not equally to them whose understandings by reason of their different Educations are fashioned and shaped for the entertainment of various Opinions and consequently some of them more inclined to believe such a sense of Scripture others to believe another which to say that God will not take into his consideration in judging mens Opinions is to disparage his goodness But to what purpose is it that these things are equally revealed to both as the light is equally revealed to all blind men if they be not fully revealed to either The sense of this Scripture Why are they then baptized for the dead and this He shall be saved yet so as by fire and a thousand others is equally revealed to you and to another interpreter that is certainly to neither He now conceives one sense of them and you another and would it not be an excellent inference if I should conclude now as you do That you forsake the formal motive of Faith which is Gods Revelation and consequently lose all faith and unity therein So likewise the Jesuits and Dominicans the Franciscans and Dominicans disagree about things equally revealed by Almighty God and seeing they do so I beseech you let me understand why this reason will not exclude them as well as Protestants from all faith and unity therein Thus you have failed of your undertaking in your first part of your Title and that is a very ill omen especially in points of so streight mutual dependance that we shall have but slender performance in your second assumpt Which is That the Church is Infallible in all her Definitions whether concerning points Fundamental or not Fundamental 26. Ad § 9.10 11. I grant that the Church cannot without damnable sin either deny any thing to be true which she knows to be Gods truth or propose any thing as his truth which she knows not to be so But that she may not do this by ignorance or mistake and so without damnable sin that you should have proved but have not But say you this excuse cannot serve for if the Church be assisted only for points fundamental she cannot but know that she may err in points not fundamental Ans It does not follow unless you suppose that the Church knows that she is assisted no farther But if being assisted only so far she yet did conceive by error her assistance absolute and unlimited or if knowing her assistance restrained to fundamentals she yet conceived by error that she should be guarded from proposing any thing but what was fundamental then the consequence is apparently false But at least she cannot be certain that she cannot err and therefore cannot be excused from headlong and pernicious temerity in proposing points not fundamental to be believed by Christians as matters of Faith Ans Neither is this destruction worth any thing unless it be understood of such fundamental points as she is not warranted to propose by evident Text of Scripture Indeed if she propose such as matters of Faith certainly true she may well be questioned Quo Warranto She builds without a foundation and says thus saith the Lord when the Lord doth not say so which cannot be excused from rashness and high presumption such a presumption as an Embassador should commit who should say in his Masters name that for which he hath no commission Of the same nature I say but of a higher strain as much as the King of Heaven is greater than any earthly King But though she may err in some points not fundamental yet may she have certainty enough in proposing others as for example these That Abraham begat Isaac that S. Paul had a Cloak that Timothy was sick because these though not fundamental i. e. no essential parts of Christianity yet are evidently and undeniably set down in Scripture and consequently may be without all rashness proposed by the Church as certain divine Revelations Neither is your Argument concluding when you say If in such things she may be deceived she must be always uncertain of all such things For my sense may sometimes possibly deceive me yet I am certain enough that I see what I see and feel what I feel Our Judges are not infallible in their judgments yet are they certain enough that they judge aright and that they proceed according to the evidence that is given when they condemn a Thief or a Murderer to the Gallows A Travelleris not always certain of his way but often mistaken and does it therefore follow that he can have no assurance that Charing-Cross is his right way from the Temple to White-Hall The ground of your error here is your not distinguishing between actual certainty and absolute infallibillty Geometricians are not infallible in their own Science yet they are very certain of those things which they see demonstrated And Carpenters are not infallible yet certain of the straightness of those things which agree with their Rule and Square So though the Church be not infallibly certain that in all her definitions whereof some are about disputable and ambiguous matters she shall proceed according to her Rule yet being certain of the infallibility of her Rule and that in this or that thing she doth manifestly proceed according to it she may be certain of the Truth of some particular Decrees and yet not certain that she shall never decree but what is true 27. Ad § 12. Obj. But if the Church may err in points not fundamental she may err in proposing Scripture and so we cannot be assured whether she have not been deceived already Ans The Church may err in her proposition or custody of the Canon of Scripture if you understand by the Church any present Church of one denomination for example the Roman the Greek or so Yet have we sufficient certainty of Scripture not from the bare testimony of any present Church but from Universal
Tradition of which the testimony of any present Church is but a little part So that here you fall into the Fallacy à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter For in effect this is the sense of your Argument Unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty of Scripture from the authority of the Church Therefore unless the Church be infallible we can have no certainty hereof at all As if a man should say If the Vintage of France miscarry we can have no Wine from France Therefore if that Vintage miscarry we can have no Wine at all And for the incorruption of Scripture I know no other rational assurance we can have of it than such as we have of the incorruption of other ancient Books that is the consent of ancient Copies such I mean for the kind though it be far greater for the degree of it And if the Spirit of God give any man any other assurance hereof this is not rational and discursive but supernatural and infused An assurance it may be to himself but no argument to another As for the Infallibility of the Church it is so far from being a proof of the Scriptures incorruption that no proof can be pretended for it but incorrupted places of Scripture which yet are as subject to corruption as any other and more likely to have been corrupted if it had been possible than any other and made to speak as they do for the advantage of those men whose ambition it hath been a long time to bring all under their authority Now then if any man should prove the Scriptures uncorrupted because the Church says so which is infallible I would demand again touching this very thing that there is an infallible Church seeing it is not of it self evident how shall I be assured of it And what can he answer but that the Scripture says so in these and these places Hereupon I would ask him how shall I be assured that the Scriptures are incorrupted in those places seeing it is possible and not altogether improbable that these men which desire to be thought infallible when they had the government of all things in their own hands may have altered them for their purpose If to this he answer again that the Church is infallible and therefore cannot do so I hope it would be apparent that he runs round in a circle and proves the Scriptures incorruption by the Churches infallibility and the Churches infallibility by the Scriptures incorruption and that is in effect the Churches infallibility by the Churches infallibility and the Scriptures incorruption by the Scriptures incorruption 28. Now for your observation that some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received for such But never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal I demand touching the first sort whether they were commended to the Church by the Apostles as Canonical or not If not seeing the whole Faith was preached by the Apostles to the Church and seeing after the Apostles the Church pretends to no new Revelations how can it be an Article of Faith to believe them Canonical And how can you pretend that your Church which makes this an Article of Faith is so assisted as not to propose any thing as a divine Truth which is not revealed by God If they were how then is the Church an infallible keeper of the Canon of Scripture which hath suffered some Books of Canonical Scripture to be lost and others to lose for a long time their being Canonical at least the necessity of being so esteemed and afterwards as it were by the law of Postliminium hath restored their Authority and Canonicalness unto them If this was delivered by the Apostles to the Church the point was sufficiently discussed and therefore your Churches omission to teach it for some ages as an article of faith nay degrading it from the number of articles of faith and putting it among disputable problems was surely not very laudable If it were not revealed by God to the Apostles and by the Apostles to the Church then can it be no Revelation and therefore her presumption in proposing it as such is inexcusable 29. And then for the other part of it that never any book or syllable defined for Canonical was afterwards questioned or rejected for Apocryphal Certainly it is a bold asseveration but extreamly false For I demand The Book of Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom the Epistle of S. James and to the Hebrews were they by the Apostles approved for Canonical or no If not with what face dare you approve them and yet pretend that all your doctrin is Apostolical Especially seeing it is evident that this point is not deducible by rational discourse from any other defined by them If they were approved by them this I hope was a sufficient definition and therefore you were best rub your forehead hard and say that these Books were never questioned But if you do so then I shall be bold to ask you what Books you meant in saying before Some Books which were not always known to be Canonical have been afterwards received Then for the Book of Macchabes I hope you will say it was defined for Canonical before S. Gregories time and yet he lib. 19. Moral c. 13. citing a testimony out of it prefaceth to it after this matter Concerning which matter we do not amiss if we produce a testimony out of Books although not Canonical yet set forth for the edification of the Church For Eleazar in the Book of Machabees c. Which if it be not to reject it from being Canonical is without question at least to question it Moreover because you are so punctual as to talk of words and syllables I would know whether before Sixtus Quintus his time your Church had a defined Canon of Scripture or not If not then was your Church surely a most vigilant keeper of Scripture that for 1500. years had not defined what was Scripture and what was not If it had then I demand was it that set forth by Sixtus or that set forth by Clement or a third different from both If it were that set forth by Sixtus then is it now condemned by Clement if that of Clement it was condemned I say but sure you will say contradicted and questioned by Sixtus If different from both then was it questioned and condemned by both and still lies under the condemnation But then lastly suppose it had been true That both some Book not known to be Canonical had been received and that never any after receiving had been questioned How had this been a sign that the Church is infallibly assisted by the Holy Ghost In what mood or figure would this conclusion follow out of these Premises Certainly your flying to such poor signs as these are is to me a great sign that you labour with penury of better arguments and that thus to catch at shadows and bulrushes
each to other without having these parts in several places then the distinction is vain But it is impossible that any thing should have several parts one out of another without having these parts in several places Therefore the distinction is vain The Major of this Syllogism he took for granted The Minor he proved thus Whatsoever body is in the proper place of another body must of necessity be in that very body by possessing the demensions of it therefore whatsoever hath several parts one out of the other must of necessity have them one out of the place of the other and consequently in several places For illustration of this Argument he said If my head and belly and thighs and legs be all in the very same place of necessity my head must be in my belly and my belly in my thighs and my thighs in my legs and all of them in my feet and my feet in all of them and therefore if my head be out of my belly it must be out of the place where my belly is and if it be not out of the place where my belly is it is not out of my belly but in it Again to shew that according to the Doctrin of Transubstantiation our Saviours body in the Eucharist hath not the several parts of it out of one another he disputed thus Wheresoever there is a body having several parts one out of the other there must be some middle parts severing the extreme parts But here according to this Doctrin the extreme parts are not severed but altogether in the same point Therefore here our Saviours Body cannot have parts one out of other Mr. Dan. To all this for want of a better Answer gave only this Let all Scholars peruse these After upon better consideration he wrote by the side of the last Syllogism this Quoad entitatem verum est non quoad locum that is according to entity it is true but not according to place And to Let all Scholars peruse these he caused this to be added And weigh whether there is any new matter worth a new Answer Chillingworth Replyed That to say the extreme parts of a body are severed by the middle parts according to their entity but not according to place is ridiculous His reasons are first Because severing of things is nothing else but putting or keeping them in several places as every silly woman knows and therefore to say they are severed but not according to place is as if you should say They are heated but not according to heat they are cooled but not according to cold Indeed is it to say they are severed but not severed VIII An account of what moved the Author to turn a Papist with his own Confutation of the Arguments that perswaded him thereto I Reconciled my self to the Church of Rome because I thought my self to have sufficient reason to believe that there was and must be always in the World some Church that could not err and consequently seeing all other Churches disclaimed this priviledge of not being subject to error the Church of Rome must be that Church which cannot err I was put into doubt of this way which I had chosen by D. Stapleton and others who limit the Churches freedom from Error to things necessary only and such as without which the Church can be a Church no longer but grantted it subject to error in things that were not necessary Hereupon considering that most of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholicks were not touching things necessary but only profitable or lawful I concluded that I had not sufficient ground to believe the Roman Church either could not or did not err in any thing and therefore no ground to be a Roman Catholick Against this again I was perswaded that it was not sufficient to believe the Church to be an infallible believer of all doctrins necessary but it must also be granted an infallible teacher of what is necessary that is that we must believe not only that the Church teacheth all things necessary but that all is necessary to be believed which the Church teacheth to be so in effect that the Church is our Guide in the way to Heaven Now to believe that the Church was an infallible Guide and to be believed in all things which she requires us to believe I was induced First because there was nothing that could reasonably contest with the Church about this Office but the Scripture and that the Scripture was this Guide I was willing to believe but that I saw not how it could be made good without depending upon the Churches authority 1. That Scripture is the Word of God 2. That the Scripture is a perfect rule of our duty 3. That the Scripture is so plain in those things that concern our duty that whosoever desires and endeavors to find the will of God there shall either find it or at least not dangerously mistake it Secondly I was drawn to this belief because I conceived that it was evident out of the Epistle to the Ephesians that there must be unto the worlds end a Succession of Pastors by adhering to whom men might be kept from wavering in matters of faith and from being carried up and down with every wind of false doctrin That no Succession of Pastors could guard their adherents from danger of error if themselves were subject unto error either in teaching that to be necessary which is not so or denying that to be necessary which is so and therefore That there was and must be some Succession of Pastors which was an infallible guide in the way to Heaven and which should not possibly teach any thing to be necessary which was not so nor any thing not necessary which was so upon this ground I concluded that seeing there must be such a Succession of Pastors as was an infallible guide and there was no other but that of the Church of Rome even by the confession of all other Societies of Pastors in the world that therefore that Succession of Pastors is that infallible Guide of Faith which all men must follow Upon these grounds I thought it necessary for my salvation to believe the Roman Church in all that she thought to be and proposed as necessary Against these Arguments it hath been demonstrated unto me and First against the first That the reason why we are to believe the Scripture to be the word of God neither is nor can be the Authority of the present Church of Rome which cannot make good her Authority any other way but by pretence of Scripture and therefore stands not unto Scripture no not in respect of us in the relation of a Foundation to a building but of a building to a Foundation doth not support Scripture but is supported by it But the general consent of Christians of all Nations and Ages a far greater company than that of the Church of Rome and delivering universally the Scripture for the word of God is the ordinary