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 it self is not a perfect Rule And then the end of a Rule is to regulate and direct Now every instrument is more or lesse perfect in its kind as it is more or lesse 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 farr 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 writting all these which she pretends to be divine unwritten Traditions and add them to the verities already written And Whether she can set us down such interpretations of all obscurities in the Faith as shall need no farther interpretations If she cannot then she hath not that power which you pretend she hath of being an Infallible Teacher of all divine verities and an infallible Interpreter of obscurities in the Faith for she cannot teach us all divine verities if she cannot write them down neither is that an interpretation which needs again to be interpreted If she can Let her do it and then we shall have a writting not only capable of but actually endowed with both these perfections of being both so compleat as to need no Addition and so evident as to need no Interpretation Lastly whatsoever your Church can do or not do no man can without Blasphemy deny that Christ Jesus if he had pleased could have writ us a Rule of Faith so plain and perfect as that it should have wanted neither any part to make up its integrity nor any cleerness to make it sufficiently intelligible And if Christ could have done this then the thing might have been done a writting there might have been indowed with both these properties Thus therefore I conclude a writing may be so perfect a Rule as to need neither Addition nor Interpretation But the Scripture you acknowledg a perfect Rule for as much as a writing can be a Rule therefore it needs neither Addition nor Interpretation 8. You will say that though a writing be never so perfect a Rule of Faith yet it must be beholding to Tradition to give it this Testimony that it is a Rule of Faith and the Word of God I answer First there is no absolute necessity of this For God might if he thought good give it the attestation of perpetuall miracles Secondly that it is one thing to be a perfect Rule of Faith another to be proved so unto us And this though a writing could not be proved to us to be a perfect rule of Faith by its owne saying so for nothing is proved true by being said or written in a book but only by Tradition which is a thing credible of it self yet it may be so in it self and contain all the material objects all the particular articles of our Faith without any dependance upon Tradition even this also not excepted that this writing doth contain the rule of Faith Now when Protestants affirm against Papists that Scripture is a perfect Rule of Faith their meaning is not that by Scripture all things absolutely may be proved which are to be believed For it can never be proved by Scripture to a gainsayer that there is a God or that the book called Scripture is the word of God For he that will deny these Assertions when they are spoken will believe them never a whit the more because you can shew them written But their meaning is that the Scripture to them which presuppose it Divine and a Rule of Faith as Papists and Protestants do contains all the material objects of Faith is a compleat and total and not onely an imperfect and a partial Rule 9. But every Book and Chapter and Text of Scripture is infallible and wants no due perfection and yet excludes not the Addition of other books of Scripture Therefore the perfection of the whole Scripture excludes not the Addition of unwritten Tradition I answer Every Text of Scripture though it hath the perfection belonging to a Text of Scripture yet it hath not the perfection requisite to a perfect Rule of Faith and that only is the perfection which is the subject of our discourse So that this is to abuse your Reader with the ambiguity of the word Perfect In effect as if you should say A text of Scripture may be a perfect Text though there be others beside it therefore the whole Scripture may be a perfect Rule of Faith though there be other parts of this Rule besides the Scripture and though the Scripture be but a part of it 10. The next Argument to the same purpose is for Sophistry cosen-german to the former When the first books of Scripture were written they did not exclude unwritten Tradition Therefore now also that all the books of Scripture are written Traditions are not excluded The sense of which argument if it have any must be this When only a part of the Scripture was written then a part of the divine doctrine was unwritten Therefore now when all the Scripture is written yet some part of the divine doctrine is yet unwritten If you say your Conclusion is not that it is so but without disparagement to Scripture may be so without disparagement to the truth of Scripture I grant it but without disparagement to the Scripture's being a perfect Rule I deny it And now the Question is not of the Truth but the perfection of it which are very different things though you would fain confound them For Scripture might very well be all true though it contain not all necessary Divine Truth But unlesse it do so it cannot be a perfect Rule of Faith for that which wants any thing is not perfect For I hope you do not imagine that we conceive any antipathy between God's Word written and unwritten but that both might very well stand together All that
Trents profession To receive them and the written Word with 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 Baths for a week after Accounting it an impiâ—ty to pray kneeling on the Lord's Day or between Easter and Pentecost I say having reckoned up these and other Traditions in Chap 3. He adds another in the 4. 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 Apostolique 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 goodness of the Tradition Now Custom even in civil affairs where a Law is wanting passeth for a Law Neither is it material on which it is grounded 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 Authorem respiciens sed Authoritatem From whatsoever Tradition 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 Apostolique Seeing the Direction then was (b) Hier. Pracepta majorum Apostolicas Traditiones quisque existimat 45. No less you say is S. Chrysostom for the infallible Traditions of the Church But you were to prove the Church infallible not in her Traditions which we willingly grant if they be as Universal as the Tradition of the undoubted Books of Scripture is to be as infallible as the Scripture is for neither doth being written make the Word of God the more infallible nor being unwritten make it the less infallible Not therefore in her Universal Traditions were you to prove the Church infallible but in all her Decrees and definitions of Controversies To this Point when you speak you shall have an Answer but hitherto you do but wander 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 Emperour 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 more a faithful keeper Records are than Report those few that were written are preserved believed those infinitely 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 believing them for every Obligation ceaseth 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 Catholique 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 shal 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. tells us We must not answer that S. Paul speaks here only of such Traditions which though not in this Epist to the Thess yet were afterwards written 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 Catholique 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 Shal we not conclude that seeing God would not suffer any thing necessary to Salvation to be lost and he hath 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 witholdeth Or do you your selves know that ye may instruct us Can ye or dare you say this or this was this hinderance 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 Primitive 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 Saint Chrysostom's counsel therefore of accounting the Churches Traditions worthy
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 always 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 hath some biles 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 tie us fast enough The words are He gave some Apostles and some Prophets c. to the consummation of Saints to the work of the Ministery c. Until we all meet into the Unity of faith c. That we be not hereafter Children wavering and carryed up and down with every wind of Doctrin 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 Doctrin 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 Doctrin 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 alleadged For that tels 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 Ministery 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 carryed about with every wind of false Doctrin 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 Orders 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 Object 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 Spain 's Army Answ 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 immediately 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 Councel 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 freedome from Error to the Persons that made these Decrees neither will they deny that the writings which they have left behind them are sufficient for this purpose And why may not then the Apostles writings be as fit for such a purpose as the Decrees of your Doctors Surely their intent in writing was to conserve us in Unity of Faith and to keep us from errour and we are sure God spake in them but your Doctors from whence they are we are not so certain Was the Holy Ghost then unwilling or unable to direct them so that their writings should be fit and sufficient to attain that end they aimed at in writing For if he were both able and willing to do so then certainly he did do so And then their writings may be very sufficient means if we would use them as we should do to preserve us in Unity in all necessary
we were disobliged from performance of any duty or the eschewing of any vice unless it be expressed in the ten Commandements For to omit the precepts of receiving Sacraments which belong to practice or manners and yet are not contained in the Decalogue there are many sins even against the law of nature and light of reason which are not contained in the ten Commandements except only by similitude analogie reduction or some such way For example 〈◊〉 we find not expressed in the Decalogue either divers sins as Gluttony Drunkenness Pride Sloth Covetuousness in desiring either things superfluous or with too much greediness or divers of our chiefe obligations as Obedience to Princes and all Superiours not only Ecclesiastical but also Civil whose laws Luther Melancthon Calvin and some other Protestants do dangerously affirme not to oblige in conscience and yet these men think they know the ten Commandements as likwise divers Protestants defend Usury to be lawful and the many Treatises of Civilians Canonists and Casuists are witnesses that divers sins against the light of reason and Law of nature are not distinctly expressed in the ten Commandements although when by others diligence they are found unlawful they may be reduced to some of the Commandements and yet not so evidently and particularly but that divers do it in divers manners 12. My third Observation is That our present question being Whether or no the Creed contain so fully all Fundamental Points of Faith that whosoever do not agree in all and every one of those Fundamental Articles cannot have the same substance of Faith nor hope of Salvation if I can produce one or more Points nor contained in the Creed in which if two do not agree both of them cannot expect to be saved I shall have performed as much as I intend and D. Potter must seek out some other Catalogue for Points Fundamental than the Creed Neither is it material to the said purpose whether such Fundamental Points rest only in knowledge and speculation or belief or else be farther referred to work and practice For the habit o◠vertue of Faith which inclineth and enableth us to believe both speculative and practical verities is of one and the self same nature and essence For example by the same Faith whereby I speculatively believe there is a God I likewise believe that he is to be adored served and loved which belong to practice The reason is because the Formal Object or motive for which I yeeld assent to those different sorts of material objects is the same in both to wit the revelation or Word of God Where by the way I note that if the Unity or Distinction and nature of Faith were to be taken from the diversity of things revealed by one faith I should believe speculative verities and by another such as tend to practice which I doubt whether D. Potter himself will admit 13. Hence it followeth that whosoever denyeth any one main practical revealed truth is no lesse an Heretique than if he should deny a Point resting in belief alone So that when D Potter to avoid our argument that all Fundamental Points are not contained in the Creed because in it there is no mention of the Sacraments which yet are Points of so main importance that Protestants make the due administration of them to be necessary and essential to constiture a Church answereth that the Sacraments are to be (p) Pag. 235. reckoned rather among the Agenda of the Church than the Credenda they are rather Divine Rites and Ceremonies than Doctrins he either grants what we affirm or in effect sayes Of two kinds of revealed Truths which are necessary to be believed the Creed contains one sort only ergo it contains all kind of revealed Truths necessary to be believed Our question is not de nomine but re not what be called Points of Faith or of Practice but what Points indeed be necessarily to be believed whether they be termed Agenda or Credenda especially the chiefest part of Christian perfection consisting more in Action than in barren Speculation in good works than bare belief in doing than knowing And there are no less contentions concerning practical than speculative truths as Sacraments obtaining remission of sin Invocation of Saints Prayers for dead Adoration of Christ in the Sacrament and many other all which do so much the more import as on them beside right belief doth also depend our practice and the ordering of our life Though D. Potter could therefore give us as he will never be able to do a minute and exact Catalogue of all Truths to be believed that would not make me able enough to know whether or no I have Faith sufficient for Salvation till he also did bring in a particular List of all believed Truths which tend to practice declaring which of them be fundamental which not that so every man might know whether he be not in some Damnable Error for some Article of Faith which farther might give influence into Damnable works 14. These Observations being premised I come to prove that the Creed doth not contain all Points of Faith necessary to be known and believed And to omit that in general it doth not tell us what Points be fundamental or not fundamental which in the way of Protestants is most necessary to be known in particular there is no mention of the greatest evils from which mans calamity proceeded I mean the sin of the Angels of Adam and of Original sin in us nor of the greatest Good from which we expect all good to wit the necessity of Grace for all works tending to piety Nay there is no mention of Angels good or bad The meaning of that most general head Oportet accedentem c. It behoves (q) Heb. 11.6 him that comes to God to believe that He is and is a Remunerator is questioned by the denial of Merit which makes God a Giver but not a Rewarder It is not expressed whether the Article of Remission of sins be understood by Faith alone or else may admit the efficiency of Sacraments There is no mention of Ecclesiastical Apostolical Divine Traditions one way or other or of holy Scriptures in general and much less of every Book in particular nor of the Name Nature Number Effects Matter Forme Minister Intention Necessity of Sacraments and yet the due Administration of Sacraments is with Protestants an essential Note of the Church There is nothing for Baptism of Children nor against Re-baptization There is no mention in favour or against the Sacrifice of the Mass or Power in the Church to institute Rites Holy dayes c. and to inflict Excommunication or other Censures or Priesthood Bishops and the whole Ecclesiastical Hierarchy which are very Fundamental Points of S. Peters Primacie which to Calvin seemeth a fundamental error not of the possibility or impossibility to keep God's Commandements of the procession of the holy Ghost from the Father and Sonne of Purgatory or Prayer for the
soever it is holds that which indeed is opposite to the sense of the Scripture which God intended for it is impossible that God should intend Contradictions But then this intended sense is not so fully declared but that they which oppose it may verily believe that they indeed maintain it and have great shew of reason to induce them to believe so and therefore are not to be damned as men opposing that which they either know to be a Truth delivered in Scripture or have no probable Reason to believe the contrary but rather in Charity to be acquitted and absolved as men who endeavour to find the Truth but fail of it through humane frailty This ground being laid the Answer to your ensuing Interrogatories which you conceive impossible is very obvious and easie 14. To the first Whether it be not in any man a grievous sin to deny any one Truth contained in holy Writ I answer Yes if he knew it to be so or have no probable Reason to doubt of it otherwise not 15. To the second Whether there be in such denial any distinction between Fundamental and not-Fundamental sufficient to excuse from Heresie I answer Yes There is such a Distinction But the Reason is because those Points either in themselves or by accident are Fundamental which are evidently contained in Scripture to him that knows them to be so Those not-Fundamental which are there-hence deducible but probably only not evidently 16. To the third Whether it be not impertinent to alledge the Creed as containing all Fundamental Points of Faith as if believing it alone we were at Liberty to deny all other Points of Scripture I answer It was never alledged to any such purpose but only as a sufficient or rather more than a sufficient Summarie of those Points of Faith which were of necessity to be believed actually and explicitly and that only of such which were meerly and purely Credenda and not Agenda 17. To the fourth drawn as a Corollary from the former Whether this be not to say that Of Persons contrary in belief one part only can be saved I answer By no means For they may differ about Points not contained in Scripture They may differ about the sense of some ambiguous Texts of Scripture They may differ about some Doctrines for and against which Scriptures may be alledged with so great probability as may justly excuse either Part from Heresie and a self-condemning Obstinacy And therefore though D. Potter do not take it ill that you believe your selves may be saved in your Religion yet notwithstanding all that hath yet been pretended to the contrarie he may justly condemn you and that out of your own principles of uncharitable presumption for affirming as you do that no man can be saved out of it CHAP. II. What is that means whereby the revealed Truths of God are conveyed to our Understanding and which must determine Controversies in Faith and Religion OF our estimation respect and reverence to holy Scripture even Protestans themselves do in fact give testimony while they possess it from us and take it upon the integrity of our custody No cause imaginable could avert our will from giving the function of supreme and sole Judge to holy Writ if both the thing were not impossible in it self and if both reason and experience did not convince our understanding that by this Assertion Contentions are increased and not ended We acknowledge holy Scrippture to be a most perfect Rule for as much as a Writing can be a Rule We only deny that it excludes either divine Tradition though it be unwritten or an external Judge to keep to propose to interpret in a true Orthodox and Catholique sense Every single Book every Chapter yea every period of holy Scripture is infallibly true and wants no due perfection But must we therefore inferr that all other Books of Scripture are to be excluded lest by addition of them we may seem to derogate from the perfection of the former When the first Books of the Old and New Testament were written they did not exclude unwritten Traditions nor the Authority of the Church to decide Controversies and who hath then so altered their nature and filled them with such jealousies as that now they cannot agree for fear of mutual disparagement What greater wrong is it for the written Word to be compartner now with the unwritten than for the unwritten which was once alone to be afterward joyned with the written Who ever heard that to commend the fidelity of a Keeper were to disauthorize the thing committed to his custody Or that to extol the integrity and knowledge and to avouch the necessity of a Judge in suits of Law were to deny perfection in the Law Are there not in Common-wealths besides the Laws written and unwritten customs Judges appointed to declare both the one and the other as several occasions may require 2. That the Scripture alone cannot be Judge in Controversies of Faith we gather it very clearly From the quality of a writing in general From the nature of holy Writ in particular which must be believed as true and infallible From the Editions and Translations of it From the difficulty to understand it without hazard of Error From the inconveniences that must follow upon the ascribing of sole Judicature to it and finally From the Confessions of our Adversaries And on the other side all these difficulties ceasing and all other qualities requisite to a Judge concurring in the visible Church of Christ our Lord we must conclude that She it is to whom in doubts concerning Faith and Religion all Christians ought to have recourse 3. The name notion nature and properties of a Judge cannot in common reason agree to any meer writing which be it otherwise in it its kind never so highly qualified with sanctity and infallibility yet it must ever be as all writings are deaf dumb and inanimate By a Judge all wise men understand a person endued with life and reason able to hear to examine to declare his mind to the disagreeing parties in such sort as that each one may know whether the sentence be in favour of his cause or against his pretence and he must be applyable and able to do all this as the diversity of Controversies Persons Occasions and Circumstances may require There is a great and plain distinction betwixt a Judge and a Rule For as in a Kingdom the Judge hath his Rule to follow which are the received Laws and Customs so are not they fit orable to declare or be Judges to themselves but that office must belong to a living Judge The holy Scripture may be and is a Rule but cannot be a Judge because it being always the same cannot declare it self any one time or upon any one occasion more particularly then upon any other and let it be read over an hundred times it will be still the same and no more fit alone to terminate Controversies in Faith than the Law
the Jewish Church endued with an absolutely infallible direction in case of moment as all Points belonging to divine Faith are Now the Church of Christ our Lord was before the Scriptures of the New Testament which were not written instantly nor all at one time but successively upon several occasions and some after the decease of most of the Apostles and after they were written they were not presently known to all Churches and of some there was doubt in the Church for some Ages after our Saviour Shall we then say that according as the Church by little and little received holy Scripture she was by the like degrees devested of her possessed Infallibility and power to decide Controversies in Religion That sometime Churches had one Judge of Controversies and others another That with moneths or years as new Canonical Scripture grew to be published the Church altered her whole Rule of Faith or Judge of Controversies After the Apostles time and after the writing of Scriptures Heresies would be sure to rise requiring in God's Church for their discovery and condemnation Infallibility either to write new Canonical Scripture as was done in the Apostles time by occasion of emergent Heresies or Infallibility to interpret Scriptures already written or without Scripture by divine unwritten Traditions and assistance of the holy Ghost to determine all Controversies as Tertullian saith The soul is h De test aniâ— cap. 5. before the letter and speech before Books and sense before style Certainly such addition of Scripture with derogation or substraction from the former power and infallibility of the Church would have brought to the world division in matters of faith and the Church had rather lost than gained by holy Scripture which ought to be farr from our tongues and thoughts it being manifest that for decision of Controversies Infallibility setled in a living Judge is incomparably more useful and fit than if it were conceived as inherent in some inanimate writing Is there such repugnance betwixt Infallibility of the Church and Existence of Scripture that the production of the one must be the destruction of the other Must the Church wax dry by giving to her Children the milk of sacred Writ No No. Her Infallibility was and is derived from an inexhausted Fountain If Protestants will have the Scripture alone for their Judge let them first produce some Scripture affirming that by the entring thereof Infallibility went out of the Church D. Potter may remember what himself teacheth That the Church is still endued with Infallibility in Points Fundamental and consequently that Infallibility in the Church doth well agree with the truth the sanctity yea with the sufficiency of Scripture for all matters necessary to Salvation I would therefore gladly know out of what Text he imagineth that the Church by the coming of Scripture was deprived of Infallibility in some Points and not in others He affirmeth that the Jewish Synagogue retained infallibility in herself notwithstanding the writing of the Old Testament and will he so unworthily and unjustly deprive the Church of Christ of Infallibility by reason of the New Testament Especially if we consider that in the Old Testament Laws Ceremonies Rites Punishments Judgements Sacraments Sacrifices c. were more particularly and minutely delivered to the Jews than in the New Testament is done our Saviour leaving the determination or declaration of particulars to his Spouse the Church which therefore stands in need of Infallibility more than the Jewish Synagogue D. Potter i Pag. 24. against this argument drawn from the power and infallibility of the Synagogue objects That we might as well inserr that Christians must have one Soveraign Prince over all because the Jews had one chief Judge But the disparity is very clear The Synagogue was a type and figure of the Church of Christ not so their civil Government of Christian Common-wealths or Kingdoms The Church succeeded to the Synagogue but not Christian Princes to Jewish Magistrates And the Church is compared to a house or k Heb. 13. family to an l Cant. 2. Army to a m 1 Cor. 10. Ephes 4. body to a n Mat. 12. kingdom c. all which require one Master one General one head one Magistrate one spiritual King as our blessed Saviour with fict Unum ovile o Joan. c. 10. joyned Unus Pastor One Sheepsold One Pastour But all distinct Kingdoms or Common-wealths are not one Army Family c. And finally it is necessary to Salvation that all have recourse to one Church but for temporal weale there is no need that all submit or depend upon one temporal Prince Kingdom or Common-wealth and therefore our Saviour hath left to his whole Church as being One one Law one Scripture the same Sacraments c. Whereas Kingdoms have their several Laws different governments diversity of Powers Magistracy c. And so this objection returneth upon D. Potter For as in the One Community of the Jews there was one Power and Judge to end debates and resolve difficulties so in the Church of Christ which is One there must be some one Authority to decide all Controversies in Religion 24. This Discourse is excellently proved by ancient S. Irenaeus p Lib. 5. c. 4. in these words What if the Apostles had not lest Scriptures ought we not to have followed the order of Tradition which they delivered to those to whom they committed the Churches to which order many Nations yield assent who believe in Christ having Salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit of God without letters or lake and diligent keeping ancient Tradition It is easie to receive the truth from God's Church seeing the Apostles have most fully deposited in her as in a rich store-house all things belonging to truth For what if there should arise any contention of some small question ought we not to have recourse to the most ancient Churches and from them to receive what is certain and clear concerning the present question 25. Besides all this the doctrine of Protestants is destructive of it self For either they have certain and infallible means not to err in interpreting Scripture or they have not If not then the Scripâ—ure to them cannot be a sufficient ground for infallible Faith nor a meet Judge of Controversies If they have certain infallible means and so cannot err in their interpretations of Scriptures then they are able with infallibility to hear examine and determine all Controversies of Faith and so they may be and are Judges of Controversies although they use the Scripture as a Rule And thus against their own doctrin they constitute another Judge of Controversies besides Scripture alone 26. Lastly I ask D. Potter Whether â—his Assertion Scripture alone is Judge of all Controversies in Faith be a fundamental Point of Faith or no He must be well advised before he say that it is a Fundamental Point For he will have against him as many Protestants as teach that by Scripture alone it
nothing that is material and considerable pass without some stricture or animadversion 30. You pretend that M. Hooker acknowledgeth that That whereon we must rest our assurance that the Scripture is God's Word is the Church and for this acknowledgement you referre us to l. 3. § 8. Let the Reader consult the place and he shall find that he and M. Hooker have been much abused both by you here and by M. Breerly and others before you and that M. Hooker hath not one syllable to your pretended purpose but very much directly to the contrary There he tells us indeed That ordinaly the first Introduction and probable Motive to the belief of the verity is the Authority of the Church but that it is the last Foundation whereon our belief hereof is rationally grounded that in the same place he plainly denies His words are Scripture teacheth us that saving Truth which God hath discovered unto the world by Revelation and it presumeth us taught otherwise that it self is Divine and Sacred The Question then being by what means we are taught this * Some answer so but he doth not some answer that to learn it we have no other way than Tradition As namely that so we believe because we from our Predecessors and they from theirs have so received But is this enough That which all mens experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied and by experience we all know that (a) The first outward Motive not the last assurance whereon we rest the first outward Motive leading men to esteem of the Scripture is the Authority of God's Church For when we know (b) The whole Church that he speaks of seems to be that particular Church wherein a man is bred and brought up and the Authority of this he makes an Argument which presseth a man's modesty more than his reason And in saying It seems impudent to be of a contrary mind without cause he implies There may be a just cause to be of a contrary mind and that then it were no impudence to be so the whole Church of God hath that opinion of the Scripture we judge it at the first an impudent thing for any man bred and brought up in the Church to be of a contrary mind without cause Afterwards the more we bestow our labour upon reading or hearing the mysteries thereof (c) Therefore the Authority of the Church is not the pause whereon we rest we had need of more assurance and the intâ—insâ—cal Arguments afford â—t the more we find that the thing it self doth answer our received opinion concerning it so that the former inducement prevailing (d) Somewhat bâ—t not much until it be backed and inforced by farther reason it self therefore is not the farthest reason and the last resolution somewhat with us before doth now much more prevail when the very thing hath ministred farther reason If Infidels or Atheists chance at any time to call it in question this giveth us occasion to sift what reason there is whereby the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture and our own perswasion which Scripture it self hath setled may be proved a truth infallible (e) Observe I pray Our perswasion and the testimony of the Church concerning Scripture may be proved true Therefore neither or them was in his account the farthest proof In which case the ancient Fathers being often constrained to shew what warrant they had so much to relie upon the Scriptures endeavoured still to maintain the Authority of the Books of God by Arguments such as the unbelievers themselves must needs think reasonable if they judge thereof as they should Neither is it a thing impossible or greatly hard even by such kind of proofs so to manifest and clear that Point that no man living shall be able to deny it without denying some apparent Principle such as all men acknowledg to be true (f) Natural reason thâ—n built on principles common to all men is the last resolution unto which the Churches Authority is but the first inducement By this time I hope the Reader sees sufficient proof of what I said in my Reply to your Preface that M. Breerelie's great ostentation of exactness is no very certain Argument of his fidelity 31. But seeing the belief of Scripture is a necessary thing and cannot be proved by Scripture How can the Church of England teach as she doth Art 6. That all things necessary are contained in Scripture 32. I have answered this already And here again I say That all but cavillers will easily understand the meaning of the Article to be That all the Divine verities which Christ revealed to his Apostles and the Apostles taught the Churches are contained in Scripture That is all the material objects of our Faith whereof the Scripture is none but only the means of conveying them unto us which we believe not finally and for it self but for the matter contained in it So that if men did believe the Doctrine contained in Scripture it should no way hinder their salvation not to know whether there were any Scripture or no. Those barbarous Nations Irenaeus speaks of were in this case and yet no doubt but they might be saved The end that God aims at is the belief of the Gospel the Covenant between God and Man the Scripture he hath provided as a means for this end and this also we are to believe but not as the last Object of our Faith but as the Instrument of it When therefore we subscribe to the 6 Art you must understand that by Articles of Faith they mean the final and ultimate Objects of it and not the Means and instrumental Objects and then there will be no repugnance between what they say and that which Hooker and D. Covel and D. Whitaker and Luther here say 33. But Protestants agree not in assigning the Canon of Holy Scripture Luther and Illyricus reject the Epistle of S. James Kemnitius and other Lutherans the second of Peter the second and third of John The Epistle to the Hebrews the Epistle of James of Jude and the Apocalyps Therefore without the Authority of the Church no certainty can be had what Scripture is Canonical 34. So also the Ancient Fathers and not only Fathers but whole Churches differed about the certainty of the Authority of the very same Books and by their difference shewed they knew no necessity of conforming themselves herein to the judgement of your or any Church For had they done so they must have agreed all with that Church and consequently among themselves Now I pray tell me plainly Had they sufficient certainty what Scripture was Canonical or had they not If they had not it seems there is no great harm or danger in not having such a certainty whether some Books be Canonical or no as you require If they had Why may not Protestants notwithstanding their differences have sufficient certainty hereof as well as the Ancient Fathers and Churches notwithstanding theirs
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 conséquently 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 Councel may determine all Controversies But others deny it Some that a general Councel 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 Councels 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 Controversies 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 Councel or a Councel 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 tearms by any one Father for four hundred yeers 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 perîsse frontem de rebus 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) Pro. 16 33 The Lot is cast into the lap but the whole disposition of it is from the Lord. 2. We could referre them to the King and you know it is written (b) Pro. 16.10 A Divine sentence is in the lips of the King his mouth transgresseth not in judgement (c) Prov. 21 1. The Heart of the King is in the hand of the Lord. We could referre the matter to any Assembly of Christians assemled in the Name of Christ seeing it is written (d) Mat. 18.20 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 (e) Mal. 2.7 The Priests lips shall preserve knowledge (f) Mat. 25.2 The Scribes and Pharises 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 be 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. 4.11 He hath given Pastors and Doctors c lest we should be carryed about with every wind of Doctrin To any particular Church of Christians seeing it is a particular Church which is called (l) 1 Tim. 3.15 The house of God the Pillar and Ground of Truth and seeing of any particular Church it is written (m) Mat. 18.17 He that heareth not the Church let him be unto thee as a Heathen or Publican We might refer it to any man that prayes for Gods Spirit for it is written (n) Mat. 7.8 Every one that asketh receiveth and again (o) Jam. 1.5 If any man want wisdom let him ask of God who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not Lastly we might refer it to the Jews for without all doubt of them it is written (p) Isa 59.21 My Spirit that is in thee c. All these means of agreement whereof not any one but hath as much probability from Scripture as that which you obtrude upon us offer themselves upon a sudden to me haply many more might be thought on if we had time but these are enough to shew that would we make use of voluntary and devised means to determine differences we had them in great abundance And if you say These would fail us and contradict themselves So as we pretend have yours There have been Popes against Popes Councels against Councels Councels confirmed by Popes against Councels confirmed by Popes Lastly the Church of some Ages against the Church of other Ages 9. Lastly whereas you find fault That Protestants upbraided with their discords answer that they differ only in Points not Fundamental I desire you tell me Whether they do so or do not so If they do so I hope you will not find fault with the Answer If you say they do not so but in Points Fundamental also then they are not members of the same Church one with another no more than with you And therefore why should you object to any of them their differences from each other any more than to your selves their more and greater differences from you 10. But they are convinced sometimes even by their own confessions that the Ancient Fathers taught divers Points of Popery and then they reply those Fathers may neverthelesse be saved because those errors were not Fundamentall And may not you also be convinced by the confessions of your own men that the Fathers taught divers Points held by Protestants against the Church of Rome and divers against Protestants and the Church of Rome Do not your Purging Indexes clip the tongues and seal up the lips of a great many for such confessions And is not the above-cited confession of your Doway Divines plain and full to the same purpose And do not you also as freely as we charge the Fathers with errors and yet say they were saved Now what else do we understand
Lay-men but in one kind That Pictures may be worshipped That Saints are to be invocated and so in the rest and then your differences about the Popes Supremacy Transubstantiation and all the rest will speedily be ended If you say the advice is good in this but not in other cases I must request you not to expect alwaies to be believed upon your word but to shew us some reason why any one thing namely the Churches Infallibility is fit to prove it self and any other thing by name the Popes Supremacy or Transubstantiation is not as fit Or if for shame you will at length confess that the Churches infallibility is not fit to decide this difference Whether the Church be infallible then you must confess it is not fit to decide all Unless you will say it may be fit to decide all and yet not fit to decide this or pretend that this is not comprehended under all Besides if you grant that your Churches Infallibility cannot possibly be well grounded upon or decided by it self then having professed before that there is no possible means besides this for us to agree hereupon I hope you will give me leave to conclude that it is impossible upon good ground for us to agree that the Roman Church is infallible For certainly light it self is not more clear than the evidence of this Syllogism If there be no other means to make men agree upon your Churches Infallibility but only this and this be no means then it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible But there is as you have granted no other possible means to make men agree hereupon but only a submissive ackdowledgment of her Infallibility And this is apparently no means Therefore it is simply impossible for men upon good grounds to agree that your Church is infallible 90. Lastly to the place of S. Austin wherein we are advis'd to follow the way of Catholique Discipline which from Christ himself by the Apostles hath come down even to us and from us shall descend to all posterity I answer That the way which S. Austin spake of and the way which you commend being divers wayes and in many things clean contrary we cannot possibly follow them both and therefore for you to apply the same words to them is a vain equivocation Shew us any way and do not say but prove it to have come from Christ and his Apostles down to us and we are ready to follow it Neither do we expect demonstration hereof but such reasons as may make this more probable than the contrary But if you bring in things into your now Catholique Discipline which Christians in S. Austins time held abominable as the picturing of God and which you must and some of you do confess to have come into the Church seven hundred yeers after Christ if you will bring in things as you have done the halfe Communion with a non obstante notwithstanding Christs Institution and the practice of the Primitive Church were to the contrary If you will do such things as these and yet would have us believe that your whole Religion came from Christ and his Apostles this we conceive a request too unreasonable for modest men to make or for wise men to grant CHAP. IV. To say that the Creed contains all Points necessarily to be believed is neither pertinent to the Quâ—stion in hand nor in it self true I SAY neither pertinent nor true Not pertinent Because our Question is nor What Points are necessary to be explicitely believed but what Points may be lawfully disbelieved or rejected after sufficient Proposition that they are divine Truths You say the Creed contains all Points necessary to be believed Be it so But doth it likewise contain all Points not to be disbelieved Certainly it doth not For how many Truths are there in holy Scripture not contained in the Creed which we are not obliged distinctly and particularly to know and believe but are bound under pain of damnation not to reject as soon as we come to know that they are found in holy Scripture And we having already shewed that whatsoever is proposed by God's Church as a Point of Faith is infallibly a truth revealed by God it followeth that whosoever denyeth any such Point opposeth God's sacred testimony whether that Point be contained in the Creed or no. In vain then was your care imployed to prove that all Points of Faith necessary to be explicitely believed are contained in the Creed Neither was that the Catalogue which Charity Mistaken demanded His demand was and it was most reasonable that you would once give us a List of all Fundamentals the denyal whereof destroyes Salvation whereas the denyal of other Points not Fundamental may stand with Salvation although both these kinds of Points be equally proposed as revealed by God For if they be not equally proposed the difference will arise from diversity of the Proposal and not of the Matter fendamental or not fundamental This Catalogue only can shew how farre Protestants may disagree without breach of Unity in Faith and upon this may other matters depend according to the ground of Protestants But you will never adventure to publish such a Catalogue I say more You can not assigne any one Point so great oâ— fundamental that the denyal thereof will make a man an Heretique if it be not sufficiently propounded as a divine Truth Nor can you assigne any one Point so small that it can without heresie be rejected if once it be sufficiently represented as revealed by God 2. Nay this your instance in the Creed is not only impertinent but directly against you For all Points in the Creed are not of their own nature Fundamental as I shewed (a) Cap. 3. n. 3. before And yet it is damnable to deny any one Point contained in the Creed So that it is cleer that to make an error damnable it is not necessary that the matter be of it self fundamental 3. Moreover you cannot ground any certainty upon the Creed it self unless first you presuppose that the Authority of the Church is universally infallible and consequently that it is damnable to oppose her Declarations whether they concerne matters great or small contained or not contained in the Creed This is clear Because we must receive the Creed it self upon the credit of the Church without which we could not know that there was any such thing as that which We call the Apostles Creed and yet the Arguments whereby you endeavour to prove that the Creed contains all Fundamental Points are grounded upon supposition that the Creed was made either by the Apostles themselves or by the (b) Pag. 216. Church of their times from them which thing we could not certainly know if the succeeding and still continued Church may err in her Traditions neither can we be assured whether all Fundamental Articles which you say were out of the Scriptures summed and contracted into the Apostles
pretended proof out of the Acts that the Apostles revealed to the Church the whole counsel of God keeping (d) Act. 20 27. back nothing with your gloss needful for our Salvation is no proof unless you still beg the question and coâ—suppose that whatsoever the Apostles revealed to the Church is contained in the Creed And I wonder you do not reflect that those words were by S. Paul particularly directed to Pastors and Governors of the Church as is clear by the other words He called the Ancients of the Church And afterward Take heed to your selves and to the whole stock wherein the holy Ghost hath placed you Bishops to rule the Church And your self say that more knowledge is (e) Pag. 244. necessary in Bishops and Priests to whom is committed the government of the Church and the care of souls than in vulgar Laicks Do you think that the Apostles taught Christians nothing but their Creed Said they nothing of the Sacraments Commandements Duties of Hope Charity c. 25. Upon the same affected ambiguity is grounded your other Objection To say the whole faith of those times (f) Pag. 225 223. is not contained in the Apostles Creed is all one as if a man should say This is not the Apostles Creed but a part of it For the Faith of the Apostles is not all one with that which we commonly call their Creed Did not I pray you S Mathew and S John believe their writings to be Canonical Scripture and yet their writings are not mentioned in the Creed It is therefore more than clear that the Faith of the Apostles is of larger extent than the Apostles Creed 26 To your demand Why amongst many things of equal necessity to be believed the Apostles should (g) Pag. 223. so distinctly set down some and be altogether silent of others I answer That you must answer your own demand For in the Creed there be divers Points in their nature not fundamental or necessary to be explicitely and distinctly believed as above we shewed Why are these Points which are not fundamental expressed rather than other of the same quality Why our Saviours descent to Hell and Burial expressed and not his Circumcision his Manifestation to the three Kings working of Miracles c. Why did they not express Scriptures Sacraments and all Fundamental Points of Faith tending to practice as well as those which rest in belief Their intention was particularly to deliver such Articles as were fittest for those times concerning the Deity Trinity and Messias as heretofore I have declared leaving many things to be taught by the Catholique Church which in the Creed we all profess to believe Neither doth it follow as you infer That as well nay better they might have given no Article but that of the Church and sent us to the Church for all the rest For in setting down others besides that and not all they make us believe we have all when (h) Pag. 223. we have not all For by this kind of arguing what may not be deduced One might quite contrary to your inference say If the Apostles Creed contain all Points necessary to Salvation what need we any Church to teach us and consequently what need of the Article concerning the Church What need we the Creeds of Nice Constantinople c. Superfluous are you Catechisms wherein besides the Articles of the Creed you adde divers others particulars These would be poor consequences and so is yours But shall I tell you newes For so you are pleased to esteem it We grant your inference thus far That our Saviour Christ referred us to his Church by her to be taught and by her alone For she was before the Creed and Scripture And she to discharge this imposed office of instructing us hath delivered us the Creed but not it alone as if nothing else were to be believed We have besides it holy Scripture we have unwritten Divine Apostolical Ecclesiastical Traditions It were a childish Argument The Creed contains not all things which are necessary to be believed Ergo it is not profitable Or The Church alone is sufficient to teach us by some convenient means Ergo she must teach us without all means without Creeds without Councils without Scripture c. If the Apostles had expressed no Article but that of the Catholique Church she must have taught us the other Articles in particular by Creeds or other means as in fact we have even the Apostles Creed from the Tradition of the Church It you will believe you have all in the Creed when you have not all it is not the Apostles or the Church that makes you so believe but it is your own error whereby you will needs believe that the Creed must contain all For neither the Apostles nor the Church nor the Creed it self tell you any such matter and what necessity is there that one means of instruction must involve whatsoever is contained in all the rest We are not to recite the Creed with anticipated perswasions that it must contain what we imagine it ought for better maintaining some opinions of our own but we ought to say and believe that it contains what we find in it of which one Article is to believe the Catholique Church surely to be taught by her which presupposeth that we need other instruction beside the Creed and in particular we may learn of her what Points be contained in the Creed what otherwise and so we shall not be deceived by beliving we have all in the Creed when we have not all and you may in the same manner say As well nay better the Apostles might have given us no Articles at all as have left out Articles tending to practice For in setting down one sort of Articles and not the other they make us believe we have all when we have not all 27. To our Argument that Baptism is not contained in the Creed D. Potter besides his answer that Sacraments belong rather to practice than faith which I have already confuted and which indeed maketh against himself and serveth only to shew that the Apostles intended not to comprize all Points in the Creed which we are bond to believe adds that the Creed of (i) Pag. 237. Nice expressed Baptism by name confess one Baptism for the remission of sins Which answer is directly against himself and manifestly proves that Baptism is an Article of Faith and yet is not contained in the Apostles Creed neither explicitly nor by any necessary consequence from other Articles expressed therein If to make it an Article of Faith be sufficient that it is contained in the Nicene Council he will find that Protestants maintain many errors against faith as being repugnant to definitions of general Councils as in particular that the very Council of Nice which saith M. Whitgift (k) In his defence pag. 330. is of all wise and learned men reverenced esteemed and embraced next unto the Scriptures themselves decreed that to those
or there are If you say the first you make all Religion an uncertain thing If the second then either you must ridiculously perswade that your Church is infallible because it is infallible or else that there are other certain grounds besides your Churches infallibility 46. But you proced and tell us that Holy Scripture is in it self most true and infallible but without the direction and declaration of the Church we can neither have certain means to know what Scripture is Canonical nor what Translations be faithful nor what is the true meaning of Scripture Answ But all these things must be known before we can know the direction of your Church to be infallible for no other proof of it can be pretended but only some Texts of Canonical Scripture truly interpreted Therefore either you are mistaken in thinking there is no other means to know these things but your Churches infallible direction or we are excluded from all means of knowing her direction to be infallible 47 But Protestants though as you suppose they are perswaded their own opinions are true and that they have used such means as are wont to be prescribed for understanding the Scripture as Prayer conferring of Texts c. yet by their disagreement shew that some of them are deceived Now they hold all the Articles of their faith upon this only ground of Scripture interpreted by these rules and therefore it is clear that the ground of their faith is infallible in no point at all The first of these suppositions must needs be true but the second is apparently false I mean that every Protestant is perswaded that he hath used those means which are prescribed for understanding of Scripture But that which you collect from these suppositions is clearly inconsequent and by as good Logick you might conclude that Logick and Geometry stand upon no certain grounds that the rules of the one and the principles of the other do sometimes fail because the disagreement of Logicians and Geometricians shew that some of them are deceived Might not a Jew conclude as well against all Christians that they have no certain ground whereon to rely in their understanding of Scripture because their disagreements shew that some are deceived because some deduce from it the infallibility of a Church and others no such matter So likewise a Turk might use the same argument against both Jews and Christians and an Atheist against all Religions and a Sceptick against all Reason Might not one say Mens disagreement in Religion shews that there is no certainty in any and the other that experience of their contradictions teacheth that the rules of reason do sometimes fail Do not you see and feel how void of reason and how full of impiety your sophistry is And how transported with zeal against Protestants you urge arguments against them which if they could not be answered would overthrow not only your owne but all Religion But God be thanked the answer is easie and obvious For let men but remember not to impute the faults of men but only to men and then it will easily appear that there may be sufficient certainty in Reason in Religion in the rules of interpreting Scripture though men through their faults take not care to make use of them and so run into divers errors and dissentions 48. But Protestants cannot determine what points be fundamental and therefore must remain uncertain whether or no they be not in some fundamental error Answ By like reason since you acknowledg that every error in points defin'd and declared by your Church destroies the substance of faith and yet cannot determine what points be defined it followeth that you must remain uncertain whether or no you be not in some fundamental error and so want the substance of faith without which there can be no hope of salvation Now that you are uncertain what points are defined appears from your own words c. 4. § 3. of your second Part where say you No less impertinent is your discourse concerning the difficulty to know what is Heresie For we grant that it is not alwaies easy to determine in particular occasions whether this or that Doctrin be such because it may be doubtful whether it be against any Scripture or divine Tradition or definition of the Church Neither were it difficult to extort from you this confession by naming divers Points which some of you say are defin'd others the contrary And others hang in suspense and know not what to determin But this I have done elsewhere as also I have shewed plainly enough that though we cannot perhaps say in particular Thus much and no more is fundamental yet believing all the Bible we are certain enough that we believe all that is fundamental As he that in a Receit takes twenty ingredients whereof ten only are necessary though he know not which those ten are yet taking the whole twenty he is sure enough that he has taken all that are necessary 49. Ad § 29. But that he who erreth against any one revealed truth loseth all Divine Faith is a very true doctrin delivered by Catholique Divines you mean your own with so general a consent that the contrary is wont to be censur'd as temerarious Now certainly some Protestants must do so because they hold contradictions which cannot all be true Therefore some of them at least have no divine faith Answ I pass by your weakness in urging Protestants with the authority of your Divines which yet in you might very deservedly be censur'd For when D. Potter to shew the many actual dissentions between the Romish Doctors notwithstanding their braggs of potential Unity referres to Pappus who has collected out of Bellar. their contradictions and set them down in his own words to the number of 237. and to Flacius de Sectis Controversiis Religionis Papisticae you making the very same use of M. Breerely against Protestants yet jeer and scorn D. Potter as if he offer'd you for a proof the bare authority of Pappus and Flacius and tell him which is all the Answer you vouchsafe him It is pretty that he brings Pappus and Flacius flat Heretiques to prove your many contradictions As if he had proved this with the bare authoritie the bare judgement of these men which sure he does not but with the formall words of Bellarmine faithfully collected by Pappus And why then might not we say to you Is it not prettie that you bring Breerely as flat an Heretique as Pappus or Flacius to prove the contradictions of Protestants Yet had he been so vain as to press you with the meer authority of Protestant Divines in any point me-thinks for your own sake you should have pardon'd him who here and in many other places urge us with the judgement of your Divines as with weighty arguments Yet if the authority of your Divines were even Canonical certainly nothing could be concluded from it in this matter there being not one of them who delivers for